The Economist on Apple, the iPhone, and Innovation

portscan writes "This week's Economist has a special report on Apple, Inc. and innovation. 'The fourth lesson from Apple is to "fail wisely". The Macintosh was born from the wreckage of the Lisa, an earlier product that flopped; the iPhone is a response to the failure of Apple's original music phone, produced in conjunction with Motorola. Both times, Apple learned from its mistakes and tried again. Its recent computers have been based on technology developed at NeXT, a company Mr Jobs set up in the 1980s that appeared to have failed and was then acquired by Apple. The wider lesson is not to stigmatize failure but to tolerate it and learn from it: Europe's inability to create a rival to Silicon Valley owes much to its tougher bankruptcy laws.' There is also an article on the business of the iPhone and the future of the company. "

Comments

Apples the king at failing

[Richard McBeef]

I mean, hell, they've been a doomed company for what 10 years now? 12?

Re:Apples the king at failing

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, they're failing to the tune of billions dollars of year in profits. What on Earth if wrong with this doomed company?

Exactly. They can't even fail as a company without screwing it up by making a profit.

The fact that they are continuously failing at failing is proof that the aforementioned pattern doesn't always hold. Obviously, this means that the article is wrong and that the iPhone will be a failure and could result in the company finally managing to fail which would in turn actually validate the article which would mean the iPhone WON'T be a failure and instead will cause the article itself to dissapear in a puff of logic.

Of course, this whole argument might just be a load of dingo's kidneys. But that's never stopped people from speculating on Apple rumors.

Not to stigmatize failure but to tolerate it

[Anonymous Coward]

I keep telling that to my father.

Re:Bleh

[Applekid]

It's pretty much on-target within the Apple Product Cycle.

Obligatory link to The Onion

[angle_slam]

Oooh, Look At Me, I Read The Economist!

Same with Microsoft

[rlp]

Apple learned from its mistakes and tried again

Same with Microsoft, except it usually takes them three tries.

Re:Same with Microsoft

[Fnord666]

Same with Microsoft, except it usually takes them three tries.

I thought it was three tries before they gave up and just bought some company that already knew what it was doing.

Re:Same with Microsoft

[drinkypoo]

I thought it was three tries before they gave up and just bought some company that already knew what it was doing.

Close. They have to buy three companies before they get a product worth putting their name on.

Of course, that doesn't stop them from marketing the two other products as well. Sometimes concurrently.

Makes sense!

[Shky]

I tried telling my parents when I was in high school that those were *wise* failures they were seeing on the report cards. If only this article had been around back then...

Re:Bias

[Applekid]

"Just look at the stability of the latest IIS vs the earlier ones, for example."

Clearly that was stolen from Apache. ;)

Look at it this way, when my sister walks into the women's locker room, she's greeted and smiles and can go about her business. When I walk into the women's locker room, it's screams and thrown soap and a visit from the police. Talk about unfair!

The Other Obligatory Link To The Onion

[justinbach]

Don't forget about the new product-unveiling product!

Re:elite

[seebs]

You seem to be totally unaware that some things are actually better than other things, and some things are purely about status.

Not all status symbols are actually good. Most decent restaurants are actually better than fast food, but what exactly does a Rolex do that a regular watch doesn't?

A good segment of the population are, to put it bluntly, fucking morons who will believe anything they see on TV. That does not exactly bolster your case.

Re:Appeared to have failed?

[Weedlekin]

"The only NeXT technology that appears in Apple computers is BSD."

Well, there's Interface Builder. They got that from NeXT. But apart from Interface Builder and BSD, there are no NeXT technologies whatsoever in current Apple computers. Except of course for Cocoa, which is heavily based on NextStep/OpenStep, hence the fact that it has all those classes with names prefixed by "NS". But with the exception of BSD, Interface Builder, and Cocoa, there are no NeXT technologies in Apple computers at all. Unless of course you count Objective-C as a "technology", which NeXt licensed for programming in NeXTStep and OpenStep while Macs were being programmed in Pascal and C++. But I agree that apart from BSD, Interface Builder, Cocoa, and Objective-C, Apple computers are completely devoid of NeXT technologies. OK, I'll admit that Portable Distributed Objects also came from NeXT. I'll give way on that one. But if you discount BSD, Interface Builder, Cocoa, Objective-C, and PDO, current Apple computers are totally and completely free from NeXT technologies. Utterly without _anything_ from NeXT. Honestly. I mean, WebObjects, which is admittedly a NeXT technology, isn't even installed on most Macs, so _the majority_ of Macs are free from it. Well, they are. Really. So I can, without any pangs of conscience, categorically state that, with the exception of...

Since I've got some karma to burn:

[jstockdale]

I mean, hell, they've been a doomed company for what 10 years now? 12?

Just longer than FreeBSD's been dying if I recall correctly ;-)

Netcraft confirms it!

(In Soviet Russia Netcraft confirms YOU!)

*ducks*

Re:Over hyped? No, genuine excitement.

[BigDumbAnimal]

egads. I need an editor. Have you tried emacs?