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Don't Panic, But We've Passed Peak Apple (and Google, and Facebook)
waderoush writes "Over the last decade, just three companies — Google, Apple, and Facebook — have generated most of the new ideas and most of the business momentum in the world of computing. (Add in Amazon, if you're feeling generous.) But it's been a long time since any of these companies introduced anything indisputably new — and there are good reasons to think they never will again. This Xconomy essay argues that the innovation engines at Google, Apple, and Facebook are out of gas (the most surprising thing about OS X Mavericks is that it's not named after a cat) and that other players will have to come up with the underpinnings for the next big cycle of advances in computing. Granted, it's not as if any of these companies will disappear. But the idea that they'll go on generating ideas as groundbreaking as the ones that landed them in the spotlight defies common sense, statistics, and the lessons of history, which show that real innovation almost always comes from small companies. Apple, Google, and Facebook aren't too big to fail — but they may be too big to keep succeeding."
When all your in-house innovation leads to outhouse fabrication, you can easily switch gears. Buy everyone who innovates and shut out any possible competition. It's been the premier business road map for centuries.
When the foot seeks the place of the head, the line is crossed. Know your place. Keep your place. Be a shoe.
But I won't believe it till Netcraft confirms it.
To be fair, once Google gets their cars that drive themselves, glasses that give me information at all times, and provide TV/phone services through a high speed fiber connection for cheaper than anyone else, I'm ok if they take a break for a bit and coast, just improving what they've already done. THEN they can start on the jetpacks, holograms, and teleportation.
Waiting for an amusing sig.
Google Glass is not completely new? In what way?
Yes there has been VR before and there has been AR before but not like this and not in a format digestable by any consumer.
I seriously think Glass is going to change the way people operate.
Summary says: Apple, Google and Facebook "areN'T too big too fail". Shouldn't it it say "are too big to fail" ? Makes more sense IMHO...
Apple has always been more about taking the technology available and packaging it into something easy to use and accessible. Unless technology itself has stopped evolving, I see no reason to see why this can't continue. The problem is, people have been accustomed to assuming that the Next Big Thing is necessarily going to happen every year or two. This is asking too much.
Amazon: they're a retailer. Their innovation is being online, and are rather good at it. That's it. There doesn't seem to be any obvious next big thing in selling stuff. Google is in the business of online search, applications and so forth. They're always coming out with new stuff, but there are diminishing returns on how it will change my life. We've arrived in the post-internet era. Calm down, enjoy, stop caring about the Next Big Thing. It may come, it may not. I realise this isn't good news for the online media, but so be it.
Data is abiotically generated by natural entropic processes in the mantle of novel pragma. As yet we have only skirted the edges of the Mandelbrot Set because we are fond of semantic connectitude. But research into anomalous fusion has hinted that some day we may find a way to plumb the depths of the Lake to find the answers to life's Big Questions, and a joke whose punchline would make the cosmos shudder, then contract.
I'm already there.
<blink>down the rabbit hole</blink>
I would not have asked the question if FB was not in the set. Arguable almost innovation is just a significant (or sometimes not so) improvement of existing stuff. FB has not done anything however that would qualify as improvement. At least I fail to see any improvement FB actually made. I guess I am too old.
These companies cannot easily or quickly go way beyond their current expertise, like for example investigating human genome related innovations, but that does not mean that they cannot be transformative again. Apple as an example has released a lot of transformative products in a short time frame: iPod, iphone, ipad, macbook air have all been hugely influential. It is perhaps too high an expactations to expect them to keep up the current pace. However I think that the smartwatch, once it get released, can be another transformative step towards a world of in essence invisible, wearable computing. Google glass falls also in this category. I can also imagine that these companies will continue to buy up small companies with really good new ideas. Didn't Apple and Google each buy home automation companies? That is another area where I expect transformative products.
There is a lot of the next big thing coming up and as far as the big 3 mentioned it will come from Apple in the form of a smart watch and hopefully their tv. With Google it will be from their smart glasses and automated cars. As far as the rest it will come from visionaries outside of those companies like Elon Musk with EV, spacex, and hopefully lives long enough superloop. The rest of the next big (consumer) thing will come from the 3D printing and robotics.
They are getting so much persona data from us all that they need to build 'n' more data centers around the world to process it all let alone all the data they are going to get from Glass.
Thankfully, if you Google for me, you come up with nothing. How long can I get away with this? My guess that not very long, eventually everyone will be have there relationship with everyone else mapped out all nice and cleanly and pretty for their NSA Overlords.
Google, the worldwide arm of the NSA. The world is sleep walking onto a surveileance state where the uSA is watching everyone in the world legally or not, they don't care really.
