Apple Board of Directors 'Concerned' About the Speed of Innovation?

[gnasher729]

Does anyone hear anything about the Samsung board of directors being concerned with the pace of innovation? I don't think so. Maybe the vertical integration of it's business allows it to develop products faster, rather than having to farm out all it's manufacturing, like Apple does. Then again, maybe they are driven to pummel Apple into the ground, and Apple doesn't realize it yet.

1. In Korea, journalists tend to lose their jobs for reporting badly about Samsung. Even members of parliament tend to lose their jobs over that kind of thing.

2. In Korea, there is nobody with a vested interest in talking Apple down to manipulate the share price. Since Apple is the most valuable company by market caps, there is a lot of interest in doing that.

3. What exactly has Samsung innovated? And by "innovation" I mean things that the Apple haters would admit to be innovation if Apple did it.

 

[mr.bee]

Does the board mean innovation or new products disrupting current markets? or products creating a new market?

these are different things for me. Innovation can be a new type of battery that lasts 2 hours longer, but this innovation will not disrupt the market and by many will be categorized as evolution.

I don't like telling the following but
I think Steve was able to tell the board to ****.

 

[Oujmik]

I agree with scottsjack, I am ready to buy Apple , but they are not putting compelling products on the table.

I don't know if Apple are 'innovating' or not, I have no idea about the management of the company or any of that, all I know is that I am still using an iPhone 3GS and still don't own an iPad because apple keep failing to bring out a product that compels me to upgrade. I only upgraded from my C2D Mini to my current i7 model due to a combination of the C2D getting too slow and me getting impatient and the new model had the HDMI flicker issue so not exactly blown away by the experience.

It's only my dislike for the alternative OSs and the good quality iOS app selection which keeps my vaguely loyal, although I am sorely tempted by a new Nexus 7 and maybe an HTC One... then I could be on the slippery slope towards Windows.

 

[Gonk42]

It is very hard to keep innovating in the way of creating completely new markets such as the iphone and then the ipad. I don't know what innovations may come from Apple in the near future but I suspect that no company can keep innovating over the long period.

The problem is Apple is a bit like the Roman Empire. The Roman Empire did very well when it was expanding and making new conquests so wealth was flowing into the centre. When this expansion stopped the Roman Empire decayed from within and eventually collapsed.

Apple makes expensive products with high margins and to a certain extent is dependent on innovation to keep up a huge market demand. If or when innovation stops then competitors catch up and dropping margins/prices is required in a fight over a diminishing market - this isn't the Apple way.

Apple has chosen an Innovate or Die approach and it is difficult to see how that can last forever

Before I get flamed - when I say "Innovate or Die" I'm not predicting the end of Apple, only Apple in its current form. There will always be a market for well made technology even at high prices but it may be quite a small market compared to that which Apple currently enjoys.

 

[markcres]

Apple needs to make a.....3D Printer

Think about it... 3D printers are about to take off properly....but many are clunky and 'homebrew' in style. An Apple 3D printer could revolutionise this new technology, bring it to the masses and create a new product category.

 

[Menneisyys2]

Improved tech? In what way?

It funny how people categorize innovation. For example, for many of you the iPad is innovation, when it is actualy just a bigger iPod touch. At the same time how Maverick manages the use of energy and the use of ram, to improve preformqnce and battery life, for most of you is just....meh...a good improvment but not innovation. When Apple double the write/read speed of the SSDs in its MBA line compared to what any other notebook on the market has to offer its not big deal for many people. My point is that many people speek about innovation but are blind to see it.

Well, there are areas the competition is way ahead of Apple - for example, in camera tech. There may be areas where Apple isn't far behind - unfortunately, imaging isn't one of them.

 

[everything-i]

Sounds like the story line of a Dilbert cartoon.

 

[deshstar]

iPhone 2007

iPad 2010

Where was all the screaming and gnashing of teeth between those years?

No one had any clue about the iPhone and iPad before release date so all of you haven't a clue of what Apple has up it's sleeve.

What are you talking about?

No one had a clue that these two products were coming out? I take it you didn't visit this site prior to 2010 then?

