Eddy Cue Says He 'Disagrees Vehemently' With Those Who Believe Apple's Pace of Innovation Has Slowed

[ThiGeever]

Yeah, we should all praise them for the very innovative and amazing Homepod? Touch Bar? Maybe there has been some innovations during the past few years, but in all honesty, lately all that innovation has been out shadowed by the crappy hardware and software they release. Today more than ever we all have major frustrations with Apple products, and the most annoying part is that we're locking in the ecosystem and it's quite hard to turn to something else out there.

 

[macfacts]

The iPhone was groundbreaking in 2007 bringing full touchscreen to the mainstream, IMO it's an unrealistic expectation to see that sort of breakthrough every year, let alone more than once in a decade. Sure, other manufacturers may have more advanced features, better displays, etc. ahead of Apple but they're not innovating either, they're just capitalizing on what Apple has already done, only without the quality control.

It is ok if the changes are small and incremental, but then the price shouldn't jump or increase so much then.

 

[nia820]

He can disagree all he wants, but it's the truth. Apple has lagged behind other phone makers.

It's 2017 and they just got wireless charging. They've literally kept the same phone design for 3 years. Other phone manufacturers moved onto oled and amoled displays.

It took them ages to come up with a control center. They just got a file management system this year. I could go on and on.

While Apple's smartphones and tablets are of high quality and reliable, in the past couple of years they lack innovation.

 

[seatton]

What worries me the most is that he disagrees. Perhaps he cannot admit that publicly. Either way, I hope they are working hard to be innovate instead of using the same stuff over and over (Apple Watch for the past three years, MacMini, etc).

 

[Will.O.Bie]

I'll Vehemently disagree with him. Higher prices for little advancement,.

Especially recycled tech with a few tweaks...I agree. The A* chip is one of the very few things that differ from iPhone 5s and the 8 Plus. if you do a phone comparison year after year, it's virtually identical.

 

[9081094]

riiight!

you're so "avant garde" that me... a long time Apple fan, who spent salaries (lol) in Apple products, is now considering an Android device. /sad

I'm on the same boat. It really makes me angry to see that Apple has turned into a milking machine. The company has lost it's soul.

 

[TheMacDaddy1]

NOTE: I have totally bought into the Apple eco-system, so am willing to exchange hard-earned dollars for Apple equipment, but these observations are based on the facts as I understand them. I could be wrong.

I'll disagree with him too. Sure, they are innovative in some areas. Creating the Apple Watch was brilliant, even though it does not yet have that killer app. It's at least a solid foundation. We can point to the TouchBar as another foundation for future use. What else?

That said, let's be a bit more specific about their innovativeness... or lack thereof.

First there is a difference between being innovative (finding new uses for old products, or totally new products) and just "keeping up with the jones's" (staying competitive with the market).

HARDWARE

1. Every year we get a new iPhone that has better/faster hardware (just like everyone else)
2. Every year-ish we get a new iPad that has better/faster hardware (just like everyone else)
3. Every year-ish we get a new watch that has slightly better hardware and a few additional components
4. A couple of times per decade we get new laptops with middle-of-the-road hardware plus a new feature or two
5. A couple of times per decade we get new desktops with middle-of-the-road hardware plus a new feature or two
6. Once a decade we get new professional-grade hardware with middle-of-the-road hardware plus a new feature or two
7. One every 2 years we get a new TV with middle-of-the-road hardware plus a new feature or two

SOFTWARE

1. Every year we get a new version of iOS that is flashier, faster and has lots of great new features
2. Every year we get a new version of MacOS that is flashier, faster and has lots of great new features
3. Every year we get a new version of WatchOS that is ... well ... not much different
4. Every year we get a new version of tvOS that is ... well ... not much different

CONCLUSIONS

• I don't expect new whiz-bang products every year... or even every decade. Those are hard to come by and take incredible effort.
• I do, however, expect to have the envelope pushed in every conceivable direction with the existing products. There are so many areas for improvement and expansion that Apple is either ignoring or running behind the competition. Again, I don't expect new killer products/features every year, but in the absence of that there is no excuse for ignoring the obvious.

How, exactly, can an almost trillion-dollar company say this is being innovative?

When Apple introduced the iPhone they were the little player in a big, stagnant market. Now they are the big, stagnant player in an even bigger market that is filled with competitors willing to push the boundaries of what devices can and should do.

