Apple iPhone and related items (cont.)
- Thread starter editor
- Start date
Sunray
Its sunny somewhere.
Perhaps, but they redefined personal computing with the iPad only a few years ago.
These things take a long time to make well and Apple do make nice kit. They have only created three new things in 13 years.
Its folly to predict they aren't going to do it again?
editor
hiraethified
Not for me they didn't.
RedDragon
"I am not one of your fans!"
I'm a stickle for my laptop, I can't remember the last time I touched my iPad other than to pass to the other half.
beesonthewhatnow
going deaf for a living
FridgeMagnet
Administrator
I am myself watching Apple's recent activities and design direction with a frown, but not because of the 5S "lacking innovation". Seriously. "Oh it didn't have any timewasting features that Engadget can write about and then forget in a month, Samsung has a phone that knows what colour your pants are, SELL APPL". If anything it encourages me to think that Apple aren't cocking about with pointless shit on what is a solid brand. Okay, apart from the fingerprint lock.
editor
hiraethified
But there has been interesting and genuinely useful innovation elsewhere - Google Now, NFC, larger screen sizes, widgets etc - that Apple have either largely chosen to ignore or just to quietly steal (Android notifications, Palm OS cards, Windows flat look etc).
Sunray
Its sunny somewhere.
I'm a stickle for my laptop, I can't remember the last time I touched my iPad other than to pass to the other half.
I was a big skeptic on iPads. The full iPads are just too heavy. They made it perfect when they made the mini. Use it all the time.
RedDragon
"I am not one of your fans!"
I have a MBP retina and an iPad retina - but what would be ideal would be the iPad-mini retina
Sunray
Its sunny somewhere.
None of that is innovation.
I have a MBP retina and an iPad retina - but what would be ideal would be the iPad-mini retina
I don't wait for stuff that doesn't exist. If and when comes out, i'll buy one, but until that point, I'll enjoy my Mini which both exists and I own.
editor
hiraethified
Er, yes it is. Google Now is genuinely useful and although not fully formed is far more of an advance than changing the icon colours around a bit or creating even more high powered, battery-sucking CPUs.
editor
hiraethified
Thank goodness Apple saw sense after Jobs died and copied what their competitors were doing. Smaller tablets are far more flexible than thumping great heavy 10 inch ones.
souljacker
innit
You wouldn't have your nexus 7 if it wasn't for the iPad.
sim667
All aboard the 303 bus.
I'd disagree with that.
Saw my first ipad mini today, not stoked. Much prefer my ipad 4.
souljacker
innit
I agree with this article somewhat. In the without-Jobs decline period of the '90s, it was a company that seemed to want to become some giant IBM like behemoth, which was all about share prices and having products for every sector of the IT space (including some weird home user stuff too). When Jobs returned, he streamlined it all and began the Johnny Ive era of slick products and slick marketing that meant they could actually justify to consumers the high prices and margins.
Now he's gone and all the talk is about stock prices, share buyouts and the like.
editor
hiraethified
Ah, the Reality Distortion Field in action!
souljacker
innit
What do you mean?
editor
hiraethified
Apple refined the concept, but tablets were around long before the iPad and technology was already moving in that direction. To suggest that no tablet would exist today if it wasn't for Apple is a nonsense.
Look - here's an tablet concept from 1968.
souljacker
innit
I didn't suggest that at all. But they created the mass market of tablets. If you can't admit that then you are being stubborn.
Name one tablet from before the iPad and then tell me if it was any good. If you can, I'll give you a biscuit.
editor
hiraethified
That's not what you were arguing. You were claiming that no other tablets wouldn't exist today if it wasn't for the iPad.
souljacker
innit
No I didnt. I said you wouldn't have a nexus 7 if it weren't for the iPad.
editor
hiraethified
Oh right. So you're arguing that one specific tablet wouldn't exist if the iPad hadn't been invented?
souljacker
innit
Oh right. So you're arguing that one specific tablet wouldn't exist if the iPad hadn't been invented?
