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Apple is know for taking something others invented and making it better/more user-friendly. That's great but it isn't being bleeding edge. Like the first few iP

by Dahoon 6y ago

Apple is know for taking something others invented and making it better/more user-friendly. That's great but it isn't being bleeding edge. Like the first few iPhones. Smartphones made better, but without simple functions like copy and paste for generations. I find it surprising anyone thinks apple's strength is being bleeding edge innovative. It can be counted on one hand how many times they have been so.

peregren 6y ago
No sure about bleeding edge, because for the most part their products work but at different times they have defined: - Phones, (Original iPhone way ahead of competitors) - MP3 players (Original iPods) - Tablets, (Pretty much the only serious tablet as far as I can see) - Smart Watches, (Apple Watch still defines the category) - Ultra Books, (First MacBook Air) - All in One Desktop (iMac) - Mobile CPUs (Apple silicon has been way ahead for years) - Laptop CPUs (M1) This doesn't just all happen by making existing things more "User Friendly". This takes real innovation to pull off.
- CharlesW 6y ago
  > No sure about bleeding edge, because for the most part their products work but at different times they have defined: I'm ex-Apple and an Apple fan as much as anyone, but I also have the benefit of being old. Not to take anything away from Apple's collective accomplishments, in many of these categories I'd say they "redefined" more than "defined". There were many smartphones before the iPhone (the Palm Treos were great), many MP3 players before the iPod, many tablets before the iPad (the Microsoft Tablet PC came out about a decade before the first iPad), all-in-one PCs go back 40 years now, etc.
  - valuearb 6y ago
    There were many computers before the Xerox Alto. Xerox never made the Macintosh because they missed key innovations such as regions, the Finder, consistent UI guidelines, the ability to put a usable GUI OS in an affordable package.
    - musicale 6y ago
      PARC was also bound to Xerox which had trouble seeing beyond its photocopier business.
      - valuearb 6y ago
        Doesn't matter what PARC's limitations were, what matters was the Macintosh was a huge innovation that created what the Xerox Alto and Star were missing.
  - musicale 6y ago
    > I'd say they "redefined" more than "defined" Pretty much, and they did a pretty good job too. It's kind of the difference between invention and innovation. Apple certainly does invent things, but they are a superlative innovator.
qubitcoder 6y ago
Just in recent weeks: - M1 [0] - A14 in the iPhone 12 Pro (first 5-nanometer chip with 11.8 billion transistors) [1] Previously, they introduced the first 64-bit CPU in a mobile device, which stunned competitors at the time [2]. Not to mention their excellence in hi-dpi displays. In 2012, Apple launched the MacBook Pro a with "retina" display. It took _years_ for non-Apple alternatives to materialize. In fact, the only comparable laptop display in existence today would probably be the Dell XPS 17" UHD+ (which I own, and it's excellent). However, the MacBook Pro 16" remains superior when it comes to sound quality, form factor (i.e. weight), touch pad precision and latency, thermal performance, etc., despite significant investments from Dell in those areas to catch up. [3] [0]: https://www.apple.com/mac/m1/ https://www.apple.com/mac/m1/ [1]: https://www.apple.com/iphone-12-pro/ https://www.apple.com/iphone-12-pro/ [2]: https://www.forbes.com/sites/ewanspence/2015/01/21/iphone-5s-damaged-every-android-smartphone/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/ewanspence/2015/01/21/iphone-5s... [3]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=72vjKOSwf3M https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=72vjKOSwf3M
- deergomoo 6y ago
  > In 2012, Apple launched the MacBook Pro a with "retina" display. It took _years_ for non-Apple alternatives to materialize. Ironically this is now somewhere they could stand to improve. The MacBook displays are excellent, particularly when it comes to colour reproduction, but for the past several years they default to a scaled display mode. For anyone not familiar, the frame buffer is a higher resolution, and scaled down for the display, trading sharpness for screen space. Evidently the drop in sharpness is imperceptible to most people, but I can certainly tell, to the point where I forego the extra space and drop it back to the native resolution. For a company that generally prides itself on its displays, I think the right option would be to just ship higher res panels matching the default resolution. They have also done this with certain iPhone displays over the years, but at 400+ppi it’s well within the imperceptible territory for most people. For the 200-something ppi display on the MacBooks, not so.
  - tomc1985 6y ago
    It's easy enough to set them to the native resolution first thing. They probably noticed a lot of people don't like small text and so they set the default to scaled
girvo 6y ago
As someone who adopted smartphones years before the iPhone: anyone who thinks the iPhone was just “incremental” is deluding themselves. The capacitive display alone was a game changer, let alone everything else.

