Apple Versus Google Innovation Strategies

porsche911 writes "The NY Times has a great story comparing the top-down versus bottom-up innovation approaches of Apple and Google. From the article: '"There is nothing democratic about innovation," says Paul Saffo, a veteran technology forecaster in Silicon Valley. "It is always an elite activity, whether by a recognized or unrecognized elite."'"

Comments

On Jobs and consumer market research

[Tablizer]

When asked what market research went into the company's elegant product designs, Steve Jobs had a standard answer: none. "It's not the consumers' job to know what they want," he would add.

This is misleading. Jobs usual answer was closer to, "Customers really don't know what they want until they actually use it."

He liked to quote Henry Ford:

"If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said 'faster horses'."

Right, the 'Openness of Apple' Really Got Me

[eldavojohn]

Needs one kind of elite to innovate, and another kind of elite to monopolize, shut down, put trivial patents around that innovations or other "innovative" measures to avoid them to succeed.

Heh, I got some laughs out of reading this article as well:

Yet Apple has also repeatedly displayed its openness to new ideas and influences as exemplified by the visit that Mr. Jobs made to the Palo Alto research center of Xerox in 1979. He saw an experimental computer with a point-and-click mouse and graphical on-screen icons, which he adopted at Apple. It later became the standard for the personal computer industry.

Is "adopted" the right word here? It's funny how some people consider that same "influence" to be stealing.

In 2010, Apple bought Siri, a personal assistant application for smartphones. At the time, it was a small start-up in Silicon Valley that originated as a program funded by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency of the Pentagon. Last year, Siri became the talking question-answering application on iPhones.

So those are you examples for 'repeatedly displayed its openness to new ideas and influences'? They "borrow" and idea and then they buy up and assimilate a start-up? Well, if that's your frame of reference, Microsoft excels at openness too! I know this article is not even trying to be exhaustive but Android isn't even mentioned once. I don't understand how Apple can even be called "open" when compared with Google's offerings to everyone.

general business vs. the pursuit of knowledge

[recharged95]

Top Down == innovation for the sake of business (value)
Bottom Up == innovation for the sake of knowledge (evolution)

Hasn't changed for thousands of years if you think about it. Aside from the power hunger dictator once in a while.

Re:apple does market research

[rjstanford]

apple has never released a brand new unique product that no one ever has

And, of course, neither has Google. They took existing ideas that were rapidly becoming seen as vital and did them in a more cohesive, higher quality way then their competitors.

Just like Apple did.