 

[Boris-VTR]

I agree with people that innovations don't just come. And you can't blame Apple for not having breakthrough product since 2010s iPad.

But my problem with Apple is...if you don't innovate, at least try to have the latest tech. Sorry, but 5400 rpm HDD disk in 2013 iMac, only 4 inch display on phone, lo res iphone screen, no new products for entire year (yeah, installing Intels new tech is not Apples credit really)....that is couple of steps behind competition and no way near innovation.

What happend there that they didn't have any new product for entire year? Who in right mind would buy new iPhone, new ipad, new mac on same day at oktober? Please don't tell me that they did "redesign" iOS, cause they only changed icon and os mavericks. They to yearly iOS and OS x for last 7 years.....they have good idea how much work it takes.

 

[Narcaz]

Everyone expects a major thing like the iphone, but that does not happen every year. Meanwhile they could easily redefine some of their existing products:
-Apple TV as media/nas device with game controllers and App Store availabilty
-Mac Mini Gaming edition, twice the height, pcie slot, 3 graphics card options from med to highend available
-bigger iPhone, larger screen, killer battery life
And i'm with you, they should stop releasing all new products in a 2 month timeframe.

 

[johngordon]

I'd agree with something like the HD, but less so with the screen size. That's not old tech, that's just a conscious decision not to use a screen they think is starting to get too large for the job. I have relatively small hands, so I'm fine with that size screen and the whole "easier to use with one hand thing".

And I didn't think the iPhone screen was lo-res? Maybe not the highest anymore in terms of PPI, but now that phones are at that 300+ figure, any additional benefit from higher PPI alone is going to be marginal.

Better battery life is probably what a lot of people would like to see.

Agree with the Apple TV - I'd have thought that opening it up with an App Store, and essentially turn it into a games console, with games at App store prices, not console prices, seems like such an obvious direction to go in. Mind you, I say that not really knowing too much about the relative specs of ATV and consoles. But I'm sure it could do well with casual gamers.

 

[narr]

Half of them being teenagers or early 20s who haven't held a real job yet.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0JW1tJLRtsk

 

[Solomani]

I would like to see the people who are complaining about Cook give their suggestion on who to take over for him.

I vote for Carl Icahn!!! The next CEO of Apple!

LOLOLOLOLOL .... I just wanted to give all the AAPL stockholders a minor heart attack.

 

[rajat8676]

Cannot innovate anymore, my a$$??? Where's the a$$ now?

 

[pirg]

Pirg, you were right... (see sig)

You've gotta give it a rest, sport. You're becoming all types of sad now.

 

[skipper63]

Well, what this Fox news guy Charlie Gasparino says is anything but short sighted stock holder value bs. He praises, that quaterly earning results put pressure on CEOs to perform and deliver and if not, then they get replaced by another CEO, who is willing to play the quaterly earnings game?
Certainly innovation does not work like that, because innovation doesn't care about quaterly results. If a new product is not ready for the market yet, because it doesn't meet the utmost standard yet, then there is not much use to throw it on the market just to silence the stock exchange goof balls. Certainly Apple would never dare to brake their rules of superior design, functionality, ease of use and quality just for the sake of bringing a new product to the market.
Apple has tons of money in the bank, they make tons of profit every quarter, they have a great margin, but all that is not enogh for wall street. There is only so much revolutionizing you can do in certain branches and the rest will be up to the evolution process.
If you look at the car industry, how many major revolutions did they go through over the last 100+ years? Carl Benz came up with the innovation of the first car, that at those times was merely a slow, loud and stinking vehicle powered by an engine that burned fuel. Back then, people were very sceptical of this driving machine, but it would eventually break through. Today cars are still loud, pollute the environment and mankind had over 100 years to come up with another car revolution, that never took place! It all was evolution since then and it was mighty slow, because we haven't even made the next big evolutionary step to drive electric cars. It all ain't that easy after all to truly innovate and will certainly not happen in quarterly cycles.

 

[Roller]

If you want to see the future of the smartphone, google for "Ubuntu Edge".

