Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

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

There was no "leak" to Fox Business News. It's not in the interest of anyone on Apple's board to leak this kind of information to the media.

Here's what this is: Apple has been on top for a long time. I'm not talking sales, year-over-year growth, or stock prices - I'm talking about mindshare. Apple and its devices have dominated tech news and popular opinion for years now, and it's inevitable that people are going to start watching for a misstep. The media salivates over this kind of thing.

Steve Jobs's Apple certainly went many years without major, innovative new products. People screaming for Apple to innovate are morons. They fail to understand the nature of tech. Apple can't release an "innovative" new device every year, or even every two years. The time has to be right, the market has to be right, the technology has to be right. Those opportunities don't come along every year, and you'd have to be a moron not to realize that. To push through a bunch of subpar "innovations" would be the ruin of Apple.
 
Rather than release a new iPhone once a year, more rapid innovation is needed. A large-screen phone would keep apple from bleeding more market share, but I can't see this happening before fall 2014 if they stay on the same schedule.
 
Apple must be more nimble

My concern with Apple is not with innovation, per se, but rather at the speed that they do things. And, perhaps, this is what the main concern by the BOD is all about.

I'm so sick of seeing people walk around carrying Samsung Galaxy phones. These phones are nice, but they run an inferior fragmented OS and, if you play around with one, you'll see that they lack the elegance, smoothness and robustness of an iPhone.

With that said, people are buying them off the shelves, and it's for one simple reason. The larger screen. A giant chunk of people buying smartphones could care less if it's Apple or Android or whatever…they're driven by what looks nice, and for the most part that large screen on the Samsung phones looks very nice and very eye catching. This is the one thing Samsung has managed to do, and it's working for them.

A giant portion of people buying them don't even realize that there's much of a difference between one OS or the other. It's a "smartphone" with a very nice screen and it costs the same.

Apple needs to address this, and it needs to address it quickly. They're losing TONS of business to Samsung because they stubbornly refuse to increase the screen size. You would think that a company like Apple would be much more nimble. At this point, the soonest a larger screen will come out is with the iPhone 6, and that's not until NEXT year, late in the year.

This is what frustrates me…they need to be more nimble and more responsive to market trends if they want to remain in a leadership position.

I'm sure that if Apple had an iPhone with a screen like that of the Galaxy, the vast majority of people would choose it over the Galaxy. But, let's face it, that larger screen does look nice and does have "mass appeal".

C'mon Apple…WAKE UP!
 
rmwebs said:
Sadly no compelling new products (that we know of) are in the pipeline. Nothing that will have a huge impact like the iPhone and iPad did.
Click to expand...

Maybe Apple decided to wait for Samsung to come out with some innovation and copy it... In that case, be ready for a loooooooong wait.
 
Piggie said:
That is a pointless argument.

Saying Apple outsells one model of Android phone is only a worthwhile thing to say if there was only 1 model or android phone to compete againt.

Like 20 companies making orange icecream and each ice cream company sells 50 orange icecreams

Apple makes their apple icecream and sells 60 of them

You say, wow, Apple sells the most, well yes, it sells 50, but then 20 other compaies are selling 50 each of the other flavour.
Click to expand...

That's all well and good if the Orange ice cream sellers are sharing their profits. Here's a better example:

Apple sells 50 apple ice creams, Samsung sells 30 Orange and htc sells 30 orange, and you say wow Samsung and htc sold 60, they're doing better than apple!

Of course me saying this is moot, because in your head it makes sense to lump competing companies together.
 
Kashchei said:
Rather than release a new iPhone once a year, more rapid innovation is needed. A large-screen phone would keep apple from bleeding more market share, but I can't see this happening before fall 2014 if they stay on the same schedule.
Click to expand...

In what universe is a "large-screen phone" innovative??

People here drive me crazy.
 
Just a note to those going on about sales etc the cold hard FACT is the MASSIVE drop in share price the company has suffered. Investors have and are loosing faith, Apple needs to innovate to get them back, boost that shares price.
 
pirg said:
That's weird apple outsells all of its competition. Where's your store?
Click to expand...

