People don't get it.

Posted by Hello. on September 13, 2012 02:04 pm 28

So, Apple is not the same company than before, uh ? It doesn't innovative anymore, does it ?

Let me remain you some things :

1. Apple never changed Mac OS a lot in one update. A new OS version always brought some new features and light UI refinements. The only exception is Mac OS X. Yet it was always considered as a very good OS, often even superior to WIndows. Windows which was often radically transforming its look at each update. Bill Gates, when asked about the future of operating systems, saw 3D interfaces and very futuristic and cool stuff. Steve Jobs didn't want to change things for the sake of changing things. He believed that transforming the look and feel of an OS would confuse consumers. If it isn't broken, do not fix it. Microsoft has always followed trends while Apple wants to make long-lasting designs.

2. The same can be said for the hardware. The Macbook Pro is the best example. But it is still considered as one of the most beautiful and well designed computers ever.

3. Apple operates in a tick-tock rhythm. One year, the hardware gets major improvements and the software minor improvements, the other year, it's the opposite. Examples : OS X Lion and iOS 5 with iCloud and Siri vs Mountain Lion and iOS 6 ; iPhone 4s and slightly upgraded laptops vs iPhone 5 and rMBP. In two years, the changes are always huge.

4. Apple doesn't completely rethink one of its products to see what is wrong with it but rethink it when the flaws are obvious. Examples : Final Cut Pro X and iTunes. I want you to notice that FCPX made many consumers upset. Apple took risks with it because it had something like 40% marketshare. And it is very recent. Lion also brought changes that were not welcomed by everyone, but Apple thought they needed to be done.

5. Now that competitors have found a coherent design language and have made correct smartphones, they will not change their products dramatically each time, they will start to be boring. Examples : Nokia Lumia with Windows Phone 7 and 8, Android 4.0 and 4.1. But they have a big disadvantage : their design guidelines are so strict. I see a lot of people looking for "holo" theme app and great metro app. But they all look the same while iOS app are really different and beautiful and sometimes innovative. In brief, when you are not staring at your home screen, iOS is the most exciting platform.

I could go on but I bet somebody will do this soon in a better way than I could do it.

PS : It's sad that even Dieter Bohn have absolutely no understanding of how Apple works and can forget all the great things it did very recently.

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Links and quotes :

http://www.theverge.com/2012/9/13/3326122/reality-check-30-hardware-improvements-with-iphone-5

pseudomichael's reply:

As an HTC One X user running CM10, I don’t really get this whole “Apple is so far behind” viewpoint. Jelly Bean is great, but it’s not really so different to me. There are apps and I can browse the web, make calls, send texts.

Smartphones are getting boring. Being able to tweak a few extra things doesn’t translate as vast superiority to me.

Posted on Sep 13, 2012 | 7:23 PM CESTReply Recommend (1) Flag

- silellak's reply:

As an HTC One X user also running CM10, I agree that iOS6 and Jelly Bean are mostly on-par at this point. I find Jelly Bean is incredibly refined, and fits my taste more closely, but feature-wise, there’s few things one OS can do that the other can’t. I prefer Jelly Bean simply because, personally, those small differences (better notifications, widgets, inter-app communication) that are left are important to me, and hard to give up once I have them.

mtcowdog says:

Apple releases one phone per year. There are new android phones just about weekly, and android owns market share. And yet the apple haters can’t see past their noses. Apple (apparently) releases a the first phone with ARM Cortex A15 cores, making it the most powerful phone out there. And everything else in the pone, from the radio chipset to the screen is state of the art. I don’t think anyone but Apple could pack so much tech into such a small package. It is an impressive piece of hardware that runs a mature and highly functional OS and the best ecosystem out there. I am undecided on the IP5 versus other options, but take away the ad hominem or bigger defines better attacks and what you have is a great option for a big number of phone users.