Why is Apple the only tech company that makes unique products?

[maflynn]

Why is Apple the only tech company that makes unique products? All the other big ones seem to just drop in behind Apple after they invent something...

Actually they're not the only tech company that makes unique products. You probably need to turn your iMac off and go outside more

There's plenty of good things being produced by non-apple companies. Yeah apple makes some good things, but they're not the be all and end all on electronics.

 

[KnightWRX]

Perhaps. You may well be right. But the point was that Apple was the first to seriously use USB and the first to remove floppy drives -- so they get to take the credit for "being innovative", and when everyone else follows suit, whether they were actually being copycats or for whatever other reason, they get credit for "being the leader" and "everyone copies them".

USB was an Intel initiative, not an Apple one. It was all over the tech news if you read PC rags back then, way before the Bondi blue plastic was a pipe dream at Apple.

And adopting someone else's interconnect and removing an internal floppy drive is innovative how ? Especially the removing part...

 

[zap2]

Android OS has gone through many changes and many people are now starting to feel iOS is getting dated. Android was first with true multi-tasking (iOS still lacks it even though it doesn't kill batteries on Android phones), copy/paste, augmented reality apps and they've implemented a much better notification system than Apple's near useless "block everything you're doing to answer this question".

I suggest you check our Symbain if you think Android had it beat for multitasking. As far as "true multi-tasking", look if you're unhappy with iOS mutli-tasking solution, then it might be time to leave the OS, because it works just fine.

Look at the MacBook Air, Rev A. They launched it, then basically forgot about it until the Rev D model which is now one of their top sellers. Will they stagnate there too ? A lot of people thought that "the future of Macbooks!" would actually translate in a few changes to other Macbook lines. It didn't. Look at the Mac Mini.

Are sorry are you upset that Apple doesn't redo their laptop each time? Yes, sometimes all we are going to get spec updates, not the end of the world, it just makes sense from a business model. "Basically forgetting about it" is just code for only spec updates right?

 

[Rodimus Prime]

Also, because of the tight competition, companies are afraid to take risks. Remember when the USB por had just been introduced? This was a real chicken and egg situation for PC makers. No PC maker wants to be the first to switch to all USB ports because (a) it will cost more money to put the new ports into the board, and (b) they know it will annoy customers who will have to buy all peripherals. Customers will simply buy the competing brand because it's cheaper. Now, someone eventually sells a PC with both USB and PS/2 ports so you can slowly start the upgrade trend, but it's slow for all the above reasons.

Same for the floppy drive: nobody wants to be the first to ship without one. It would be seen as being "too different" and cause lost sales to the competition.

Like Knight said Apple did not lead the charge for USB nor floppy drive.
I will argue that Apple dump the floppy drive WAY WAY to soon as there was no suitable replacement out for it yet. With out a floppy drive there was no way to move small files between computers. Hell those first mac that dump the floppy did not even have a CD burner not that CD were good idea to move small files between computers.

At the time they dump the floppy blank CD were a few dollars a piece, Email was text only and if you could send an attachment your inbox size was limited to 2 megs at most.

What kill the floppy was flash drivers becoming cheap and larger insize, being able to email larger attachments and hi speed internet. It required all of those factors to really kill off the floppy drive. I have a old USB floppy drive I have from 2001 that I will hold on to for the just incase. My desktop I built in 2004 I put in a floppy drive. I call it my 10 buck insurance plan. Sadly I have used it several times over the years. Hell I had a teacher in 2007 that required me to turn in a project on a floppy drive. Let me tell you it felt weird going to Office Depot and asking for a floppy drive but oh well. 10 buck insurance plan that paid off multiple times over.

 

[KnightWRX]

I suggest you check our Symbain if you think Android had it beat for multitasking. As far as "true multi-tasking", look if you're unhappy with iOS mutli-tasking solution, then it might be time to leave the OS, because it works just fine.

While Symbian might have been first, I was talking strictly about iOS vs Android as that was what the poster hinted at.

Backgrounding certain tasks is fine, and yes it works well even though it's not a replacement for multi-tasking. What I hate is the task manager they came up with that is near useless since it doesn't actually give you a list of running tasks. It's a list of everything you've done with the phone, in like ever. You need to manually clean it up and even then, you don't know what is and isn't running.

Are sorry are you upset that Apple doesn't redo their laptop each time? Yes, sometimes all we are going to get spec updates, not the end of the world, it just makes sense from a business model. "Basically forgetting about it" is just code for only spec updates right?

I wasn't talking about design and updates. More like the marketing effort and the stagnation between said spec bumps. They marketed the crap out of the Rev A, then it just fell out of sight. Same for AppleTV 1st generation.

