2 ms·
I never expected to read an article urging a technology company to hold back on innovation. This is really the saddest piece I've read in a while (meatspace new
by flyinglizard 14y ago
I never expected to read an article urging a technology company to hold back on innovation. This is really the saddest piece I've read in a while (meatspace news included).
The author has some very misguided assumptions beyond the fallacy of the general idea:
1. Apple is not the only game in town: Android is gaining market share (and not just on the low end devices, either), Jelly Bean is fantastic. Nexus 7 has converted few loyal Apple fans around me already.
2. Apple needs an appealing device to get the masses to buy new phones: they can't pull another 4S. Has to have a significant enough change to get the sales they are after (and frankly, expected to deliver). The 5 is a very good compromise between not alienating existing iPhone users and catering to the owners of the 4S.
3. The screen size of the iPhone was no longer competitive. The market clearly wants larger displays and there's only so much that people are willing to overlook to remain with their favorite ecosystem.
Apple won consumers by radical innovation, disruption in its fullest sense. Apple has proved that you don't make middle of the road products to appeal to all users, but rather that you can actively reeducate the general population using wonderful products.
Just 5 years ago, an iPhone-like device would have been considered an overly technological and complicated relic with usage far removed from anything in the market, and here it is used by elders. This is not because Apple (well, Steve) aimed at what the general population wanted, but because they gave users something exciting and useful, and everyone embraced it.
This quote is usually attributed to Henry Ford - "If I’d asked people what they wanted, they would have asked for a better horse"
Apple shouldn't be giving us better horses, or locomotives or even cars. They should be giving us wonderfully designed and greatly usable spaceships that just work.