Apple Co-founder Thinks Apple Is Now Too Big a Company To Come Up With the Next Big Thing (9to5mac.com) 211
When it comes to the next great tech breakthroughs, Steve Wozniak isn't betting on the company he founded. Instead, he believes Tesla is at the forefront of anticipating the world to come. From a report: Interviewed by Bloomberg on what are likely to be the biggest tech breakthroughs in the coming years, and which companies are likely to make them, Woz didn't list Apple as a contender. He said, "look at the companies like Google and Facebook and Apple and Microsoft that changed the world -- and Tesla included. They usually came from young people. They didn't spring out of big businesses." Small businesses, he argued, take bigger risks -- and their founders create the products they really want, without the dilution that occurs with multiple decision-makers. "I think Tesla is on the best direction right now. They've put an awful lot of effort into very risky things. I'm going to bet on Tesla," he added.
How is this news? (Score:5, Insightful)
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Not just that, but Apple hasn't innovated since what, the Newton? Everything else has been a safe, comfortable iteration of what has come before. The only "controversial" things they have done for ages have been to solder things and to remove ports, which while repugnant are trends which are present in the larger market and not something Apple invented either.
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> Not just that, but Apple hasn't innovated since what, the Newton?
What? The Amstrad PenPad was there before the Newton IIRC, Apple invented nothing.
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What? The Amstrad PenPad was there before the Newton IIRC, Apple invented nothing.
I googled both devices, and you are wrong. The Amstrad PenPad didn't actually even enter development until the original Newton had hit the market.
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According to https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
Newton August 2, 1993
Penpad March 17, 1993
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Just google 'Apple vs Braun' to find webpages of clueless idiots
FTFY
Re: How is this news? (Score:2)
The car is just an improvement over the wheel. We owe Benz nothing.
What are you fucking stupid? We don't need you fools who clearly haven't invented or improved on anything deciding what is an invention and what isn't.
Invent something, only then state your opinion on how stupid other people's inventions are.
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What are you fucking stupid? We don't need you fools who clearly haven't invented or improved on anything deciding what is an invention and what isn't.
And yet clearly we need your commentary on my commentary, because that is making the world a better place? You didn't think that comment through before posting, did you?
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How were the iPods or iPhones any iteration of what came before? Granted, w/ the iPod, Apple wasn't taking a big risk, but just introduced a new music player that looked sleeker than anything else, and then took off. They added phone features to it, and the phone market has not been the same since. What was either luck or genius on their part was targeting the elite/upscale part of the population and making their phone look like the Gucci or Prada of electronic devices and pricing them accordingly, and
Re:How is this news? (Score:5, Informative)
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Apple paying Creative hundreds of millions of dollars for ripping off their UI kind of says the iPod was nothing more than a prettier Creative media player... oh, but with one important difference: it locked everything down via iTunes rather than as a simple 'drag and drop' music player.
I used to love my creative zen's. I wish they'd make a decent phone/music player these days.
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Apple paying Creative hundreds of millions of dollars for ripping off their UI kind of says the iPod was nothing more than a prettier Creative media player
It also used a smaller form factor hard disk. The Creative models used 2.5" disks, the iPod used 1.8" ones. This was important because the first iPod was right at the upper end of being convenient to carry around. The second / third generation were thinner. Second, they used Firewire for syncing (later USB 2, when it became available). The Creative ones used USB 1.1, which meant that a full sync took well over an hour, compared to 10-20 minutes for the iPod. Finally, the use of iTunes meant that the i
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Apple just waits for technology to mature and then markets the hell out of their version. The iPod was far from the first or the best portable music player, but those white earphones and colourful ads...
The iPhone was not the first smart phone with large touch screen, and Android was already nearing release when it was announced. And remember how limited the first version was - didn't even have apps! But it sure looked slick, with the OS not even supporting multi-tasking or desktop wallpaper because all ava
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Apple paying Creative hundreds of millions of dollars for ripping off their UI kind of says the iPod was nothing more than a prettier Creative media player...