by Dahoon 6y ago

peregren 6y ago

No sure about bleeding edge, because for the most part their products work but at different times they have defined: - Phones, (Original iPhone way ahead of competitors) - MP3 players (Original iPods) - Tablets, (Pretty much the only serious tablet as far as I can see) - Smart Watches, (Apple Watch still defines the category) - Ultra Books, (First MacBook Air) - All in One Desktop (iMac) - Mobile CPUs (Apple silicon has been way ahead for years) - Laptop CPUs (M1) This doesn't just all happen by making existing things more "User Friendly". This takes real innovation to pull off.

CharlesW 6y ago
> No sure about bleeding edge, because for the most part their products work but at different times they have defined: I'm ex-Apple and an Apple fan as much as anyone, but I also have the benefit of being old. Not to take anything away from Apple's collective accomplishments, in many of these categories I'd say they "redefined" more than "defined". There were many smartphones before the iPhone (the Palm Treos were great), many MP3 players before the iPod, many tablets before the iPad (the Microsoft Tablet PC came out about a decade before the first iPad), all-in-one PCs go back 40 years now, etc.
- valuearb 6y ago
  There were many computers before the Xerox Alto. Xerox never made the Macintosh because they missed key innovations such as regions, the Finder, consistent UI guidelines, the ability to put a usable GUI OS in an affordable package.
  - musicale 6y ago
    PARC was also bound to Xerox which had trouble seeing beyond its photocopier business.
    - valuearb 6y ago
      Doesn't matter what PARC's limitations were, what matters was the Macintosh was a huge innovation that created what the Xerox Alto and Star were missing.
- musicale 6y ago
  > I'd say they "redefined" more than "defined" Pretty much, and they did a pretty good job too. It's kind of the difference between invention and innovation. Apple certainly does invent things, but they are a superlative innovator.

qubitcoder 6y ago

Just in recent weeks: - M1 [0] - A14 in the iPhone 12 Pro (first 5-nanometer chip with 11.8 billion transistors) [1] Previously, they introduced the first 64-bit CPU in a mobile device, which stunned competitors at the time [2]. Not to mention their excellence in hi-dpi displays. In 2012, Apple launched the MacBook Pro a with "retina" display. It took _years_ for non-Apple alternatives to materialize. In fact, the only comparable laptop display in existence today would probably be the Dell XPS 17" UHD+ (which I own, and it's excellent). However, the MacBook Pro 16" remains superior when it comes to sound quality, form factor (i.e. weight), touch pad precision and latency, thermal performance, etc., despite significant investments from Dell in those areas to catch up. [3] [0]: https://www.apple.com/mac/m1/ https://www.apple.com/mac/m1/ [1]: https://www.apple.com/iphone-12-pro/ https://www.apple.com/iphone-12-pro/ [2]: https://www.forbes.com/sites/ewanspence/2015/01/21/iphone-5s-damaged-every-android-smartphone/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/ewanspence/2015/01/21/iphone-5s... [3]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=72vjKOSwf3M https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=72vjKOSwf3M

deergomoo 6y ago
> In 2012, Apple launched the MacBook Pro a with "retina" display. It took _years_ for non-Apple alternatives to materialize. Ironically this is now somewhere they could stand to improve. The MacBook displays are excellent, particularly when it comes to colour reproduction, but for the past several years they default to a scaled display mode. For anyone not familiar, the frame buffer is a higher resolution, and scaled down for the display, trading sharpness for screen space. Evidently the drop in sharpness is imperceptible to most people, but I can certainly tell, to the point where I forego the extra space and drop it back to the native resolution. For a company that generally prides itself on its displays, I think the right option would be to just ship higher res panels matching the default resolution. They have also done this with certain iPhone displays over the years, but at 400+ppi it’s well within the imperceptible territory for most people. For the 200-something ppi display on the MacBooks, not so.
- tomc1985 6y ago
  It's easy enough to set them to the native resolution first thing. They probably noticed a lot of people don't like small text and so they set the default to scaled

girvo 6y ago

As someone who adopted smartphones years before the iPhone: anyone who thinks the iPhone was just “incremental” is deluding themselves. The capacitive display alone was a game changer, let alone everything else.