This article must be flamebait. Google didnt invent much, there were dozens of search engines when it came around. Web mail was already thought up when it came around. Even facebook didnt invent, the profile thing had already been implemented by numerous other people. It was mainly marketing and repackaging of existing ideas. All innovation has come from three companies? Give me a break,
I guess this isn't happening then? http://www.google.com/loon/
Maybe whoever wrote this article isn't impressed by interesting things that these companies create. Do they believe that because they are big and their innovations should also be "big"? This article is stupid.
Innovation comes from minds and the minds that invent the next big things can be in big companies just as easily as small ones. Link bait.
Without pioneering folks like Jack Kilby, you think we have electronic computers ?
Without hardware providers such as Intel which transformed CPU into affordable commodity items, you think we get $399 iPhone/iPad ?
And by the way, what kind of "innovation" FB has brought to the world ?
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
When all your in-house innovation leads to outhouse fabrication
How much innovation is needed to fabricate a tiny room?
Buy everyone who innovates and shut out any possible competition
In this case, I believe you mean shit out any possible competition.
Facebook was the result of some epic timing, but I can't necessarily call them innovative. Before Facebook, there were some pretty well populated social networks, Myspace being the one whose problems they solved, but Geocities, AIM, and IRC before it also helped break ground. Facebook brought very few foundational ideas to the table.
Apple is a victim of its own success. No matter what they release, it will be compared to the iPhone (which brought smartphones and data plans to the masses), or the iPad (which all but started the tablet PC market). Very few companies have ever had products that successful, and the fact of the matter is that it's nearly impossible to maintain that momentum consistently.
Google might have a handful of good ideas left in it, but they have a different problem. When they started, it was basically a haven for geeks where they could throw Jell-O at the wall and see what stuck. I'm certain that there were projects that spent a week being added to the drawing board and were never pursued, to say nothing of the projects that have ultimately been scrapped over time. The problem is that Google has financial expectations on it now, which means that the geeks who could come up with some innovative ideas need to allocate their time pursuant to whether they can meet their deadlines. This kind of thinking leaves a lot of the gambling on the table.
Amazon doesn't need much innovation. They're the Wal-Mart of the internet, and this isn't a bad thing. They all but 'personify' the term "economies of scale". .If it's a good idea, Amazon can throw resources at it, whether it be servers, distribution, money, or audience. They have all of these things in great abundance, and generally keep their customers happy with cheap prices and (unlike wal-mart) generally very good customer service, and do so extremely efficiently. As long as they keep doing this, and do it as well as they have been for nearly 20 years, then they will continue to be profitable.
The problem with innovation in this context is that it doesn't seem to count, except when it does. The Newton was innovative. The PocketPC was, at some level, innovative. "Innovation" isn't what's being looked for. What is being looked for is "Innovation that immediately captures the public's attention and makes a substantial amount of money, market share, and mindshare in a very short period of time".
Innovation does NOT occur just in "big pieces" in hardware and software. Arguably, the major innovations done today affecting the 'big pieces' are logistical and nano-structure components. Jounalists often see only the forest, not the trees, so they can't see what has just popped out of the soil.
These innovations are leading to miniaturization at a fast rate, parts with new properties, electronics with new functions, multi-functions, faster performance and software that knows how to integrate functions across devices and time.
The innovations inside the new MacBook Air don't excite a journalist as he has "seen that before", but to an innovator there is a lot to see both in hardware, ICs, battery and software. People forget that the MacBook Air is about 1/4th of the weight of the old PowerBooks of a half dozen years back and are faster and work longer hours on a charge.
Improved software systems are easy for journalists to ignore because that requires testing and journalists are basically lazy on doing actual testing and comparisons and retrospective analysis as software systems improve.
Smart Watch? That's nothing more than what tinkerers were doing 10 years ago. Tech has just improved since then to make it less of a freakish side show idea.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
Just based on the title you can tell this is a bunch of crap. First, Apple hasn't invented anything new since the 80s and it's arguable if they ever did even then. Google came up with their search engine and Android, but other than that they've basically just bought up other companies that have had good ideas... wait, didn't they buy Android to? I don't care enough to look it up. And Facebook? What on earth did Facebook do?
As was always the case, all the innovation is coming from start ups and individuals in their basements that have good ideas. Then they go on to get bought by some larger company.
Finally. Apple. The irony of today's hippie. Facebook. The autist trap even the Extraverts walked in to. Google. Altavista. Thank you, goodbye. Time to get some REST.
Has nothing to do with the size, has everything to do with one mind (or rarely two) that run the company (or who no longer runs it). And I see correlation with how old they are (related to being driven perhaps). Companies aren't a democracy, when they lose their big innovator they just become run-of-the-mill from what I can observe.
