OK. Let Samsung have it. I got my first foldable phone in 1999 and my last in 2007. I'm not interested in foldable phones.
If you want to buy them from me I've got a box somewhere, but my 2007 Sanyo Katana is on a shelf.
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Other Why has apple yielded the innovation high ground?
- Thread starter Alaxlmartin
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If you want to buy them from me I've got a box somewhere, but my 2007 Sanyo Katana is on a shelf.
Yes I think the use case for foldable phones is really very limited despite all the tech press gushing over them. High price, high failure, limited usability enhancements. Sounds like the very definition of a white elephant.
Apple faces more competition from its older iPhones than it does from Samsung.
Even with decades of experience building products and integrating hardware, software, and services, you can still have companies who decide to make a smartphone with a hardware keyboard, netbook, circular smartwatch, or a foldable phone. The reason why Apple has not made any of these, and instead created iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch, AirPods, and is now working of Glasses, is design.
Design is the magic ingredient, with Apple designers calling the shots, and searching for and having technology made to serve the product experience, not engineers excited about about new hot tech and trying to turn it into a product. Apple Glasses vs. foldable phones is the latest example of Apple's design culture leading to an entirely different product than what engineering-led companies are doing.
My takeaway - many people simply don’t understand what makes Apple Apple.
I think the word "innovation" gets thrown around a lot. Going from LCD to OLED (just to take an example; could be anything else) is not innovation as I think it's meant when we talk about Apple. It's a screen. Your phone has a touchscreen, my phone has a touchscreen. One's a little better than the other, but functionally it's the same thing. Same goes for any technology out there. Wireless charging? Bluetooth file transfer? Tap-to-pay? Even Touch ID or Face ID? These are all wonderful things, there is great value to them and I think our experience is significantly better with them than it was without them. But it's all based on the foundational innovation of the multi-touch phone. It changed everything.
(As such I find it tougher to consider the iPad "innovative." It is a tremendous form factor of the original innovation.)
You might (rightly) say that touch-screen phones existed before. MP3 players existed before. GUI interfaces existed before. It took Apple's design and engineering innovation to make these things available to the masses. Someone else could have done each of them...but no one else was even TRYING to do it. It wasn't a race to see who got there first. It was something that seemed like it was "out of the blue" and a different paradigm than what we as mass tech users had seen before.
The rest of it is iteration.
(As such I find it tougher to consider the iPad "innovative." It is a tremendous form factor of the original innovation.)
You might (rightly) say that touch-screen phones existed before. MP3 players existed before. GUI interfaces existed before. It took Apple's design and engineering innovation to make these things available to the masses. Someone else could have done each of them...but no one else was even TRYING to do it. It wasn't a race to see who got there first. It was something that seemed like it was "out of the blue" and a different paradigm than what we as mass tech users had seen before.
The rest of it is iteration.
I think Apple focuses way less on whatever tech pundits mean by “innovation” and take innovation to be things that enhance the core user experience, in the September 2019 keynote, for example, their invitations said “by innovation only“). There focus this year was 1) battery life, 2) camera 3) enhancing the design. Some call it very iterative, I found those changes to be pretty radical, I get much better pictures, especially in low light and my phone can last a day and half and I no longer need to carry around the smart battery case. Are these massive changes to how I use my phone? No not at all, but I think they are innovative in the sense that my phone became much more reliable for the things I use it for.
Also, specifically regarding the 120Hz displays - Apple did that way back in 2017 on the iPad Pro. Granted that uses LCD panels and the batteries are much larger so it’s easier to implement (from my understanding) but if we’re obsessed with who did something first... (also I know Apple wasn’t the first to high refresh displays in general).
I think by the nature of focusing everything on the user experience instead of how many features can we cram into the phone means other manufacturers will always have certain features first but if they’re useful Apple will implement them in a more pleasing way to the user (of course theoretically - Apple does sometimes make mistakes in execution of those ideas - I just think it happens less often with Apple). Apple builds experiences on top of others which is why you rarely see Apple remove features (actual features and not just ports - 3D touch being a notable glaring exception).
Also, specifically regarding the 120Hz displays - Apple did that way back in 2017 on the iPad Pro. Granted that uses LCD panels and the batteries are much larger so it’s easier to implement (from my understanding) but if we’re obsessed with who did something first... (also I know Apple wasn’t the first to high refresh displays in general).
I think by the nature of focusing everything on the user experience instead of how many features can we cram into the phone means other manufacturers will always have certain features first but if they’re useful Apple will implement them in a more pleasing way to the user (of course theoretically - Apple does sometimes make mistakes in execution of those ideas - I just think it happens less often with Apple). Apple builds experiences on top of others which is why you rarely see Apple remove features (actual features and not just ports - 3D touch being a notable glaring exception).