You mean the device whose backer has 14 days to raise $23 million to move forward as of yesterday?

It's true that smaller companies are more agile and can get products to market more quickly. But selling products on the scale that Apple does takes more time.

But that doesn't mean that Apple shouldn't pick up the pace in making improvements to its existing product lines. For example, with hot competition in the smartphone market, Apple needs to do more with its iPhone updates.

 

[pirg]

Well, what this Fox news guy Charlie Gasparino says is anything but short sighted stock holder value bs. He praises, that quaterly earning results put pressure on CEOs to perform and deliver and if not, then they get replaced by another CEO, who is willing to play the quaterly earnings game?
Certainly innovation does not work like that, because innovation doesn't care about quaterly results. If a new product is not ready for the market yet, because it doesn't meet the utmost standard yet, then there is not much use to throw it on the market just to silence the stock exchange goof balls. Certainly Apple would never dare to brake their rules of superior design, functionality, ease of use and quality just for the sake of bringing a new product to the market.
Apple has tons of money in the bank, they make tons of profit every quarter, they have a great margin, but all that is not enogh for wall street. There is only so much revolutionizing you can do in certain branches and the rest will be up to the evolution process.
If you look at the car industry, how many major revolutions did they go through over the last 100+ years? Carl Benz came up with the innovation of the first car, that at those times was merely a slow, loud and stinking vehicle powered by an engine that burned fuel. Back then, people were very sceptical of this driving machine, but it would eventually break through. Today cars are still loud, pollute the environment and mankind had over 100 years to come up with another car revolution, that never took place! It all was evolution since then and it was mighty slow, because we haven't even made the next big evolutionary step to drive electric cars. It all ain't that easy after all to truly innovate and will certainly not happen in quarterly cycles.

Everyone knows this but when other manufacturers allow you to answer your phone while eating bbq chicken and play the same song in eight phones at the same time at the party you're at with no dj, it's no wonder the apple board wants some innovation!

On a serious note, you're absolutely right. Apple is not known for gimmicky features just cause. Leave that to the other guys. I still can't get over people saying a five inch screen is innovation lol

 

[Macist]

If the board want Samsung-style innovation Apple's products would sacrifice usability and perfectionism with any gimmick they can stuff in for the least cost. Would that be Apple?

iPad - still by far the dominant tablet. Plenty of amazing desktop-level apps.

iPhone - could probably use an all-new three-model lineup. Larger screen are popular with consumers.

iPod - still the only standalone music player that matters.

Retina MBP - the best laptops on the market by a ridiculous margin.

Apple MacBook Air - a beautiful product that inspired a whole new Ultrabook class.

App Store - the best apps around.

OS X Mavericks - looks like a bumper upgrade. With Metro killing Windows and Linux a basket case of 'choice' it's just the best OS going by miles.

iOS7 - I think it'll be the best single upgrade to iOS ever.

What's not so good?

Where's the new MacPro then? When? How much?

Cloud - anaemic. Apple needs to buy some emerging cloud players to be significant in this area.

Pro Apps are a mixed bag. Final Cut X is fast and innovative but controversial considering the sea change. Where's Aperture X? Logic X is a huge home run, though. Roadmaps. Talk to the users.

Pricing - Apple doesn't have to do cheap and nasty but where are the products like the great plastic MacBook which filled a useful lower-end niche? With the App Store and Mac App Store successful, increasing the user base is surely a no-brainer for Apple?

Overall, though, I give them 8.5/10 for innovation at the current time.

 

[dannys1]

I agree with the Board of Directors. There has been nothing *phenomenal* from Apple recently, at least not at the pace other smartphone and PC manufacturers have put out groundbreaking products.

What groundbreaking products??

 

[rmwebs]

Well, as I recall, a LOT of people turned their noses up at the iPad, saying it was just a bigger iPhone and that it would never catch on. So I think our (i.e., us on the forum) track record for recognizing "revolutionary" products isn't particularly good.

Hey, I completely agree. However the difference is at the time, nobody knew what it was. Nobody knew it was coming, etc.

