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How is Apple innovative?
- Thread starter isephmusic
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No its not more expensive than to modify the software. Most pos systems use closed source software. Replacing credit card readers is an ongoing expense. The have to be replaced every 5 to 10 years. It has to be done already. Many places already have done it. There is way more places that take it than passbook. Not to mention ISIS which the 4 carriers in the US are pushing heavily will use NFC as well.
Haha, I had that Prada phone - was an absolute whore of a phone to use! The whole thing scratched to buggery, even with the case LG supplied. Sold it within a month.
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^^ Thanks for posting that link - been looking for a new Apple news page for ages.
Exactly, kinetic scrolling and capacitive touchscreens were coming on the market regardless of whether apple unveiled the iphone. The simple truth is that the smartphone scheme other than apple would still look very similar to what it looks like today. As far as bounce back I never really liked it that much. I actually prefer the edge glow that android uses. If you looked in the product pipelines of all the companies at that time you would see that all touch devices and android devices were already planned. Android has been in development since 2003. And it had touch features integrated in already at the first public demo. They were not added after the unveiling of the iphone like people frequently like to repeat around here.
I was specific in my first statement as to which region I was talking about. ;-)
I guess it's different for each retailer.
I work for a decent sized one in the US (Fortune 500). The stores aren't big (so there's only about 5 pin pads per store), but the store count is about 5,000 (with a new location being opened on average every business day). So that's 25,000 pin pads in the field, none of which are NFC enabled.
Like all hardware, these things have an expected shelf life, after which they get refreshed. But in our company, that refresh is based on the date the store was installed. So when the pin pads hit their shelf life, it'll be a slow rolling process to replace them all. At lease a decade until the entire chain has been refreshed.
Software's a completely different story. Like most major retailers, we bought ours off-the-shelf, along with the rights to customize the code. We have an IT department of about 200, including an internal app dev team that does nothing but modify the POS code to add new functionality requested by the various parts of the company. The ability for customers to pick up orders at the store, yet another pre-paid service that has to be activated at the time of purchase, the ever changing changing the requirements on how electronic tenders can be handled when the network is down, etc, etc. This team pushes out several new updates a year, and the cost of this team falls under "business as usual". They coding an update that pulls a QR code from a scanner pointed at an iOS device would be one of the easier updates they've done recently. It takes a few weeks to get these updates through the QA team, and deployed to the entire field.
I can see our marketing folks getting excited about Passbook. Passbook is done through an iOS app, which means a specific customer that they can market to. Send them targeted coupons via the app to bring them back into the store more often. Load an extra $5 on their gift card if they buy certain items that a particular store is overstocked on. There seems to be a lot of opportunities for creative retailers.
Where's the opportunity to build sales via NFC? As a retailer, you don't seem to get anything more out of it than if a customer swiped a card.
To paraphrase Mark Zuckerberg: if the competition were gonna invent the iPhone, they would have invented the iPhone.
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NFC could be innovative, but its implementation has been awful. Apple in the past has excelled at making things accessible and popular. OEMs have been throwing NFC in phones but why is it still so under-utilized? Why hasn't it taken off in North America? My guess is that a future iPhone will include NFC, and Apple will implement it in such a way that it catches on with the public and finally takes off. Sometimes innovation is about tweaking and implementing things right.
It has been used. I use it all of the time. And apple has plenty of failures. Thunderbolt, passbook, mobileme, appletv, and many other things over the years.
The credit card companies are pushing rfid heavily to retailers. And many of the stores are already replacing or have replaced their readers with them. You can keep pretending like passbook is succeeding but its not. Google wallet is usable at 20-50 times more places than passbook. Also accepting google wallet doesn't require any deal with google themselves like passbook does. If you take mastercard expresspay or any other rfid card, it already works under the existing contracts with the major card carriers. Google has all 4 major credit card companies behind them. That is an extremely strong force in the retail market. Not to mention all the carriers are in on ISIS which uses nfc as well. NFC is just a better solution than scanning qr codes on a phone screen.
Internaut
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Introducing computing devices to people who would never have considered a computing device, ten years earlier? Doing so in a manner that embeds those devices into the lives of said users (an app for everything)? Doing this while looking seriously cool to those who were buying smart phones (think Nokia 9210 and before that Psion 5MX with GSM phone as infra red modem) when iPod was a twinkle in Jobs's eye? Making OSX a viable alternative to Windows and Linux? Not to mention looking cool to everyone else?
I'd say Apple were pretty innovative and remain innovative. The only difference now is they have real competition.
I'd say Apple were pretty innovative and remain innovative. The only difference now is they have real competition.
I know, I see those RFID readers in every store. I also see no one ever using them, ever. I live in a large city and I've actually never seen one used. I have "paypass" on my debit card and I've never even been curious, nor has a retailer ever suggested I use it. As far as I can tell the RFID technology is literally just sitting there on the counter.
Every one of those readers works with Google wallet. That's the point I was making. There's only a small hand full of places passbook works.
Apple is extremely innovative at finding consistently new ways to maintain or even improve their profit margins while remaining highly competitive in the consumer electronics business.
In other words....finding new, innovative ways of getting people to talk about them incessantly while simultaneously throwing money into their corporate coffers.
This thread is proof.
