Apple is rarely first to the party. They wait until the tech is ready for prime time and until they have an implementation that makes sense and feels inevitable. Then the rest of the industry tends to uses that as the model and shifts to copy them.
Apple didn’t make the first MP3 player, but once they made the iPod, everyone wanted an iPod. It was cool. Most other players pivoted to be more iPod-like.
Apple didn’t make the first smart phone. Smart phones were semi-niche devices for businessmen and nerds. Once the iPhone came out, everyone wanted it and the whole market changed.
Apple didn’t make the first smart watch, but once they did, their smart watch was more capable and integrated than the others and went on to outsell Rolex.
Apple didn’t make the first tablet. Microsoft tried to push the idea repeatedly 10 years earlier. Apple waited and came out with the iPad once multitouch was a thing and they could build an OS around touch. 15 years after its launch, it’s still the only tablet anyone actually talks about.
Steve Jobs talked about putting the customer experience first and selecting technologies that will be around for the next 10+ years, rather than chasing the latest bleeding edge tech, just to say you’re using it and trying to find a way to shoehorn it in.
To know what tech is going to stick around and to find how to best implement it takes time for things to mature a little bit. This means sacrificing the bleeding edge for a more thoughtful and stable approach.
Tim Cook doesn’t have the same kind of vision as Jobs, so I think some of this has been lost, but this has been their history for a long time, and one of the reasons why they’ve been so successful.
Tablets; Soldering SSD's and ram to the motherboard.
Microsoft had tablets for a decade before the iPad came out. You rarely ever saw them in the wild. In fact, you still rarely see a Surface tablet. At least, I don't.
When I was at Rice University around the turn of the century, I remember playing with a large expensive monitor running a Windows computer. It was so futuristically fantastical that you could touch the screen to do things. Extremely clunky, but cool. Just a bit too tedious to do anything more than play with it, because trying to get actual work done on it all the time would have been a chore.
Many years later, I was working for a startup called kWhOURS in a little old house in East Cambridge, Massachusetts. Our target users were engineers used to paying thousands for the rugged and expensive Windows laptops we needed to deploy our Adobe AIR tablet app onto since they had a touchscreen. Still a clunky UI, but our software was usable. Then the iPad was released, and it was literally worlds apart, something people have long taken for granted. All of us, including Adobe, were taken by surprise, because all attempts at tablets prior to that were so far inferior to Apple's version, and competitors spent many years trying to catch up.
Who's buying those Samsung and Walmart ONN tablets by the truckload then? Tablets for kids are the equivalent of portable DVD players in the 2000s - a commodified device to play Netflix and Youtube on. There is no point in paying an Apple premium for something that's likely to be easily broken and need replacing.
Tablet were pretty commonly used by delivery drivers and other employees of national corporations who came to my apartment building, but I don't know for sure that they ran Windows.
Weeeeelllll that was mainstream a long long time before they adopted it. And I'm still annoyed that the only devices with Lightning in our house are my Airpods en iPhone mini 12 and wife's iPhone 14 Pro.
Always need to attach an adapter to my Anker chargers and powerbanks.
“Cool” is subjective, so you can use that to dismiss any example, but you know exactly what is being referenced.
> “Cool” is subjective, so you can use that to dismiss any example
You can't use cool to argue against me. It was in the comment I replied to.
> but you know exactly what is being referenced
No, I don't, which is why I asked. Mind explaining instead of being coy?
Apple is rarely first to the party. They wait until the tech is ready for prime time and until they have an implementation that makes sense and feels inevitable. Then the rest of the industry tends to uses that as the model and shifts to copy them.
Apple didn’t make the first MP3 player, but once they made the iPod, everyone wanted an iPod. It was cool. Most other players pivoted to be more iPod-like.
Apple didn’t make the first smart phone. Smart phones were semi-niche devices for businessmen and nerds. Once the iPhone came out, everyone wanted it and the whole market changed.
Apple didn’t make the first smart watch, but once they did, their smart watch was more capable and integrated than the others and went on to outsell Rolex.
Apple didn’t make the first tablet. Microsoft tried to push the idea repeatedly 10 years earlier. Apple waited and came out with the iPad once multitouch was a thing and they could build an OS around touch. 15 years after its launch, it’s still the only tablet anyone actually talks about.
Steve Jobs talked about putting the customer experience first and selecting technologies that will be around for the next 10+ years, rather than chasing the latest bleeding edge tech, just to say you’re using it and trying to find a way to shoehorn it in.
To know what tech is going to stick around and to find how to best implement it takes time for things to mature a little bit. This means sacrificing the bleeding edge for a more thoughtful and stable approach.
Tim Cook doesn’t have the same kind of vision as Jobs, so I think some of this has been lost, but this has been their history for a long time, and one of the reasons why they’ve been so successful.
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Tablets; Soldering SSD's and ram to the motherboard.
Microsoft had tablets for a decade before the iPad came out. You rarely ever saw them in the wild. In fact, you still rarely see a Surface tablet. At least, I don't.
When I was at Rice University around the turn of the century, I remember playing with a large expensive monitor running a Windows computer. It was so futuristically fantastical that you could touch the screen to do things. Extremely clunky, but cool. Just a bit too tedious to do anything more than play with it, because trying to get actual work done on it all the time would have been a chore.
Many years later, I was working for a startup called kWhOURS in a little old house in East Cambridge, Massachusetts. Our target users were engineers used to paying thousands for the rugged and expensive Windows laptops we needed to deploy our Adobe AIR tablet app onto since they had a touchscreen. Still a clunky UI, but our software was usable. Then the iPad was released, and it was literally worlds apart, something people have long taken for granted. All of us, including Adobe, were taken by surprise, because all attempts at tablets prior to that were so far inferior to Apple's version, and competitors spent many years trying to catch up.
Indeed, "iPad" is almost a generic term for "tablet," especially for kids.
Who's buying those Samsung and Walmart ONN tablets by the truckload then? Tablets for kids are the equivalent of portable DVD players in the 2000s - a commodified device to play Netflix and Youtube on. There is no point in paying an Apple premium for something that's likely to be easily broken and need replacing.
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>You rarely ever saw them in the wild.
Tablet were pretty commonly used by delivery drivers and other employees of national corporations who came to my apartment building, but I don't know for sure that they ran Windows.
UPS uses what are called DIADS made by Honeywell. I've seen Fedex and Amazon use regular android phones as far as I'm aware.
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> Soldering SSD's and ram to the motherboard
Oh yeah, that's been awesome for the consumer.
Consumer wasn't mentioned.
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USB-C I guess?
Weeeeelllll that was mainstream a long long time before they adopted it. And I'm still annoyed that the only devices with Lightning in our house are my Airpods en iPhone mini 12 and wife's iPhone 14 Pro.
Always need to attach an adapter to my Anker chargers and powerbanks.
I think the person you’re replying to meant MacBooks. They were USB-C exclusively way before Windows machines.
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Airpods