You keep claiming that, and every time I have to prove you wrong because you don't like facts.
They payed $100 million (not "hundreds of millions of dollars") for violating a patent for "Automatic hierarchical categorization of music by metadata " (IOW sorting songs by interpret), not for "ripping off their UI". Creatives UI was the cruddy "cursor keys to select a menu item" shit from the 80s.
BTW this patent was also the resason why Apple started to patent every little shit, because evry little shit like yo
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LynnwoodRooster is the dumboi!
You proved it again. You always do. Because you are dumb. Why don't you give up? Really, how many times are you going to do this? That's a rhetoric question: you are too dumb to stop.
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How were the iPods or iPhones any iteration of what came before?
Oh please, The iPhone is an iteration of the iPod and as you say the iPod was just another music player that looked slick and did mp3.
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How were the iPods or iPhones any iteration of what came before? Granted, w/ the iPod, Apple wasn't taking a big risk, but just introduced a new music player that looked sleeker than anything else, and then took off.
Well, you just told everyone how. Don't be disingenuous.
They added phone features to it, and the phone market has not been the same since.
They weren't the first to make a phone which had that form factor and basic UI scheme. They were the first to make it not suck. I don't want to take that away from them, but it's still not innovation. It's just iteration. They did obvious things and sold them better than others did and that's what got them the money.
There is something to be said for a platform which in the US at least is the first choice of app developers
Windows was the choice of developers right up through Windows 7. That didn't change because Apple got better, it happened because Microsof
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Apple innovation often isn't in purely technical terms. They're rarely first to market. But what they tend to do is to merge technology and design in a way that few other companies seemed to be able to do.
Do you remember how complex and messed up a simple MP3 player used to be, trying to get it to work, patching firmware, crappy and unintuitive user interface obviously designed by engineers, etc? There were a dozen brands on the market, but Apple didn't release a product like that. Here's a case study b [medium.com]
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I wonder what asking you for your opinions on anything is worth.
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Apple is a one-trick pony.
They have charged WAY too much for their products and have more cash than God.
The next logical step is to buy up bad ideas far removed from their core competency because they have saturated the market with their version of the wheel.
Their only innovative approach is to make the wheel rounder.
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When the company changes these innovation teams (usually making them too big), they fail.
Changing the process will change the results...
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Sometimes the generally shittiness of the nerd superiority/inferiority complex really does get tiresome. Nah bro, you're right. Steve Wozniak, a man whose demonstrated brilliance should require no citations, is only just now "realizing this". It's never occurred to him in his life, which is why you should be moderated insightful based on a Bloomberg puff piece. But not you though. You're the guy-too-cool-for-school who just "gets" these things better than anyone e
Woman at D-Day in Normandy (Score:5, Informative)
The Army used to be made of REAL MEN. It's a disgrace what its become. Could you imagine someone like Chelsea Manning storming the beaches of Normandy?
Actually, speaking of D-day, there wren't only REAL MEN storming on the beaches of Normany - e.g.: Martha Ghellhorn, Ernest Hemingway's ex-wife [huffingtonpost.com] (though a natural-born woman, but still definitely not a REAL MAN) managed to be among the first waves on the beach (even before her ex-husband) by first hiding on a boat and then disguising as a combat medic (though her actual profession was war journalist).
There *WAS DEFINITELY* a pair of boobs under one of the uniforms running on the beaches of Normandy.
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It's Chelsea Manning now. Aren't you glad YOUR TAX MONEY went to his sex change?
The Army used to be made of REAL MEN. It's a disgrace what its become.
Yeah - and it's good that Chelsea told the world the truth about those cowards, murdering kids from the safety of their helicopters.
Re: How is this news? (Score:4, Funny)
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What? And here I thought Steve as an atmospheric phenomenon. I never knew it was an hermaphrodite entrepreneur. It's so confusing.