In other words....finding new, innovative ways of getting people to talk about them incessantly while simultaneously throwing money into their corporate coffers.
This thread is proof.
Passbook? I like the idea, but the execution is totally useless.
So far I did not manage to import ANY of my cards (mileage, car rentals etc.)
That makes me think if Apple staff actually uses the apps they created or whether it's commonly known within staff circles that Apple apps generally sux and nobody bothers to try them. Remember Apple Maps?
Software seem to be their weakness. They get the OS out, that works OK, a little primitive though (no file browser, can't rename files, etc.), but so far they managed just to come out with a few apps, and half of them poorly designed, and no apps for other platforms. Lack of confidence? Google and Microsoft have apps for iOS, so if Apple is really that good why don't we see WP or Android apps from Apple?
So far I did not manage to import ANY of my cards (mileage, car rentals etc.)
That makes me think if Apple staff actually uses the apps they created or whether it's commonly known within staff circles that Apple apps generally sux and nobody bothers to try them. Remember Apple Maps?
Software seem to be their weakness. They get the OS out, that works OK, a little primitive though (no file browser, can't rename files, etc.), but so far they managed just to come out with a few apps, and half of them poorly designed, and no apps for other platforms. Lack of confidence? Google and Microsoft have apps for iOS, so if Apple is really that good why don't we see WP or Android apps from Apple?
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I wouldn't go that far. Smartphones we're becoming pretty popular years before the iPhone. I myself haven't used a dummy phone since 2003.
Okay I know this is a trolling attempt, but I just have to respond. You honestly think that iPhoto, iMovie, GarageBand, iBooks, and iTunes U have any comparable competition on either Android or iOS? Even Pages and Numbers, Apples' productivity apps for iOS, are unparalleled, although I'd like to see them do even better of course.
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They were becoming more popular, maybe, but Apple changed the cellphone market forever in 2007. I don't think cellphones would ever have gotten so much public interest or media attention if it weren't for the iPhone.
Edited to be less sarcastic
NFC payment uptake has nothing to do with Apple or Google, regardless of whatever their best efforts may be.
NFC uptake is completely limited by luddite financial institutions in exactly the same way that Apple had massive problems with the music distributors when trying to get itunes off the ground.
Along with this, we haven't got a "critical mass" of phones which support NFC in the market yet. Supposing the average upgrade cycle for phones is 2-3 years, there will be a decent lag between when the NFC phones are released and when they reach a decent proportion of smart phone users.
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This is actually a very good point. Personally I find it pathetic that Apple don't do this... it's certainly to the detriment of their own customers.
Maybe they just weren't marketed well enough then, because I didn't hear about them and I read general tech/smartphone sites every day, not just this one
Googles voice search did most of the stuff, but it didn't talk.
Who had an App Store before the iPhone? I think I read that Ubuntu had one, but it didn't seem to be the done thing on phones at the time.
Siri was a free App thru iTunes app store before Apple bought it.
I have no doubts that they got a few excellent apps out. But they have some real duck-ups too. Passbook, Apple Maps, and some mediocre ones, mail, camera (what other cam can't change the resolution?)
Then they have some basic ones that do the job - on one device, but not on another (Stocks and Weather do not work on the iPad).
There is certainly PLENTY of room for innovations.
And keep in mind that innovations only get pushed by people that complain. People that are happy with whatever **** is presented to them do not push new technology.
PS: iTunes (for sync iPhone etc.) is pretty much the worst Apple software I can think of and really spoils the whole experience big time.
They were becoming more popular, maybe, but Apple changed the cellphone market forever in 2007. I don't think cellphones would ever have gotten so much public interest or media attention if it weren't for the iPhone.
Edited to be less sarcastic
It's mainly because of Apple's perfect timing and it's revived brand from the OSX and iPod success. Android was already on it's way since 2005. Without the iPhone, Google would have probably released Android a little later, but Android's future was already set.
The real game changer was the fact that the iPhone was the first of a new generation of smartphones and has been extremely successful. The iPhone has become the #1 standard overnight, but seems to now be just one of the many premium smartphones.
The iPhone was the biggest influence since 2007, but most of what we see now would have came to life without the iPhone. Honestly most of what we see now has already existed, it was just never packaged and presented in such a good way as the release of the iPhone in 2007.
i really want there to be a macbook air like iPhone (tapers off) where they innovate BATTERY LIFE AND VOICE QUALITY vs anything
but if they pull off waterproof ipods and phones like the... oh wait SONY is doing that now ! lmao
http://www.patentlyapple.com/patent...rproof-future-idevices-with-nano-coating.html
if you cant innovate...litigate
but if they pull off waterproof ipods and phones like the... oh wait SONY is doing that now ! lmao
http://www.patentlyapple.com/patent...rproof-future-idevices-with-nano-coating.html
if you cant innovate...litigate
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Yeah but nobody seemed interested in making competing voice assistants until Apple bought it and implemented it as part of the core feature set.
I guess you meant, Look at mobile phones before and after the 2006 LG Prada.
Damn. The iPhone is so huge. 3.5" screen? That's crazy huge.
Compare that to the top of the line Nokia N95 during the time of the original iPhone release.
2.5" color screen.
Or the T-mobile MDA that I've owned with it's big 2.8" screen.
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