I think that's right. By any business measure Apple is overall doing well, meaning Tim Cook is doing his job. Innovation for its own sake - why? New ideas have to be good ideas.
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And I've never seen smiling, laughing, sexy, beautiful young people using a Samsung phone outside of adverts. In fairness, that's true of almost all advertised products
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Ive’s focus is design. Jobs’s focus was UX. While there are some obvious overlaps, the design-only approach tend to produce more problematic products for the sake of aesthetics, like some of the UI in iOS 7 and the MacBook keyboard. It’s not just that Jobs “moderated” Ives. They had fundamentally different directions in mind on where to take designs of the products. You can really see this in the 2012 - 2015 era when Ive was fully concentrating on being the CDO before doing all the side projects.
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You can definitely see it. I went from a regular iPad to an iPad Pro and the smoothness in the 120Hz Display was definitely very noticeable. But on a smaller device like a phone, I’m not sure if its benefits outweighs the benefits of having longer battery life.
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these posts (which are fairly frequent) remember a past that never was. Apple has always been about having the most refined user experience rather than pumping out new gimmicky features that don't work all that well just to say they were first to market.
Samsung likes to be the first to get something out there...then you end up with an exploding phone. Apple may take its time but when it releases something it works.
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My bro in law has a Samsung phone and he's always bragging about features his Note has that my iPhone doesn't.....and I always ask how often does he use those gimmicky features...........and crickets lol
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My bro in law has a Samsung phone and he's always bragging about features his Note has that my iPhone doesn't.....and I always ask how often does he use those gimmicky features...........and crickets lol
It’s not all rainbows and sunshine at Samsung either. The S20 series is quite a big let down, the S20 Ultra has major camera issues and the S20 series under it are not exactly top of their class.
With that said I do somewhat agree that Apple have given up that edge they had and even their attention to detail in some areas is lost (iOS 13 and its endless bugs being one area).
The smartphone market has reached its peak I believe, I am excited about their Foldables but I don’t see them going mainstream completely, I think Foldables will serve a niche rather than be the mainstay.
Remember how Flip phones and sliders were around yet Candybar phones continued to be the best sellers? I think we will see that in this instance to. Slates/Slabs are so much more efficient to build and create accessories for, they are the bread&butter of the industry, while Foldables could serve the enterprise and gamer markets for example.
With the above said I am quite happy with my 11 Pro Max and glad Apple chose to refine in this generation, they did a fine job with this device, it’s all that one really needs in a top end smartphone, all I want now is an iPad Pro 12.9 to replace my aging Air 2 and I am quite happy to settle for a year or 2 and see what happens in the industry over that period before replacing my 11 Pro Max.
Change for the sake of change is not efficient or practical. Apple’s model is not about keeping up with Samsung.
Kids on the playground worry about having the latest and greatest gadget to impress others. Your opening post reminds me of that same kind of thinking.
I think people forget that the innovation race of 2008-2016 is likely to be unrepeatable. So much change and technology came during that period but the market has matured and smartphone makers are struggling to bring big new technologies every single year now. Smartphones have increased in price and less users are upgrading annually. Smartphones are an everyday necessity now and users understand what they want and expect.
Apple may not trial features the same way as Samsung does, but they do bring a solid product and that goes a long way to securing consumer confidence. I think it’s great many of the Android makers try out new features though as it effectively tests the appeal for the industry. I don’t want to be a tester though and am happy with my expensive and rather boring iPhone.
Apple may not trial features the same way as Samsung does, but they do bring a solid product and that goes a long way to securing consumer confidence. I think it’s great many of the Android makers try out new features though as it effectively tests the appeal for the industry. I don’t want to be a tester though and am happy with my expensive and rather boring iPhone.
Apple Hasn’t yielded innovation. The device in your hands right now had millions of dollars worth of R&D pumped into it. Countless test hours and thousands of developer’s collective intelligence.
when you buy an iPhone, you are getting a finished product. When you buy a Samsung, you are essentially PAYING THEM to be a Beta Tester. Samsung releases all sorts of bogus “ features “ just to get ahead of Apple, at the expense of the users experience. Those phones crash, they get glitchy and They’re Not reliable whatsoever.
its important to know that Apple is not in competition with Samsung, or OnePlus ( who ever those guys are, oh some other cheap Android garbage iteration ? Cool )
They are in competition with them selves. Apple right now is having a difficult time selling their new iPhones to people who are using their old ones. My iPhone X is still performing the way it did when I took it out of the box on launch day back in 2017.
