Apple: Putting profit before innovation?

[iScone]

I've been an Apple fan for years and love their products as much as anyone, but it's hard to argue they're not scrimping on their innovation in recent years (if I had to call it, since the passing of Jobs).

That's not to say they're not putting out industry leading products, but I do think they're not putting out the products they're capable of doing, mainly because of marketing strategies and cost forecasts for the products of the following year.

And this isn't about 'waiting until they get it right', this is sheer withholding so they have something to market the S range with. How hard would it be to ship with the double sided lightening cable? How tough to ship with better RAM? Was sapphire glass such a problem really?

I get why Apple would withhold the best, but the implication at launch is that they've made the best phones they're capable of doing and I think that's nonsense. They've made the phones they want us to buy. And next year they'll add the stuff they've deliberately held back on just do we'll buy again.

I get it, this is how business works. But don't pretend you're making cutting edge phones, Apple. You can't have it both ways.

 

[Nate.]

I've been an Apple fan for years and love their products as much as anyone, but it's hard to argue they're not scrimping on their innovation in recent years (if I had to call it, since the passing of Jobs).

That's not to say they're not putting out industry leading products, but I do think they're not putting out the products they're capable of doing, mainly because of marketing strategies and cost forecasts for the products of the following year.

And this isn't about 'waiting until they get it right', this is sheer withholding so they have something to market the S range with. How hard would it be to ship with the double sided lightening cable? How tough to ship with better RAM? Was sapphire glass such a problem really?

I get why Apple would withhold the best, but the implication at launch is that they've made the best phones they're capable of doing and I think that's nonsense. They've made the phones they want us to buy. And next year they'll add the stuff they've deliberately held back on just do we'll buy again.

I get it, this is how business works. But don't pretend you're making cutting edge phones, Apple. You can't have it both ways.

You said you've got it. That's how business works, and that's exactly it. Do you REALLY think Apple was ANY different during the Jobs era? It wasn't at all. There were just as many held back technologies in the iPhone 3G, and the 4, and even up until the 5. As well as in the iPads... on the Macs too... the iPods... that's how Apple works. They never release the best things they have, they release the best things they can make. I'm sure if they wanted to make a Sapphire phone, they could've, but it would've just been the "best" thing they have, not the best thing they could make. They don't want to turn into Samsung and just say "Hey, our phones can do this and this and this and this. We didn't make the best phone, but it can do all this stuff, and it has all this stuff." They want to craft something, Apple has always been that way.

I really think that most of the complaints about Apple's "decreasing quality" is just because of more unrealistic expectations, because of leaks, really. I'm probably coming off as a huge fanboy, but it's ridiculous how people expect everything Apple to do to literally be perfect - Apple cannot innovate year after year, no company can do that.

 

[Starfyre]

Its putting profit with innovation when necessary. Release only what you must to get consumers to buy... for that year.

 

[Zwhaler]

2 words: planned obsolescence. This ensures higher profits, and they're taking it.

 

[aham23]

one word; business.

 

[scaredpoet]

How hard would it be to ship with the double sided lightening cable?

Explain how a double sided lightning cable would benefit you, and how the current lightning cable is a hindrance.

How tough to ship with better RAM?

SHouldn't you be answering that question, since you know, you know about innovation and all?

Was sapphire glass such a problem really?

Again, apparently you know. So was it?

They've made the phones they want us to buy.

And apparently, it's the phone that over 4 million people were willing to get up at midnight eastern to buy, because it's what they want, too.

I get it, this is how business works. But don't pretend you're making cutting edge phones, Apple. You can't have it both ways.

You DO know there are other phone manufacturers you can go to, I'm sure.

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I really think that most of the complaints about Apple's "decreasing quality" is just because of more unrealistic expectations, because of leaks, really.

You hit the nail on the head. Ii's also successor syndrome. A lot of Steve Jobs fanboys have conveniently forgotten how everyone complained about Apple doing certain things under his reign, and now that he's dead, he's been made a saint, and anyone who succeeds him will never live up to that former glory in their eyes.

 

[ZBoater]

How hard would it be to ship with the double sided lightening cable? How tough to ship with better RAM? Was sapphire glass such a problem really?.

Apparently hard enough they chose not to do it. And you think these decisions were driven by profit?