I think their approach will be mainly evolutionary and as a result, revolutionary products will come about.
If you look at Apple's product line, the products all work together in some way or another. That's the drive behind the products. If you look at the iPhone, yes, it was a huge piece of innovation. But it had products that lead up to it being releases. Apple had applied the multi-touch concept to their trackpads and mighty mouse. They had gained experience in this area. They have extensive user interface experience, have plenty of knowledge of music playback and distribution and wrapped a whole load of knowledge into one little package to make the iPhone. The most revolutionary thing about it was the user interface, but even that was a logical evolution of previous concepts and applications.
Technology in 2005 or even 2006 would not have been sufficient to bring about the iPhone, and Apple knew it. I've seen stories discussing the development cycle of the original iPhone and how things finally came together at the right time to be able to put it out.
This is what will happen with Apple in the future but its also why I found the Macbook Air surprising. It takes existing technologies and wraps it in a very nice little package, Apple leveraged their relationship with Intel to get the chip small enough to fit. But its not revolutionary as much as the iPhone is.
Apple wouldn't go ahead and put a full version of OSX on a tablet in the next 6 months, touch-screen only device because their own knowledge in this area is not sufficient (yet) to be able to go ahead and compile such a device. It is possible from a technological stand-point but the UI as an idea is not polished enough. But you can be that Apple is gathering feedback on the iPhone user's experience like hell and figuring out how to make that work in OSX.
If you look at developer builds of Snow Leopard, and some of the improvements recently covered on AppleInsider, you can see that iPhone innovations are coming to OS X and vica versa.
iTunes is another example. Apple had the Mini-Store in iTunes for a couple of years with links that would take you to iTunes. Along came the iPhone, it built on that idea and put in the iTunes Mobile store. For the first time you could buy songs from an interface other than the iTunes store as it exists in iTunes. But now with Genius, they've applied the concept to the desktop version of iTunes and buying a song in the side-bar no longer takes you to the iTunes page. That's something they've learnt how to do (and well) over the last few years.
So its only a matter of time but if Apple feels they can leverage their intellectual property and experience to put out a device, they will.
I would have to say I strongly disagree with the notion that Apple is focusing less on the Mac line because of improvements in other areas. Firstly, they have been hiring as a company, not aggressively but their engineer numbers are increasing. Secondly, improvements on iPhone, Online services (Mobileme), Apple TV and iTunes infrastructure do come back to OS X; design concepts get transposed from the device line to the desktop and laptop line (as I'm sure we'll see on 14th of Oct). All the while, Apple has shown that it can integrate its product line with other areas of their business without too much hassle. Its part of the reason they are gaining marketshare while others are loosing it.
Product line expansion or not, Apple will have learnt from the Mobileme Fiasco and tread carefully. But anything they do bring out will build on what they have at the moment, and more so than some realize right now. Either way, all product lines in the Apple arsenal benefit from innovation anywhere in Apple.
If you look at Apple's product line, the products all work together in some way or another. That's the drive behind the products. If you look at the iPhone, yes, it was a huge piece of innovation. But it had products that lead up to it being releases. Apple had applied the multi-touch concept to their trackpads and mighty mouse. They had gained experience in this area. They have extensive user interface experience, have plenty of knowledge of music playback and distribution and wrapped a whole load of knowledge into one little package to make the iPhone. The most revolutionary thing about it was the user interface, but even that was a logical evolution of previous concepts and applications.
Technology in 2005 or even 2006 would not have been sufficient to bring about the iPhone, and Apple knew it. I've seen stories discussing the development cycle of the original iPhone and how things finally came together at the right time to be able to put it out.
This is what will happen with Apple in the future but its also why I found the Macbook Air surprising. It takes existing technologies and wraps it in a very nice little package, Apple leveraged their relationship with Intel to get the chip small enough to fit. But its not revolutionary as much as the iPhone is.
Apple wouldn't go ahead and put a full version of OSX on a tablet in the next 6 months, touch-screen only device because their own knowledge in this area is not sufficient (yet) to be able to go ahead and compile such a device. It is possible from a technological stand-point but the UI as an idea is not polished enough. But you can be that Apple is gathering feedback on the iPhone user's experience like hell and figuring out how to make that work in OSX.
If you look at developer builds of Snow Leopard, and some of the improvements recently covered on AppleInsider, you can see that iPhone innovations are coming to OS X and vica versa.
iTunes is another example. Apple had the Mini-Store in iTunes for a couple of years with links that would take you to iTunes. Along came the iPhone, it built on that idea and put in the iTunes Mobile store. For the first time you could buy songs from an interface other than the iTunes store as it exists in iTunes. But now with Genius, they've applied the concept to the desktop version of iTunes and buying a song in the side-bar no longer takes you to the iTunes page. That's something they've learnt how to do (and well) over the last few years.
So its only a matter of time but if Apple feels they can leverage their intellectual property and experience to put out a device, they will.
I would have to say I strongly disagree with the notion that Apple is focusing less on the Mac line because of improvements in other areas. Firstly, they have been hiring as a company, not aggressively but their engineer numbers are increasing. Secondly, improvements on iPhone, Online services (Mobileme), Apple TV and iTunes infrastructure do come back to OS X; design concepts get transposed from the device line to the desktop and laptop line (as I'm sure we'll see on 14th of Oct). All the while, Apple has shown that it can integrate its product line with other areas of their business without too much hassle. Its part of the reason they are gaining marketshare while others are loosing it.
Product line expansion or not, Apple will have learnt from the Mobileme Fiasco and tread carefully. But anything they do bring out will build on what they have at the moment, and more so than some realize right now. Either way, all product lines in the Apple arsenal benefit from innovation anywhere in Apple.
TV & Mac Mini