But thanks for assuming and correcting me on something I didn't mention or hint at. Real classy.

 

[Tailpike1153]

Yes, it's Apples highly erratic priorities that are puzzling.

Their extreme hypocrisy and superiority complex that causes them to go into denial in so many cases.

They stonewall and refuse to operate in a candid & open way with customers. Instead they practice silently hiding as many of their issues as possible.

Apples one true area of brilliance is their masterful art of marketing. In the finest example of typical American deceptive advertising, Apple describes their products as "magical & revolutionary".

What a crock.

They can't or won't even build a cool running MBP, after years on the market.

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/1105643/

I won't get into a furball over your post. Which large tech company operates in a candid & open way with customers?

 

[*LTD*]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_2_1 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/533.17.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Mobile/8C148)

Yes, it's Apples highly erratic priorities that are puzzling.

Their extreme hypocrisy and superiority complex that causes them to go into denial in so many cases.

They stonewall and refuse to operate in a candid & open way with customers. Instead they practice silently hiding as many of their issues as possible.

Apples one true area of brilliance is their masterful art of marketing. In the finest example of typical American deceptive advertising, Apple describes their products as "magical & revolutionary".

What a crock.

They can't or won't even build a cool running MBP, after years on the market.

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/1105643/

I won't get into a furball over your post. Which large tech company operates in a candid & open way with customers?

The one's that license out their OS and dont give a sweet damn about User Experience, beyond what the absolute lowest sticker price will allow. Right?

No?

Ok.

 

[JoeG4]

Apple isn't all that strikingly inventive, companies have been making touch screen candybar phones for a very long time. Apple was not the first, and they weren't really the first to retail-ize the smartphone either. Shoot, they weren't the first to make a dockable smartphone by far. XD

They weren't the first to USB either: All sorts of machines (Compaqs, Sonys, and Packard Bells come to mind) had USB ports before the iMac came to be.

I dunno, I can think of a lot of things that Apple wasn't the first to do, however it's definitely hard NOT to agree that some companies copy Apple to dubious extents.

Take this for example

Or uh.. hrm..
all those HP laptops coming out right now? XD

 

[roadbloc]

I think we can all agree that this... heh... is rather unique and not made by Apple.

 

[KnightWRX]

Take this for example

You do realise that's a Touch screen on that Asus all-in-one right ? You also realise HP's all in one has had a touch screen for a while. Yet the day Apple ships a touch screen iMac, you can bet a lot of people here will think they were the first to do it.

Or uh.. hrm..
all those HP laptops coming out right now? XD

Yeah, not to mention Sony's use of chicklet keyboa... err.. wait, Apple took that idea from them and not the other way around.

 

[Angelo95210]

they aren't

Could you elaborate on this? Useless reply at this point...

Actually there are some pretty innovative companies around. We here on this forum are just a bit too much focused on Apple. Apple is good to innovate on design, not that much on technology. There are some companies like Archos, Sony, LG that release interesting products too.

 

[Winni]

The Click Wheel interface was/is an abomination and exactly the opposite of a "good" interface. It's a horrible mess. The only usable iPod is the iPod Touch.

 

[Winni]

I won't get into a furball over your post. Which large tech company operates in a candid & open way with customers?

I don't know about "candid", but "open" as in "dialogue" certainly describes the way in which Microsoft, Dell, IBM and several other enterprise elephants communicate with their (enterprise) customers. It's mandatory for their business.

 

[*LTD*]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_2_1 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/533.17.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Mobile/8C148)

I think we can all agree that this... heh... is rather unique and not made by Apple.

LOL you got that right . . .

 

[OllyW]

Apple makes what?

Loads and loads of money.

 

[Melrose]

Yes, and you don't have to look too far to find examples of that

...well in that case it sure puts a new perspective on presidential elections w/ mass hysteria.

 

[mrsir2009]

You do realise that's a Touch screen on that Asus all-in-one right ? You also realise HP's all in one has had a touch screen for a while. Yet the day Apple ships a touch screen iMac, you can bet a lot of people here will think they were the first to do it.



Yeah, not to mention Sony's use of chicklet keyboa... err.. wait, Apple took that idea from them and not the other way around.

Umm, a touch screen on a computer like that is really stupid because if your using it solidly for more than 1 hour your arms would fall off

 

[Chip NoVaMac]

It's Apple's philosophy. It comes down to building priorities around it and executing on them.

<snip>

It's not marketing-speak or hyperbole for the camera. It's an artist speaking about his work. Can you identify with this?

