Comment by toyg

18 hours ago

> the "new" Apple where the innovation comes from fine-tuning

That's actually the old Apple. Before the iPhone (and after Jobs' return) it was their standard operation procedure: the iMac was a refined workstation, the AirPort was a refined WiFi router, the Time Machine was a refined NAS, the iPod was a refined MP3 player...

Even after the iPad, they mostly cranked out middling stuff like the airPods, all the way to the Vision. They would take whatever good idea was floating around the hardware market, give it a careful polish, and sell it at twice the price. And there is nothing wrong with that - constantly chasing revolutions is risky (see the Vision).

5 comments

toyg

Reply
WoodenChair  18 hours ago

> the iMac was a refined workstation, the AirPort was a refined WiFi router, the Time Machine was a refined NAS, the iPod was a refined MP3 player...

The word "refined" is doing a lot of work here. Just a few examples:

- The iMac had a design unlike any desktop computer before it.

- While a couple products had come before it, AirPort was the first affordable, mass-market consumer Wi-Fi router.

- The iPod was the first MP3 player to incorporate the then brand new 1.8" Toshiba hard drives that enabled it to have for the time incredible capacity for the package size. And Apple innovated with the click-wheel user interface.

All three of these products most people would see as much more than "refinements" but actually big innovations compared to what was already available in the market.

  • toyg  14 hours ago

    > The iMac had a design unlike any desktop computer before it.

    Debatable, but it was still just a personal computer - sure, refined in exterior, but inside it was still just a workstation.

    > AirPort was the first affordable, mass-market consumer Wi-Fi router.

    Absolutely not. There were plenty already on the market. Was it the first one to have a name, rather than some crappy codename? Maybe. But mostly it was the polished version of an existing product.

    > The iPod was the first MP3 player to incorporate the then brand new 1.8" Toshiba hard drives

    It was still an MP3 player, there were already loads on the market - some even with similar capacity. It was refined in UI, yes.

    > most people would see as much more than "refinements"

    Most people with no knowledge of the market, maybe. Everyone in the space marvelled at the skills Apple displayed in taking existing products, refining them, and selling them like they were the first-ever products in those segments. That's when the "reality distortion field" was first described.

    This is also why, multiple times, established players failed to understand these products would succeed - see the famous quips about the Zune and later the iPhone. Everyone knew those products existed already, they just did not grasp how Apple's knack for polishing (and marketing) could make such a big difference.

    • WoodenChair  8 hours ago

      > Absolutely not. There were plenty already on the market. Was it the first one to have a name, rather than some crappy codename? Maybe. But mostly it was the polished version of an existing product.

      Please tell us about the mass market, affordable, WiFi routers before AirPort. Links please. AirPort came out in July, 1999. Apple did deep negotiations with Lucent to get the price of the equipment down. And they also innovated with an incredibly easy to use software interface that set the standard for WiFi products to this day. I don't know what products you're talking about that came before it that similarly cost $100 for client and $300 for router.

      And if you can't see why great product and user interface design can be a type of big innovation (re iMac, iPod) then you're blind.