"A couple of times per decade we get new laptops with middle-of-the-road hardware plus a new feature or two"

You forgot to mention these new laptops also remove useful stuff like highly used ports (HDMI, USB-A) or really useful ports like Ethernet, or even some REAL Apple innovation like tMagSafe. All done for style (thin/light) and too achieve higher profit margins on shrinking market share.

 

[drzen]

Just over a decade after the iPhone launched, and six years after Steve Jobs passed, some critics believe that Apple's pace of innovation has slowed. Unsurprisingly, Apple's services chief Eddy Cue doesn't share that opinion.

 

[9081094]

Exactly... if they have to come and deny it, then it is because a lot of people are thinking about it.

Same thing happened with the release of the latest Macbook Pro. It was so bad, that they had to come out 1 week after with a half price adaptors.

Eddy Cue should go ASAP...

He could have mentioned the famous pipeline

 

[Quu]

It's funny to me how he disagrees with Tim Cook here. He says that Apple has been incredibly innovative but just earlier this week Tim Cook said Apple is rarely first to do anything, they prefer to wait and then come into a situation with their take on it.

Innovation is about bringing brand new ideas to market, not taking someone else's idea, identifying a few annoyances with it and then fixing them and saying you made it. Tim Cook identifies this, Eddy clearly needs to get the memo of what Apple is about.

They take other peoples ideas (Multitouch, FaceID, TouchID etc) and just make it better. They do it very well but we can't be fooled into thinking any of this is innovation, it's instead reiteration.

 

[JRobinsonJr]

"A couple of times per decade we get new laptops with middle-of-the-road hardware plus a new feature or two"

You forgot to mention these new laptops also remove useful stuff like highly used ports (HDMI, USB-A) or really useful ports like Ethernet, or even some REAL Apple innovation like tMagSafe. All done for style (thin/light) and too achieve higher profit margins on shrinking market share.

So true! I was trying to keep my points concise.

 

[scrapesleon]

When your just delusional

 

[Icaras]

 

[Danoc]

The is one thing that’s sure, Apple’s recent innovation is not baked into Apple Music or iTunes. What Cue is managing...

 

[sdwaltz]

The whole industry isn't innovating anymore.

 

[Bollockser]

I think the Mac Mini and Mac Pro team have been listening to this album for inspiration:

 

[deanthedev]

Way to go Eddy. Poke that hornets nest and get everyone riled up.

I’d love for people to show us the innovation coming from other companies, because all I see are half-finished ideas thrown at the wall to see if any stick.

 

[TheTruth101]

Steve Jobs came with all the iMacs models, from the CTR to the iMac for to the actual model. Then the iPod and the iPhone. Mac Pros, Appel cinema Displays (we do not have those any more) and the iPad.

After Steve died we only had a trash can Mac Pro, several revisions of the iPhone and the Apple Watch that is just a overrated accessory that no one needs.

OSX... nothing amazing about it at all, just revisions. Oh!!!! You destroyed Final Cut Pro 7! and the industry now works with Premiere Pro.

 

[jasonklee]

APFS. Swift. 3D Touch. Touch ID. Face ID. Apple Pay. A, W, S, T, M processors. ProMotion. DCI-P3. Apple Pencil. Butterfly keyboard. Force Touch.

In other words: gimmicks.

No one needs pressure sensitive touch controls. Imagine a car that operated faster with a deeper press on the pedal. Apple’s chips are pathetic. Samsung uses MORE cores, Apple fans. More means better. More megapixels, more RAM, more, more, more. iPhones are less, less, less.

Isn’t this obvious? I don’t understand the benchmarks showing iPhone 8 destroying the newest Samsung Galaxy. No iPhone could possibly be THAT fast. I smell bribery. After all, Apple has been in trouble with the law.

I love how Apple wastes their time with apps like iLife. GarageBand, iMovie, Clips, iTunes, Music Memos. Steve Jobs was pretentious talking about “digital lifestyle apps.”

https://www.macworld.com/article/1021048/jobsdigital.html

Wrong. Wrong. Wrong.