Re: How is this news? (Score:2)
People have no respect nowadays. These people has does more for the world while taking a shit than the collective achievements of these idiots. Woz says something they think is not relevant or wrong or whatever and instead of thinking about it or sucking it up they make vicious personal attacks against him. Have some fucking respect for the man. He took the time and the risks to create something insanely great .. what the hell have these losers done. I am talking about these parasites living off Wozniak's i
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Not just that, Jobs was the contradiction to Woz's theory that the CEO has to be young and the company small. Apple was big in its own right, but somewhat floundering w/ just the Macs. Once he introduced the iPods and later, the iPhones & iPads, along w/ a great marketing campaign as to their applications, Apple had a breakthrough.
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Once he introduced the iPods and later, the iPhones & iPads,
You mean once they made the ipod, then put a phone in it, and then made it a bit bigger.
Clickbait title (Score:1)
I understand "apple cofounder" when used for the benefit of the general population, but this is Slashdot. "Woz says" would be enough clickbait already.
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Re: Clickbait title (Score:5, Insightful)
Like what did Woz ever do? He isn't even there for any of Apple's most successful era.
Without Woz and the Apple computer, Jobs would be selling sugar water .
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That was Jean-Louis Gassée.
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Nope, John Sculley [wikipedia.org].
Jean-Louis Gassée [wikipedia.org] is the founder of Be Inc and actually has a scientific background (though I can't find in which specific field he has a MSc).
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(though I can't find in which specific field he has a MSc)
Looks like a he has a M.S. degree in Science, maybe similar to having Fine Arts degree in Arts. It may have been a catchall degree for science. His bachelor degree was in mathematics and physics.
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If you're going to correct somebody, make sure you have your own facts straight. It was John Sculley who was hired from Pepsi to run Apple. He was actually hired by Steve Jobs, whose pitch was, “Do you want to sell sugar water for the rest of your life, or do you want to come with me and change the world?”
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Without Jobs, however, Woz would have sold a few dozen system boards to hobbyists and faded into history.
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Re: Clickbait title (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't know..... he created a line of reasonably ok 8-bit 6502 machines that lived from 1977 into the '90's FAR past their prime and kept the company afloat while the early Mac 128 and 512 were flopping like a fish? I can't think of a single school I attended as a kid that wasn't chock full of ugly Apple IIe's and the occasional IIgs.
Apple was far from unsuccessful in those days. You know, back when they were actually a computer company instead of peddling shiny consumer-grade content consumption devices to over-privileged hipster brats.
Re: Clickbait title (Score:1)
Wasn't he the one who built the original apple out of microchips?
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Bill rip people off, Zuck rip people off. What makes Woz different than getting ripped off?
Wel, he was a good friend of Job's until his death. How many of the people Bill and Zuck ripped off will go to his funeral for anything to check they are actually dead?
And that's what really pisses off Slashdoters about Jobs: that he had Woz as his friend, even though they are much more deserving of that than him.
What if Jobs..... (Score:2)
It's not like Jobs never did anything in the absence of Woz. When he formed Next, Inc, he didn't have any of the big names w/ him, but built that company from scratch. Ultimately, it became viable enough that when Apple kept slipping on the delivery of Copland, they ultimately acquired Next, and Jobs w/ it.
Yeah, they could have purchased Be, Inc. instead, and history would have been different. Next may then have ended up maybe as a part of Sun or SGI or HP.
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Re: Clickbait title (Score:2)
Steve Jobs would say (Score:3)
If he were honest he might also say that the ideas don't need to be invented at Apple, they just need to be implemented there.
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Maybe in the Intel era but certainly not in the 68k or early PowerPC era.
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Unfortunately it seems very hard, based on the experience of a lot of other systems. Things are starting to get better now in the Linux world, though.
Well, lots have tried and only one succeeded. (Score:2)
So I guess it's pretty hard.