This time around we already know they are (or have been) working on a new TV, and a Watch. Whilst they almost certainly would revolutionize the watch market, its a market that has been declining. In 2009 it was reported that only 2 thirds of teenagers wear watches (http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/02/16/tech/main2488301.shtml). In comparison, the iPod fixed something that was broken, and I'd be willing to bed that a hell of alot more people listen to music than wear a watch.

 

[Dorje Sylas]

Oh lord Faux News is up to the Murdock Tricks again.

People are screaming for a new hardware-thingy-whatsit and the dust from the iPad still isn't settling.

Lets look at bits and pieces coming up. Firstly Apple is still pushing battery and manufacturing process to increase longevity and reduce size-power use of components. We are finally seeing BT4 + 801.11AC device to device connectivity coming. Apple already has their software for AirPlay streaming video/data between devices. The voice recognition software is coming along (could be better). So far Apple's ecosystem does a better job of interplaying with itself out of the box then just about any others you could name.

Here are the issues I see holding Apple back from the "next big thing" in user hardware.

On the TV end I think a rabid board will be disappointed. The mass market does not buy TVs for features. They buy them when break. There is a small market for niche high-end TVs, but there is also a niche market for Mac based servers and Pro machines. As we know content on the TV end is a bitch to wrangle. Further voice recognition isn't as great as it could be to make the TV work without some other forms of control. Which means making a better Xbox One then Microsoft, probably Microsofts one true piece of innovation and they're botching it by selling as several hundred game system add-on to an existing TV, to people who don't believe they want this kind of intrusive camera-thing in their lives. So should Apple "innovate" by iterating on the Xbox? If Steve Jobs where head of the Xbox division marketing I'm sure he could have convinced people to dance nude in front of the Kinect and love doing do so.

The other one is hardware limitations. Take Siri, to make it work it really requires an off-device server system to run the raw processing and store the phonetic data. You can't quite put Siri on its lonesome on the device itself. That won't come until we have an increase in low-power low-weight storage and a consumer friendly costs... which could be coming Soon™. An increase in device capacity along with the continuing increase in performance of 'portable' processors will let Apple and others 'innovate' or rather take advantage of new options that couldn't be pursued feasibly before.

How many decades did it take for technology to catch up with the idea of the Dynabook?

 

[pirg]

Hey, I completely agree. However the difference is at the time, nobody knew what it was. Nobody knew it was coming, etc.

This time around we already know they are (or have been) working on a new TV, and a Watch. Whilst they almost certainly would revolutionize the watch market, its a market that has been declining. In 2009 it was reported that only 2 thirds of teenagers wear watches (http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/02/16/tech/main2488301.shtml). In comparison, the iPod fixed something that was broken, and I'd be willing to bed that a hell of alot more people listen to music than wear a watch.

Well there are rumors of a watch but it's features aren't really known. I don't think I'd wear a watch but if it's done right and had done pretty compelling features, it'd be a great seller.
A plus with any watch would be it's integration with Apple products, all of them. That alone will make a watch a must buy for many.

 

[nutjob]

Now the board knows what everyone else knew all along.

 

[shk718]

Has anyone thought that maybe he needed time to set the company up the way he wanted to - such as the management shuffle - i'm sure that delayed things. iOS 7 was a huge undertaking that is clearly setting us new products - such as car integration, they've been buying many different companies in different areas for something...... perhaps the tech isn't where they need it yet and they're trying to move it along. apple isn't going to make a "new" product just because people want them to - they will make it when they have all their ducks in place. rushing them is the worse thing the board could do. apple doesn't make million dollar businesses - they make billion dollar businesses - absolutely no need to rush. and is everyone ignoring the change in the itunes business?????

----------

Does the board mean innovation or new products disrupting current markets? or products creating a new market?

these are different things for me. Innovation can be a new type of battery that lasts 2 hours longer, but this innovation will not disrupt the market and by many will be categorized as evolution.

I don't like telling the following but
I think Steve was able to tell the board to ****.

i agree with you - Tim needs to learn to tell every one to shut d-****-up! the board will screw the co. up if it tries to meddle. they must all ignore wall st - all they do is play games with the stock prices.