Come on, its not rocket science. I'm arguing that home user consumer grade tablets would not exist if it wasn't for the iPad. Or, if they did exist, they would still be a rather shit niche product.
Did you ever get a go on some of the shite 'tablets' that were around pre-iPad? They were comically bad.
editor
hiraethified
I didn't realise Apple were such visionaries. The tablet form factor had already entered the mainstream thanks to the Kindle (released 2007) and several other manufacturers were working with the format. Apple refined it and certainly accelerated consumer interest with their superslick offering but if you're arguing that tablets would never have happened to this day (as in the Nexus) without the iPad, then I disagree very strongly indeed.
Kid_Eternity
Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?
Tomorrow? Also, is it coming out for iPad? They didn't make a big deal about it at the keynote last week...
Kid_Eternity
Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?
I think I'll leave the update for a few days, so how it beds in with braver users.
Yeah also the servers will get caned tomorrow evening so updating will probably be a right arseache...
beesonthewhatnow
going deaf for a living
OK, the Nexus in its current form wouldn't exist.
Kid_Eternity
Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?
Nah you're wrong.
elbows
Well-Known Member
It's impossible to say for sure where tablets would have been by 2013 without the iPad. Even with smartphones it's impossible to guess where they would have been by now without the iPhone, since touch-screen phones already existed when the iPhone came out but they were mostly crap for a number of reasons. It's hard to say how quickly others may have risen to the challenge of putting together a multitouch screen and mobile OS that wasn't annoying and had great developer & user momentum behind it. Have to imagine that others would have got there eventually, and apple accelerated things not by being especially innovative, but by simply making products that consisted of a different set of compromises to those other manufacturers chose at the time.
We can say that a few android tablets that were not very good existed before the iPad, e.g. by the likes of Archos.
And as I suggested at the time, the Nexus 7 was probably a response to a number of things:
Amazon somewhat spoiling Googles entire reason for making Android (to get people using Google services etc).
To try and improve the state of android tablet apps.
Non-Amazon android tablets costing too much money, and not enough of them being sold.
We can also look back at the first 30 or so pages of the first u75 iPad thread to see what people were really thinking at the time. Its a very mixed bag, and no surprises that people like editor were skeptical, although he did wonder if he would look back in 6 months and kick himself for not realising what a soaraway success the iPad was destined to be.
Anyway rather than indulge in the usual arguments I will attempt once again to put all of this stuff not in terms of innovation, but simply different sets of compromises. If we look at the set compromises that arguably were part of the design that made the iPad and the iPhone successes, we can see that some limitations became the accepted norm that helped enable competing products to come to fruition, but others provided room for competitors to differentiate themselves from Apple. Here are some of the most obvious examples:
Limitations mostly accepted and also present in most competing devices:
Lack of Adobe Flash support.
Lack of removable battery.
App Stores.
Not the same versions of apps that we are used to running on desktops etc.
Compromises not so often present in Android etc:
Lack of external storage (usb & memory cards)
Obviously its more complicated than that, with degrees of flexibility in terms of choice of App stores, and Samsung in particular trying to bring back some stuff in some of their niche devices that Apple threw away such as multitasking with more than one app on the screen at once, stylus, etc.
I place no bets as to whether Apple will succeed many years into the future, but I certainly don't think they need to innovate as often as some seem to think they do. They can live with quite a lot of competition and loss of market share, and slow incremental upgrades to product spec. And they set the scene for us all to have lots more decent phones & tablets to choose from by giving these segments a kick up the arse back in the day. Efficient mobile OS, good use of multitouch-screen and App Stores were the solid foundation that we got earlier than we would have done without Apples iOS gamble.
And I do believe that even if Steve Jobs hadn't died, they would have done an iPad mini eventually. Perhaps a little later than they did without Jobs, but when alive he wasn't afraid to contradict himself just a few years later, and I see no reason why it would have been any different with smaller tablets.
Similar threads