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OSX never existed in the 68k era. Apple's UNIX system in those days was called A/UX and it was actually quite cool but way overpriced due to AT&T licensing issues, etc. It was based on SVR2 and could run X and classic mac apps side by side. OSX was based on NeXTstep which had a better GUI layer than X-Windows since oh.... about 1988. Was originally based on Display Postscript which got morphed into Display PDF/Quartz. While that was a Steve Jobs venture, Woz had nothing to do with NeXT. NeXT was a
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OSX never existed in the 68k era.
I think you didn't quite understand the context of the conversation, mate. You are right though, NeXT was rather great.
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I would like to say that OSX is not innovation. It's just a unix system with a decent UI. How hard is that? Unfortunately it seems very hard, based on the experience of a lot of other systems. Things are starting to get better now in the Linux world, though.
Even accepting that premise, NEXTSTEP was innovation. It was unix system, but w/ a revolutionary UI, w/ a USP unmatched by any of the unixstation guys - Sun, SGI, HP, et al. Which is why both Sun & HP had it ported to SPARC and PA/RISC. OS X was taking NEXTSTEP, and making some major changes to the interface. Personally, I preferred NEXTSTEP, but I can see why Apple chose to change things from there. Just wish NEXTSTEP on SPARC had continued.
Too bad there has never been a complete NEXTSTEP like
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Yeah but at least for those of use who migrated from win 98 or earlier, Linux had a far more interesting set of desktop options.
Shame it hasn't kept progressing since then.
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I installed an Ubuntu in a VM some weeks ago.
Had to google how to open a "terminal".
The UI is close to unusable, looks fancy though.
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Re: Steve Jobs would say (Score:2)
If you had to google how to open a terminal in Ubuntu, there are only two possibilities.
First that you installed it wrong and so you're an idiot, or second, that you couldn't figure it out in 5 seconds and so you're an idiot.
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There is no icon or other way to start a terminal.
You are supposed not to need one.
Idiot ...
Well, Woz has been too big for 3 decades (Score:2, Insightful)
well the mac was legitimately the next big thing (Score:1)
but since then Apple has basically refined existing things so they didn't suck.
the ipod was a good mp3 player that they ruined with itunes. of course the point was to sell you music and not a music player, so it made perfect sense that they would shove itunes down your throat.
they they made a cell phone that didn't suck as much as the rest of them. and it's still in that category. android phones are fucking awful since they are google spyware, thanks google.
we need a truly open source mobile phone OS.
that's
heh heh troll (Score:2)
Oh noes, I said something bad about Apple in your safe space!
Apple needs another Steve Jobs... (Score:2, Insightful)
Great ideas start in basements and garages (Score:3)
iPod, iPhone, iPad: 3 game-changing products. (Score:2)
All three of them originated from Apple when it was already a big company.
Sad, tired, pathetic rationalization. (Score:2)
Name a single "innovation" from any company and I will [easily] show how that was an incremental step from some previous idea. This notion that new technology has to be "completely new and not based on any previous tech" is a BS concept that is only ever applied to Apple. There has literally been no new technology ever by that definition.
If the word "innovation" has any meaning at all, then it simply has to apply to the seminal products that launched entirely new categories of electronics.
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Launching a new category of product is great. But did not require any spectacularly new technology. If someone else creates something else similar, with their own effort, their own code, their own hardware, etc then they shouldn't be prevented from entering the market.
The BS concept should not only apply to Apple, but it certainly should apply to Apple.
Techn
Woz - the ultimate Concern Troll (Score:4, Informative)
I have a lot of respect for Woz. But ever since he left the company it seems like he's been overly down on Apple - from downplaying the iPhone through multiple iterations, to now claiming Apple cannot possibly do anything new or big.
He says Tesla is ahead and in a sense that is sort of true - I also think they are at the forefront of self-driving cars. But a large part of that is because they are way ahead in collecting real world data.