Check the market share reports. When is the last time you heard something positive about iOS market share? iOS drops, drops, drops. Set a S4 next to a iPhone 5 and see which phone gets picked up first in a store. S4 will win every time. People like big screens. If an android phone were released with a 4" screen then it would be laughed off the stage.
 
Piggie said:
Sheesh it does not matter what ONE company sells more than Apple if there are 10 or more companies also selling high end Android mobiles.
Click to expand...

Fact is even with all this competiton (that according to some is innovating every day) Apple still sold 31M phones in the quarter (which I believe was a record for them and more than any analyst predicted).

If you look at the Android space they're all basically doing same thing, but when they do it its "innovative" but when Apple does it its "a faster processor and better camera? Zzzzzz". With Apple I get the feeling "innovation" is just code word for "I want an iPhone with a bigger screen".
 
Tobym6 said:
Check the market share reports. When is the last time you heard something positive about iOS market share? iOS drops, drops, drops. Set a S4 next to a iPhone 5 and see which phone gets picked up first in a store. S4 will win every time. People like big screens. If an android phone were released with a 4" screen then it would be laughed off the stage.
Click to expand...

If the s4 will win every time, why have more iphones been sold then s4s? Not following your logic.
 
Tobym6 said:
Check the market share reports. When is the last time you heard something positive about iOS market share? iOS drops, drops, drops. Set a S4 next to a iPhone 5 and see which phone gets picked up first in a store. S4 will win every time. People like big screens. If an android phone were released with a 4" screen then it would be laughed off the stage.
Click to expand...

Not in the USA.
 
macjonny1 said:
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.
Click to expand...

don't forget ipod-2001, imac 1998, works out to about every 4 years. I hope people tweak, stock drops even more, then i'll buy a bunch and get rich when they change the world again next year or the year after.
 
Fire Cook - Put Ives In.

It took them THIS LONG to notice what cupertino has not had a hit since the iPhone V1 and the iPad V1? What were they smoking?

If I were a board member, I would wake up every morning and ask myself when was the last time Apple had ANY Wow Factor in a new product.

YES, I am a devout Apple Fan, but even I realized that way back when.

Tim is no Steve.
 
macjonny1 said:
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.
Click to expand...

MacBook Air 2008
Snow Leopard 2009

A product doesn't have to be a game changing device in order to make people happy.

Anyway, I can see this debate from both sides. On one hand it's kind of sad for people to put pressure on Tim Cook to innovate since that's pretty much the first step towards making someone fail. Innovation usually comes from a vision or insight about the future. You can't force those kind of things, you either get it or you don't. On the other hand, do I think Tim will ever have the insight or vision required to come up with a revolutionary idea? Not likely. Steve Jobs himself said that Tim wasn't really a product person, so it seems we're relying on the other people who work at Apple to come up with something amazing; and maybe that can, but it does feel like the ideas have dried up a bit since Steve passed away. To me it seems like Apple are lacking motivation and leadership.
 
Last edited:
So basically all Apple needs to do to be "innovative" is slap a 5" screen on the iPhone. If only Tim knew it was that easy. :D
 
Rogifan said:
Fact is even with all this competiton (that according to some is innovating every day) Apple still sold 31M phones in the quarter (which I believe was a record for them and more than any analyst predicted).

If you look at the Android space they're all basically doing same thing, but when they do it its "innovative" but when Apple does it its "a faster processor and better camera? Zzzzzz". With Apple I get the feeling "innovation" is just code word for "I want an iPhone with a bigger screen".
Click to expand...

Your wrong, look anywhere and you will see people claiming phone cameras will fully replace digital compacts, so to make a off the cuff comment about other phones having better cameras is wrong, because cameras matter to people and the market, it is also thankfully one area Apple aren't too bad at but again they need to keep up with Sony and Nokia etc.
 
12vElectronics said:
Um ok? It was a legitimate question.. How many other tech companies are releasing revolutionary products?
Click to expand...

ok, everyone is copying apple, but when was the last time Apple gave them anything to copy? Thats what we expect from apple.

Lead, Follow, or Get out of the way. Apple Used to Lead.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back