I feel like you're echoing Clayton Christensen in this comment. It may be possible to escape the inevitable destruction he describes by sustaining a culture that cares about innovation.
The thing that woke me up to the Apple way was when I learnt that an early macbook did not need a crossover cable, because its ethernet adapter would auto-negotiate. In design terms, this was low-hanging fruit that was lying around for years. Nobody gets paid for innovations like that, so nobody did it. Until Apple did.
Imagine working at a normal company, and trying to implement that. You would be scorned by colleagues and middle managers as someone who does not focus on the bottom line.
I doubt that IBM, HP or Dell could execute a transition like M1. Apple maintains some spark that makes it possible.
> Can Apple outspend everybody else
The best things in engineering come from small teams who care about quality, and who are given room to chase it. No amount of spend or manpower can compensate for a lack of spark.
> in design terms, this was low-hanging fruit that was lying around for years. Nobody gets paid for innovations like that,
That is perhaps not the best example. Auto-MDI/X was pretty expected after auto-duplex and auto-speed. It was available in switches for years before it was available in NICs. This wasn't an Apple initiative. They probably sourced the autosensing NIC in your Macbook from some established vendor.
What held all three standards back, apart from the additional components and cost, was mainly compatibility issues. Early on, vendor incompatibilities caused autodetection to misfire sometimes, link drops made for a frustrating experience.
The thing that woke me up to the Apple way was when I learnt that an early macbook did not need a crossover cable, because its ethernet adapter would auto-negotiate. In design terms, this was low-hanging fruit that was lying around for years. Nobody gets paid for innovations like that, so nobody did it. Until Apple did.
Imagine working at a normal company, and trying to implement that. You would be scorned by colleagues and middle managers as someone who does not focus on the bottom line.
I doubt that IBM, HP or Dell could execute a transition like M1. Apple maintains some spark that makes it possible.
> Can Apple outspend everybody else
The best things in engineering come from small teams who care about quality, and who are given room to chase it. No amount of spend or manpower can compensate for a lack of spark.