Well in a similar fashion, Apple is way ahead of most other companies in terms of knowing how people use mobile devices. Yes Google is also right there in that space, but Apple has a health data collection edge..
The next big things to arrive will unfold naturally from the combination of large data sets and powerful neural network style pattern recognition (I hesitate to label it as AI). Apple is well positioned to come up with something impressive organically out of the mix of what they have and what they are doing.
It's very true that large companies have trouble producing innovation. But the way Apple is structured I think it may still be possible, and Woz is simply being overly negative because that is the way he is wired (and probably why he makes a such a great engineer).
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I have a lot of respect for Woz. But ever since he left the company it seems like he's been overly down on Apple - from downplaying the iPhone through multiple iterations, to now claiming Apple cannot possibly do anything new or big.
That sums up the fundamental problems with apple: they're into iterative change to hold hegemony over their phone.
10 years ago, apple computers were some of the most thoughtful designs and easy to upgrade and replace parts. today, they're glued together and the ram is soldered on the logic board. What do you expect the OG Hacker to think about the direction apple is taking?
when Apple developed the music store, it was one of the first business models to reach detente with the music industry and sell d
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"Iterative change ain't nuthin'!"
Yet without Jobs, they foundered. With him, they excelled. Without him again, they go back to foundering. Microsoft is foundering as they turned from innovation to market retention, playing a game of "me, too!" and using cash hemorrhages to copy what other companies did that worked.
Saying some little guy did something, never made much of it, then another company brought it big time is vastly different then waiting around for others to hit the big time then playing catch u
Woz *should* be criticizing Apple though! (Score:2)
The fact is, Woz comes from the breed of "garage engineers / tinkerers" which help make startup businesses famous .... not mega-corps who care about style over substance and who make as much money reselling entertainment created by other artists as building the tools that help artists make original content.
Many of the great computer companies were formed because of engineering-minded innovators. HP, for example -- where both founders were focused on scientific test equipment and computers as useful analytic
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But he was also the guy that openly admitted he was waiting over night in the queue in front of an "Apple Shop" to buy one of the first iPads.
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He says Tesla is ahead and in a sense that is sort of true - I also think they are at the forefront of self-driving cars. But a large part of that is because they are way ahead in collecting real world data.
Why do people believe Tesla is ahead in self-driving cars? Musk's empty promises? From all accounts their AP2 isn't as capable as their older Mobileyed-based AP1. And how is Tesla ahead of Waymo or MobileEye for collecting real-world data? Heck, most of Tesla's data is collected in California. There are entire countries with large road networks with nary a Tesla around. Musk is full of hot air and I'm a little disappointed the Woz doesn't see through it. Oh well, it will all come to light as Tesla has no ho
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to now claiming Apple cannot possibly do anything new
Exactly. The iPhone still has a port on the bottom and still works as a phone. There's plenty of functionality and holes left to remove in the name of new.
Companies often don't listen to questions (Score:3)
"Why can't we xxxxxxxx?
VPs tend to shut down these sorts of quesitons with stock answers, because they want their position to be stable until they jump ship.
Sour Grapes (Score:3, Insightful)
Oddly, whenever I hear Woz he sounds like the fox with sour grapes just out of his reach.
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Oddly, whenever I hear Woz he sounds like the fox with sour grapes just out of his reach.
I always wonder if that is because it's what he is always saying, or that is what publications tend to quote.
Apple has made some HUGE mistakes. (Score:5, Interesting)
Their computer strategy is one example. Idiots have decided the computer market is dying. ... um.. no it's just saturated. It's a replacement market, not an expanding market. There is still HUGE money to be made, just not on an ever expanding scale. ... and Apple have virtually abandoned the computer market. They let Jony destroy their computer line and essentially handed the market to companies like RedHat on a platter. Their Laptops are underpowered with no ports. The iMac has gotten worse with every revision as Jony removed features and expandability. Their server is an underpowered trash can that won't fit into a rack.