What make Samsung more innovative was that they were the FIRST with that infinity display that curves around the edges for that beautiful gleaming effect on the glass perimeter. Also, instead of maximizing display and compromising space for the camera housing, Samsung expertly compromised by making top and bottom bezels so the camera housing seamlessly blends in with the top bezel and the bottom bezel offers a symmetry to the phone that the iPhone X lacks. This makes the Galaxy taller which is more comfortable than the iPhone X because they stupidly went with maximizing screen space where they could. Just like the battery pack. Instead of making it uniform and making it thicker, Apple chose to slim the battery case where there is no battery, making it thinner. Same with the iSight camera. Instead of making the enclosure thicker and thus heavier, they thinned the phone around the camera. Apple doesn’t know how to design anymore. Fact.

Does Samsung have a software portfolio like iWork and iLife and those stupid utility apps? No. They have the BEST screen on any smartphone. And a stylus for fast text input. Keyboards are too slow. That’s what makes them innovative.

 

[George Dawes]

the good old days...

 

[theluggage]

I'm not sure the iWatch was that much of a heroic feat of innovation. Fitbit and others were already in the space.

...and it seems to be FitBit that has made the market-defining product there by nailing the killer app for wearables: fitness tracking. I don't think there's much evidence that people actually want a bulky, cut-down smartphone that isn't that good at biomonitoring strapped to their wrist.

While we don’t have as many “One More Things” as we did in the past, quite honestly, neither has anyone else in the laptop, smartphone, or tablet market.

Well, yes, because in the past the industry relied a lot on Apple leading the way - if not by weaving new ideas from the raw firmament, at least by spotting up-and-coming technologies (e.g. MP3 players) and turning them into must-have products. Even in the absence of innovation, the industry copied the hell out of Apple cosmetics (think: translucent cases, Powerbook Ti styling, iPhone/iPad, island/chiclet keyboards...) but that has decreased of late - for example the last couple of generation of Samsung phones and their curved-edge displays... and I don't see anybody copying the 1970s "30-function LED" look of the Watch.

You must not have been an Apple user when we transitioned from OS 9, to OS X. It took multiple releases (not patches) before some major bugs were resolved within that OS.

...but then OS X wasn't even a major update to MacOS 9 - it was a completely new operating system, with more in common with NeXTStep than MacOS. Also, Apple successfully transitioned the notoriously non-techie Mac userbase to nerd-friendly Unix for pity's sake! Now that was courage! More to the point, they took several years and multiple steps to progress OS X from an optional curiosity to the default OS (and some years more before they junked Classic emulation). What's happened with later software releases (FCPX, Maps, iWork, Photos) is that they've thrown the old version under a bus overnight and forced people onto the not-yet-feature-complete new version.

From over here we’ve had Face ID (which may be awesome!)

...which is, at best, an incremental improvement over Windows Hello face identification which has been standard on MS Surface and some other Windows devices for a couple of years, and was also beaten to market by Samsung's iris-scanning phones - which (along with their left/right bezel-free displays) make the iPhone X look a day late and a dollar short.

 

[MrX8503]

It's funny to me how he disagrees with Tim Cook here. He says that Apple has been incredibly innovative but just earlier this week Tim Cook said Apple is rarely first to do anything, they prefer to wait and then come into a situation with their take on it.

I don't see how you're seeing the disagreement. The iPhone wasn't the first smartphone.

 

[guzhogi]

I think hardware-wise, there leaves a lot to be desired in terms of "innovation." What have we really gotten in the last 5 years? The touchbar on the MacBook Pro is very gimmicky, and not game-changing like the iMac, iPod or iPhone was. Maybe some of the AR/VR stuff. I'd really like to see something like the Microsoft Surface Studio. That could really help graphic designers. The iPad Pro is good and all, but a 12" screen vs. a 28" screen, bundled with more horsepower and a desktop OS.

 

[UL2RA]

He just has one of those faces you want to smack

Combined with his dance moves ...

 

[kdarling]

Well, saying "incredibly innovative" and "disagree vehemently" does not mean it is or is not respectively true.

When will these high paid showman come to understand that words have meaning and continued use of words that far over describe the releases and products they actually produce just makes the showman unbelievable. We don't buy products because of how Cue or Cook describes them.

Your mention of the way they use "incredibly" and "vehemently" and other superlatives, just made me realize that Apple's company name should actually be:

ADVERB

Said in California, Made in China