Day 1 perfect performance almost 3 years and thousands of hours worth of use is not something that is easy to achieve, nor pull away from. Apples competition isn’t Samsung. It’s them selves. They make a good product THAT LASTS. That’s not something that them other guys using the other guys’s OS can brag about. They don’t know what that’s like.
when you buy an iPhone, you are getting a finished product. When you buy a Samsung, you are essentially PAYING THEM to be a Beta Tester. Samsung releases all sorts of bogus “ features “ just to get ahead of Apple, at the expense of the users experience. Those phones crash, they get glitchy and They’re Not reliable whatsoever.
its important to know that Apple is not in competition with Samsung, or OnePlus ( who ever those guys are, oh some other cheap Android garbage iteration ? Cool )
They are in competition with them selves. Apple right now is having a difficult time selling their new iPhones to people who are using their old ones. My iPhone X is still performing the way it did when I took it out of the box on launch day back in 2017.
Day 1 perfect performance almost 3 years and thousands of hours worth of use is not something that is easy to achieve, nor pull away from. Apples competition isn’t Samsung. It’s them selves. They make a good product THAT LASTS. That’s not something that them other guys using the other guys’s OS can brag about. They don’t know what that’s like.
Apple have always maintained that they are effectively in competition with themselves. Which is sort of true because no other company does the whole integrated package the way Apple does, so they literally don’t have any competition in that regard.
iPod was thoroughly panned by reviewers when it first arrived as just another mp3 player which had several brands already on the market.
iPhone was unusual for the fact there was no carrier subsidies, you paid on full for the phone and it was not cheap - for the time. Many people did not expect the iPhone to sell well.
Go back and look at was being written, it's hard to believe how the products were received.
I remember when the first iPhone came out in the UK. I am surprised anyone bought it.
At the time 3G was prevalent in the UK (quite far ahead of the US at the time) and people were paying big money for an "internet phone" with terrible internet access.
That’s why I waited for the iPhone 3G before buying. The 3G was £350 on O2 PAYG. How the prices have changed!
Who do you think has the innovation high ground?
Who other than apple has actually commoditised a new product category?
Foldable screens are a solution looking for a problem. They've proven to be "not ready" multiple times. 120hz is nice but not a radical innovation, high refresh has been in various products for years. It's not a game changer.
What do Samsung do that actually works that apple do not?
I'm not talking about specific jailbreak apps, I'm talking in terms of their product stack.
People continually whine that apple isn't releasing some new product innovation, and yet give every other vendor a pass.
If apple released 120hz displays (like they did in the iPad) you wouldn't be counting that as a product innovation, yet if Samsung does it in a phone its "omg, innovative".
What have Samsung contributed to AR?
That’s because Apple doesn’t give you a phone feature that isn’t completely finished.
Some people expect Apple not to include 120hz on the iPhone 12 Pro, do you know why? Look at the other 120hz phones, how much battery and color calibration issues they have.
For Apple, the priority is to make a solid phone with the best user experience, not to experiment with their users as Samsung does.
Also remember, whey they innovate, they do it in new product categories.
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This is exactly right.
its one thing to come up with a concept - it's another thing to implement it in a way that is usable for the masses such that it has an impact on day to day life.
I mean Microsoft had Windows XP tablet edition (and WinCE) back in the early 2000s. One could incorrectly argue that in that case Microsoft "innovated" before Apple to produce a tablet OS.
However, it was total crap and went nowhere because it was literally Windows XP with a stylus to run on big, bulky PC based tablets with non-touch-friendly PC apps.
It had little impact on the market as a result. It was trash that nobody could use effectively.
Bigger Ipad with Micro LED (15-17 inches)
Foldable Iphone
Macbook Pro with Micro LED
For Iphone SE users, give more features (double camera, headphone jack as option)
None of that is "innovation" it is just retrofitting the status quo with minor upgrades.
Its essentially the same as calling Chevrolet putting an LS2 6.0L small block in the C6 corvette instead of an LS1 5.7L small block in the C5 "innovative".
Innovation would be something like a more usable version of the Microsoft hololens, or for example the HealthKit features (like fall detection, heart rate abnormality warnings, etc.) that Apple built into the watch.
Oh wait a second I just listed some apple innovations (in the watch) that happened in the past couple of years! Real world things that will save lives (and have already).
I agree, they are competing with themselves, because I want to replace “older” Apple devices with an innovation.
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Apple does that retrofitting most years