

What makes Apple revolutionary? - wicknicks
http://bigthink.com/ideas/31547

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pedalpete
Though I agree with the comments re: Henry Ford's 'people would have asked for
a faster horse' (and disappointed that this is now being proposed as Steve's
gift to the world, rather than Ford). I don't see where Apple continually does
this.

They are rarely first to the market with cutting edge technologies, it seems
to me they learn from where others have failed. With the exception of the
original Mac, which I believe was the first consumer platform built around the
GUI .

Looking at other products, iPod - other hard-drive mp3 players were in the
market, usability was horrible as was the tools for getting music on to the
devices. Had you asked people what they wanted in an MP3 player, they would
have said 'one that I can figure out how to use, get music on, and can carry
my entire music collection'.

iPhone - Palm, Windows, Blackberry and Symbian had all already been in the
market. Touch screens were just becoming good enough that we didn't need a
stylus. Web browsing on the existing devices was horrible. If you had asked
people what they wanted, they would have said 'i hate always having to use the
stylus (which I often loose), and I want a better way to surf the web'. Let's
not forget, Blackberry had maps, apps, and a non-javascript enabled browser.
These things weren't new, they just weren't as good.

iPad - Similar to the iPhone, good quality thin touch-screen sizes became
available (no need for a stylus). Windows had been making 'tablet' computers
for years. There WAS a big innovation here in putting iOS instead of OSX on
the device. But we'll have to wait and see when Windows8 comes out if that is
actually truly an innovation that people require, or if that is just what we
have today. But we should also look to products like the AT&T communicator and
Newton <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EO_Personal_Communicator> as early
predecessors to the iPad.

Why is Apple 'revolutionary'?? Personally, I don't think they are. A
revolution requires an 'overthrow of a government or social order for a new
system'. Hopefully we don't look only at revenues to define a revolution.
Apple are evolutionary. What am I doing today because of Apple that I wouldn't
be doing if they didn't exist (I'm typing this on a Mac by the way).

I think the Siri technology can be 'revolutionary' depending on how it is
implemented. Is there going to be an API that developers can use, and how will
they leverage that capability?

Another way I look at is, that Apple is giving us our imagined future, which I
don't think is actually revolutionary. Sci-fi films have had touch devices for
ever, and we've steadily moved toward making these a reality.

If all of a sudden tomorrow we started teleporting people, that would be
revolutionary, as it isn't a small step in our current capabilities, rather it
is a giant leap from where we are now.

~~~
technoslut
>Why is Apple 'revolutionary'?? Personally, I don't think they are. A
revolution requires an 'overthrow of a government or social order for a new
system'.

I couldn't disagree more. Look at the impact of the iPhone. Motorola, Nokia,
Palm, RIM and Windows Mobile have either changed their business, their impact
on the marketplace has been greatly reduced or are out of business. This is
the effect of a revolution. Had the iPhone not been revolutionary there
wouldn't have been this kind of disruption in the market and it wouldn't have
taken years for other OSes to catch up.

This is the same for the iPad. HP, the largest PC maker, has left the business
and cited the iPad as one of the main reasons.

