2nd
How Apple has not listened to it’s past. And will again be trumped.
It seems like Apple has forever been a household name nowadays. Love ‘em or hate ‘em, it cleans the floor in the MP3 arena, and Apple Inc. has made it’s place in history with the elegance of it’s iPods and iPhones respectively. However it has not been plain sailing for this company, and I believe Apple Inc. could indeed be making the same mistakes of it’s past.
Apple was not always the success it seems today. See how many Apple products you can name before the original iPod in 2001. I’m sure the Fanboys will be shouting ‘Apple I-III’ or ‘Lisa’, none of which, may I point out were particularly awesome. This is probably where I should point out that Apple started on 1st April 1976. Microsoft was started almost exactly 1 year previous on the 4th of April ‘75. I repeat the question: how many Microsoft products can you name before the turn of the century? It doesn’t take much more than being over a certain age to remember Windows 95, 98, 2000; Encarta(s), Microsoft Office Suite, several online services including MSN Messenger. I’m not going to suggest that everything Microsoft has done has been good or even well recieved, but it would be impossible to suggest that Microsoft has not changed the face of modern-day computing.
After Steve Jobs was ousted from his own company due to infighting, Apple sunk even lower than before. The Macintosh had been out ahead for a period of time, but lack of innovation on a large scale, meant they were overtaken by Microsoft and it’s Windows platform. It would be many years before this company returned to any decent profitability.
In the late ’80s Apple brought out the ‘Newton’ which is said to be the grandfather of the iPhone. A terrible device in so many ways, summed up exactly where the company was. Floundering. It was only the return of Steve Jobs that saw a turn around in buy-ability. The iMac was introduced, which were the bright-coloured-backed computers that can still be seen around in films of the age. The dawn of development had started at Apple and with the success of the iPod, the company moved it’s goal-posts away from computing to consumer electronics. So much so that in 2007, Apple Computer Inc. dropped the middle word in it’s title.
The iPhone was a revolution. No question. It not only pushed the mobile phone market forward to the 21st century, but was a quantum leap in the quality of build, in touch-screen smartphones. The software was good if not yet polished, but had the capacity, with the huge app. catalogue brought out a year later to be ever-compelling. The subsequent releases of the 3G, 3GS and 4 all took this platform on a stage. But here I find the problem. Apple of 2010 is doing what Apple of circa 1987 did. It is stagnating through lack of innovation. The iPad runs the same software as my iPod. Apple is not going to take a chance and change the whole thing at the risk of losing everything. Unfortunately, risk is what has defined companies. It’s the reason many products today exist. If Apple don’t take a few risks soon, people who can buy from an array of cheaper, Google-powered Android phones (that can be held how they like) will do and Apple will be overtaken again, all because it was sitting back and admiring it’s current glory.
It would be insane to assume Apple is over, but I believe the road from here may well be harder than Apple and Jobs would like to think.