12 ms·

Its their discipline that impresses me: How much they are willing to play the long game, and take short term hits to do it. While getting hammered by Wall Stre

by bitserf 13y ago

Its their discipline that impresses me: How much they are willing to play the long game, and take short term hits to do it. While getting hammered by Wall Street and the press for not innovating, they stick to their guns and keep evolving in incremental steps, and laying the ground for the innovation they want to do in the future. For example, current iPhone battery life isn't the greatest compared to some of the larger phones out there that are packing much more battery. But they keep making small efficiency improvements, over and over, so that if (when?) release a device with a larger battery, it will be like the MacBook Air situation, where the MBA gets staggering battery life on the next hardware iteration compared to competitors that have just adequate battery life, basically being carried by the hardware. I imagine the larger display is a similar situation, they're not happy with some compromise they'd have to make to produce a display of the larger size, whereas competitors are happy to pump something out that is better by some metric (PPI, size), but has adverse effects (battery life, color oversaturation, artifacting). I think Google has the ability to continue competing with them if they remain focused. I have my doubts about any of the other Android manufacturers, though Xiaomi could be interesting in the future, due to their focus on services.

corporalagumbo 13y ago
Yes, discipline is a great word for it. Against a sea of nay-sayers and critics they keep their composure and stay focused on the long-term. The result is that their competitors blow their opportunities by rushing, and squander any stature. Apple remains in total control of the industry.
- rednukleus 13y ago
  > Apple remains in total control of the industry. This is a nice phone, but I'm sorry - if you think Apple "remains in total control of the industry" with sub 20% marketshare and shrinking you are delusional. Whatever you may think of the theorerical advantages that Apple has, its not working for them outside of the US.
  - lostlogin 13y ago
    Do you measure BMW, Rolex and Gucci, by market share? Or profit share? There are more meaningful measures than market share and picking a measure the company isn't particularly interested or aiming for in is a strange choice.
    - rednukleus 13y ago
      I wouldn't describe any of those companies as "in total control of their industry" I would call them nice high end niche products.
      - seanmcdirmid 13y ago
        If Apple has 20% market share but 50+% profit share, then what does that mean? BMW is definitely in control of the luxury car industry, which is quite huge worldwide in terms of revenue and more importantly, profit. It depends on how narrowly you define "industry."
        rednukleus 13y ago
        Sure, if you define it narrowly enough, then you can call almost every large company "in total control" of the niche in which they operate.
        arethuza 13y ago
        "BMW is definitely in control of the luxury car industry" I think VW Group and Mercedes-Benz might argue with that. Of course, it depends how you define "luxury" but with Bugatti, Bentley, Lamborghini, Porsche and Audi brands, VW Group seem to be doing pretty well.
        josteink 13y ago
        > If Apple has 20% market share but 50+% profit share, then what does that mean? It may keep the shareholders happy, but ultimately it means nothing to anyone else. I don't see why people keep brining up this retarded meme.
kbrower 13y ago
iphone battery size isn't much compared to android phones, but they are constantly on top of the web browsing battery life tests in spite of this. disappointing that the 5s was a small step backward here.
- sandipc 13y ago
  Anand saw the small drop in the 5S and 5C when compared to the 5 and speculated that it was an iOS7 issue. Hopefully that's the case!
bentcorner 13y ago
> I imagine the larger display is a similar situation, they're not happy with some compromise they'd have to make to produce a display of the larger size, whereas competitors are happy to pump something out that is better by some metric (PPI, size), but has adverse effects (battery life, color oversaturation, artifacting). The iPad 3 is a counter-example; retina display almost for the sake of it, and the hardware suffered. The fact that Apple pushed out the iPad 4 so quickly thereafter can, IMO, be chalked up to the fact that the iPad 3 was either a stopgap device or immediately regretted internally and caused the schedule of the iPad 4 to be bumped up.
- acqq 13y ago
  No. I'm sure you didn't use iPad 3 and got that impression from reading tech media always chasing spec sheets. I own iPad 3 and there's nothing wrong with it.
  - bentcorner 13y ago
    I personally own an iPad 3 and have used it next to an iPad 2 and iPad 4 running the same applications. If you use a non-trivial application it's pretty clear that the iPad 3 is visibly slower than an iPad 2. On it's own, it's certainly fine. However it's clear that there were trade-offs when moving from the iPad 2 to the iPad 3.
    - acqq 13y ago
      I use iPad 3 to watch videos, surf and read books and PDFs in iBooks and never had the impression that I have to wait on the CPU for something. What are your "non-trivial applications"? If they are games, I admit I haven't even tried any.
      - bentcorner 13y ago
        The one I've personally benchmarked is an unreleased application by a group of people I know, however it's very far along and (IMO) could be released today. The iPad 3 performs more poorly compared to the other platforms across several metrics.