Microsoft has made a mess of the data center. They created a huge security nightmare defined by forced outages because every time you touch a Windows box you have to reboot it. Something that was considered a cardinal sin before M$ came alone. Linux has become the server platform of choice for any data center where the CTO isn't an idiot. Why? because Apple wasn't there to pick up the pieces when they should have been. Big companies trust big companies. OSX was just BSD UNIX with a usable GUI. Reliability was right up there with UNIX and Linux... and as companies started getting hacked and Windows boxes became a huge support nightmare, companies started looking for alternatives. Apple being a big company known for 'it just works' would have been the obvious choice... but there is no Apple server. There is no Apple RDP client for Windows->OSX. Instead Steve Jobs died, and Tim Cook made Jony Ive god and they flushed the server business completely. This allowed the Linux guys to finally say "we're here, and we're ready for you!" Companies would not have looked at them except they were backed into a corner and a few tech guys convinced management to put their toe in the open source water and now Apple hasn't a prayer to take it back. Linux IS the server of choice for companies with a clue.
As a consultant, I have recently seen old-school Windows-everywhere companies nuke Windows all over the place in favor of Linux. And don't think M$ didn't notice. MS-SQL on Linux? YUP! Visual Studio on Linux? YUP! Even a Linux subsystem on Windows! YUP! I am betting there will be an Office for Linux next. now that the compiler works, someone in the back room is trying to get the compile errors cleaned up as we speak. As long as Windows dominates the desktop, you won't see it. But the FIRST hint of a Linux desktop migration, and poof! Office for Linux will pop out of the woodwork in about 10 seconds.
Where does this leave Apple?
So...Apple is doomed? Got it. (Score:2)
This is the sort of brilliant forward-thinking analysis I come to /. for.
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Apple has DEFINITELY made some serious mistakes lately. But honestly, I'm interested to see what unfolds with them over the next couple years, more than anything else.
As I've pointed out on here before -- one "card up the sleeve" at Apple is this huge, new "spaceship" campus that's not up and running just yet. There's probably a whole lot of attention being directed at micro-managing all the aspects of setting that up - since among other things? It's considered Steve Jobs' last big project, and surely had a
Re:Apple has made some HUGE mistakes. (Score:4, Interesting)
Yes, Apple has been slow to incorporate the latest chips from suppliers. But there's more to the story.
I just bought a 2 yr old iMac 27" retina 5K model with 3TB Fusion drive and fast GPU with 4GB RAM and a year remaining on the extended warranty. I could have bought 5 new Linux machines or 3 average Windows machines for the price. I'm not a gamer- this will last me for many years. My newest other Mac is 5 years old, my previous primary Mac is ten, and my emergency standby Mac is 15 years old and they perform adequately with Office, Adobe, Final Cut Pro and Filemaker. When we talk about Macs being outdated, we're talking about them not having the latest processor, the fastest speed, the latest GPU ...
but nobody mentions the OS. Macs are pretty solid. Not just resisting malware, but resisting most glitches. Macs are easy to use for ordinary people who just want to get something done. Because of the OS, I would prefer a five year old Mac to a new Windows or Linux computer regardless of its 'state of the art' chip technology. It may cost me 500 milliseconds with every task, but it won't crash and cost me hours or days.