Apple operates from a completely different place and mindset from everyone else.

Why?

Simple. They actually give a damn about the User Experience. They understand that tech is used by PEOPLE, and people have lives to get on with. So . . . simplify, simplify, simplify; cut, cut cut; and then work to perfect what's left over.

That's the beauty of it. It's very Zen. Perfection - or rather, sublimity - is achieved not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing more to take away.

Why doesn't the competition do this or think this way?

1) Their priority is to make as much money in as little time as possible and to do it as cheaply as possible.

2) They're stupid.

Most of the time, #1 happens because of #2.

And there is no cure for #2.

Very well put... it is Apple's attention to the user experience that keeps us buying Apple products that we never knew we wanted or needed. Only time will tell if Steve Jobs is/was the visionary that brought Apple to the heights it now enjoys. IMO he is... he brought Apple back from near bankruptcy.

To be honest, I yawned when the first iPod was released. But then I finally bit the "Apple" and was won over. Smartphones left me wanting. Tried the Windows and Palm smartphones and they left me wanting. Till I got the 1st gen iPhone. This was what I expected a smartphone to be like. Three years later I upgraded to the iPhone 4.

To be blunt, there have been some misses. The first ATV was nice but could not see it for the price and the limits it had out of the box. But the ATV2 gave me what I was looking for at a price that made it a no brainer for me.

Some call me an Apple fanboy. To me that is not fair. Some feel that Apple offers products that exists in a closed system that Apple controls, and that is true. But it is that closed system that I believe helps in some ways the user experience and safety from malware.

And in some ways it hurts the user experience at the same time. Example is with ATV2 and Netflix. I can not search for GLBT titles from ATV2 as a genre.

Is Apple perfect in their business model? No, but I am willing to accept it for the overall user experience....

 

[vincenz]

Don't question the Apple magic, you're supposed to just go with it.

 

[jinxednuance]

Why is Apple the only tech company that makes unique products? All the other big ones seem to just drop in behind Apple after they invent something... Examples:

•Phones that are designed to simply compete with the iPhone.
•Pretty much every non-Apple tablet.
•iMac lookalikes.
•I've even seem some unibody copy cats...

Why don't they try and come up with something of their own instead of trying to "make a better Apple product"? Its annoying...

That's a bit of a superficial hypothesis you got. The majority of computers in the world are still Microsoft based. Perhaps businesses are switching to Apple but for now, the world is not at all run by Apple. Not even close. Once Steve controls the market like Bill and becomes half as rich as he is, we may consider talking. You need more experience in life son, as one person said, turn off your Apple product and look outside your window, there's life that doesn't breath Apple.

 

[Chip NoVaMac]

That's a bit of a superficial hypothesis you got. The majority of computers in the world are still Microsoft based. Perhaps businesses are switching to Apple but for now, the world is not at all run by Apple. Not even close. Once Steve controls the market like Bill and becomes half as rich as he is, we may consider talking. You need more experience in life son, as one person said, turn off your Apple product and look outside your window, there's life that doesn't breath Apple.

No the world is not run by Apple; and despite some folks claims Apple I don't think wants to be the next Microsoft either.... it does want to own a comfortable niche however...

 

[jinxednuance]

No the world is not run by Apple; and despite some folks claims Apple I don't think wants to be the next Microsoft either.... it does want to own a comfortable niche however...

Niche? Really? So all the iPhones and iPads sold around the world and they're still niche? What's that niche called? the whole market?!

 

[divjapps]

Apple certainly had the First Mover's Advantage for a few of their products. But there are so many other company's that have come out with really innovative products like Asus, Motorola. Some of them have been innovative in terms of design while others in terms of tech used.

 

[MOFS]

The Click Wheel interface was/is an abomination and exactly the opposite of a "good" interface. It's a horrible mess. The only usable iPod is the iPod Touch.

I disagree. The click wheel made it easier to use, as it was intuitive (scrolling clockwise down, anticlockwise up), and was also easily used inside a pocket [find the clickwheel and you're go]. The clickwheel has been hailed as a masterstroke for Apple; getting rid of the plethora of buttons on MP3 players and replacing it with a sleek interface. I find it the most annoying part of using my iPhone is that I have to look at the screen to use the controls.

 

[KnightWRX]

Umm, a touch screen on a computer like that is really stupid because if your using it solidly for more than 1 hour your arms would fall off

Funny how before Steve said that, you would have been one to repeatedly ask for a touch screen iMac.

I just look to Steve to see the trends in posting on Macrumors. Whatever the guy says, it means it will become defacto opinion on this site.