by bitserf 13y ago

corporalagumbo 13y ago

Yes, discipline is a great word for it. Against a sea of nay-sayers and critics they keep their composure and stay focused on the long-term. The result is that their competitors blow their opportunities by rushing, and squander any stature. Apple remains in total control of the industry.

rednukleus 13y ago
> Apple remains in total control of the industry. This is a nice phone, but I'm sorry - if you think Apple "remains in total control of the industry" with sub 20% marketshare and shrinking you are delusional. Whatever you may think of the theorerical advantages that Apple has, its not working for them outside of the US.
- lostlogin 13y ago
  Do you measure BMW, Rolex and Gucci, by market share? Or profit share? There are more meaningful measures than market share and picking a measure the company isn't particularly interested or aiming for in is a strange choice.
  - rednukleus 13y ago
    I wouldn't describe any of those companies as "in total control of their industry" I would call them nice high end niche products.
    - seanmcdirmid 13y ago
      If Apple has 20% market share but 50+% profit share, then what does that mean? BMW is definitely in control of the luxury car industry, which is quite huge worldwide in terms of revenue and more importantly, profit. It depends on how narrowly you define "industry."
      - rednukleus 13y ago
        Sure, if you define it narrowly enough, then you can call almost every large company "in total control" of the niche in which they operate.
      - arethuza 13y ago
        "BMW is definitely in control of the luxury car industry" I think VW Group and Mercedes-Benz might argue with that. Of course, it depends how you define "luxury" but with Bugatti, Bentley, Lamborghini, Porsche and Audi brands, VW Group seem to be doing pretty well.
      - josteink 13y ago
        > If Apple has 20% market share but 50+% profit share, then what does that mean? It may keep the shareholders happy, but ultimately it means nothing to anyone else. I don't see why people keep brining up this retarded meme.

kbrower 13y ago

iphone battery size isn't much compared to android phones, but they are constantly on top of the web browsing battery life tests in spite of this. disappointing that the 5s was a small step backward here.

sandipc 13y ago
Anand saw the small drop in the 5S and 5C when compared to the 5 and speculated that it was an iOS7 issue. Hopefully that's the case!

bentcorner 13y ago

> I imagine the larger display is a similar situation, they're not happy with some compromise they'd have to make to produce a display of the larger size, whereas competitors are happy to pump something out that is better by some metric (PPI, size), but has adverse effects (battery life, color oversaturation, artifacting). The iPad 3 is a counter-example; retina display almost for the sake of it, and the hardware suffered. The fact that Apple pushed out the iPad 4 so quickly thereafter can, IMO, be chalked up to the fact that the iPad 3 was either a stopgap device or immediately regretted internally and caused the schedule of the iPad 4 to be bumped up.

acqq 13y ago
No. I'm sure you didn't use iPad 3 and got that impression from reading tech media always chasing spec sheets. I own iPad 3 and there's nothing wrong with it.
- bentcorner 13y ago
  I personally own an iPad 3 and have used it next to an iPad 2 and iPad 4 running the same applications. If you use a non-trivial application it's pretty clear that the iPad 3 is visibly slower than an iPad 2. On it's own, it's certainly fine. However it's clear that there were trade-offs when moving from the iPad 2 to the iPad 3.
  - acqq 13y ago
    I use iPad 3 to watch videos, surf and read books and PDFs in iBooks and never had the impression that I have to wait on the CPU for something. What are your "non-trivial applications"? If they are games, I admit I haven't even tried any.
    - bentcorner 13y ago
      The one I've personally benchmarked is an unreleased application by a group of people I know, however it's very far along and (IMO) could be released today. The iPad 3 performs more poorly compared to the other platforms across several metrics.