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"Apple have virtually abandoned the computer market. They let Jony destroy their computer line and essentially handed the market to companies like RedHat"
Oh, you think Apple users are flocking to RedHat? Have you any statistics about that? You seem to think that the world revolves around servers. And it does. But humans don't use servers any more than humans use electric utility distribution centers. Humans use laptops, iPads, iPhones, iMacs and maybe a few iPods and iPhones. And even Windows and Android. H
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I did not say USERS were switching to Linux... I said they pretty much missed a huge opportunity with the server market. Sit in any airport or Starbucks and there are often more Macs than Windoze boxes... I am a heavy mac user, but I simply said they have made some serious mistakes, and now that you mention it... Jony Ive is making a mess out of their User market too. Safari gets worse HTML5TEST scores than M$ Edge! The Mag-safe power adapter was genius, so naturally Jony killed it and replaced it with
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Hi Doug. Servers are appliances, commodity items like pork bellies. Difficult to distinguish one from another in a remote lonely server farm. Apple isn't interested in that. Apple is interested in consumer friendly items with style. Fashion is important to them. And don't tell me your $4K iMac crashes after I just bought one! My 10 year old iMac ran continuously all that time with reboots 2-3 times a year to install updates. My TiBook is neglected but it still works. One of my Newton MessagePads, however, s
Making it real (Score:3)
Many people here are saying things like "Apple/Woz hasn't innovated since [insert really old Apple product]" and it is not true.
Part of "innovation" is closing the loop and making it happen.
That's what I think Woz has in mind when he said this:
Good ideas die in meetings ('to thunderous applause') in other words. Big companies are difficult to make things happen in. It's practically by design. The whole point of a publicly held company is that it will generate reliable returns and/or keep a stable, growing stock price.
Woz sees that happening at Tesla. I'm not sure if I completely agree with him there (they do have cool robot factories), but I can see why he'd say that.
I love Woz, but... (Score:2)
Apple doesnt need to (Score:2)
Apple doesn't need to come up with the next big thing. They just need everybody to think they've come up with the next big thing. Which, by the way, they are very very good at. And they've got 300 billion in the bank to prove it. Apple has, in public perception, made the perfect transition from technology company to Fashion Brand without anybody really noticing.
As one expert put it a few weeks ago: There isnt a Market for smartwatches, there is a market for the apple watch. No other company could pull a stu
Companies run by their founders (Score:2)
Companies run by founders tend to take more risks and often come up with disruptive technology products.
Cases in point were Apple, Hewlett-Packard, Cray, Tesla, Microsoft, Tandem Computers, Amazon, Oracle, eBay, etc.
Once they go public and the founders retire, quit, die or get terminated, the companies tend to be run by MBAs that don't have the ability to invent. In theory, they should delegate the tasks to those who do know but it's been my observation that the MBAs just tend to acquire companies, run the
Rockstar immunity (Score:2)
washed up (Score:2)
they're not too big. they're washed up and void of innovation. amazon keeps coming up with crazy stuff. changing direction every few years to invent the next big thing. they started as selling books. then they became the largest online retailer, and now they sell infrastructure/cloud space?
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seems to be working reasonably well though, seeing as the brakes are completely shot on the AAPL train
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Apple doesn't have to innovate currently, they have the most loyal customers.
That's the reason they won't come up with the next big thing. Same reason the telcos couldn't take over cloud computing. all they looked at was how to best server their existing locked-in customer base. Cable Television was in prime position to take over the internet, but they couldn't forgo the massive profits of over-charging for useless content and they didn't push back against ESPN's usurious rates.
Re:They're not too big. Cook isn't Jobs. (Score:5, Funny)
I sometimes wonder if Steve Jobs' greatest skill was keeping Jony Ive in check.
"I love the design, Jony - but removing all the useful ports seems idiotic."
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When you build your own computing platform from the ground up without Google at your disposal.... you get to have an opinion. Once you have to fame, money and nerd street-cred.... who really gives a shit what you've done lately? He's probably forgotten more than you'll ever know about electronics engineering.
Re: (Score:2)
Thus it's not that big co's cannot innovate, it's that innovation requires high-risk investors, perhaps suckers even, who are willing to (or inadvertently) absorb mass failures.
Apple does a lot of products internally and then kills them because they don't think they will be proven-winners in the market.
Apple is so afraid of failure that it doesn't get any big wins anymore. They're unwilling to take the risks they need to in order to do that.
And as a business they're so damn successful that maybe they'd be