-Ultimate Stickman Game Developer Infinite World Puzzler
I was unaware that designing your own processor and then shipping millions of devices based on it was "sucking off Intel" when Intel has exactly nothing to do with those processors or devices.
— Google, Apple, and Facebook — have generated most of the new ideas and most of the business momentum in the world of computing."
Stopped reading right there.
So yeah I'm only a top UNIX syadmin for a 100 billion dollar 150 year old company so I may be out of the loop. But Apple, Google, and Facebook are exactly no where to be found in our platforms. It's the usual suspects, IBM, HP, Microsoft, Oracle, even Redhat. Maybe little Johnny with his phone counts as the world of computing online. Yes, some people with Mac laptops bother us sometimes because they are just too cool to use company issued stuff and instead end up being the most annoying little buggers of all because nothing the company uses works on their cool machines and they actually think we are thrilled to help them every other week even though.. sorry rambling.
... these companies were founded on an initial innovation, but bought, borrowed or stole most of their innovation hence.
The truth is we don't know. Big groundbreaking ideas are rare which is why it is amazing Apple has had 3-4 in the entire history of the company (Not every year as media for some weird reason expects), Google 2-3 maybe, and Facebook 1. These companies simply refine existing ideas over and over and make them into great products. For example Google search was groundbreaking, but gmail was taking an existing idea and cleaning it up and making it something you might want to use. Google Earth was purchased from independent developers. Until someone reinvents the phone again we will likely never see a new product that takes off like iPhones and Android again, there is simply very few things almost all of the billions if people in the world wants to own. Breakthrough innovation is really rare, but it will continue to happen. In the mean time Google and Apple will refine like crazy (sorry, just can't bring myself to put Facebook in here) and continue to make great products.
Next big thing is TV? Are you kidding me? Really? How about go outside and like help people?
And what FB innovated in, exactly?
Their IPO was the easiest short sell, ever!
Google Glass is too nerd for common people.
I remember when the name "iPad" would provoke giggles.
I don't care if it's 90,000 hectares. That lake was not my doing.
Why would I even read the link if the first line of is an obvious, lazy, over-generalized lie?
"Over the last decade, just three companies — Google, Apple, and Facebook — have generated most of the new ideas and most of the business momentum in the world of computing."
Only a moron who's view of computing comes from the pages of Time magazine would make such a pathetic, sweeping overgeneralization ignoring the vast innovations that have been happening in the wold of computing, driven by thousands of innovative startups. Linux, cloud computing and a dozen other area have thrown up a wide variety of innovations that have nothing to do do with those three very important (well, two very important, plus Facebook) but overhyped companies.
Lawrence Person (lawrencepersonh@gmailh.com (remove all "h"s to mail)
http://www.lawrenceperson.com/
It looks at innovation only from the conumer stand point on what brand he sees as the end consumer. This is why I hate the press, why I hate journalists, and why I hate anyone who studies English or whatever other language is native to them in college. Your worthless pricks with no more understanding of the world, than the average guy mowing your lawn, or serving you burgers, but your confidence and arrogance in repeating urban legends and your inability to see your own confirmation bias is disgusting.
Your mentioing the biggest companies in tech who got there by buying innovation from start ups if the start ups were lucky, and downright stealing it if they weren't.
Apple invented nothing. They just used their massive PR campaign to popularize technology that previously existed, they still don't make but stuck their name on, to the rich hipsters, who are to socially concious to be looking like a nerd.
Google is probably the only one in the lot who at onetime invetened something. The remade webmail into the default mail interface, and they made the modern search engine.(first one that didn't suck).
Facebook was never a real innovator, except winding up on top of the social network game.
And if they're not lost in their own perception bias, their sole concern is how much money they are going to make for shareholders, at the expense of their users and sometimes developers.
The period from 1950s to the 1980s was the age of invention.
People haven gotten stupider since then. They have wisened up. Why spend hard work on invention when you can buy a patent. And these smart people have created an ecosystem which nurtures MBA, Law and other non contributing disciplines. Its the culture of "Manage" rather than do. And when everybody just goes ahead and wants a pie from the big machine, what happens, slowly but steadily, invention, innovation starts dying. Over every invention lies the sword of patent. Invent a new touch screen? Give it to XYZ for free because you are stepping on some tiny patent somewhere.
And this will continue. Very soon the engineers will vanish, and the world will be doomed, as deserved.
My Aurora : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o91ZsGwJYyg
FB : https://www.facebook.com/TanveersPhotography
I cannot believe that no one mentioned how patents have effectively ruined the fabric by which innovation is made possible. If you're an inventor, you will spend as much time checking patents as you do inventing. This is why more innovation has been cooped up in home basements and garages, and rarely gets further than friends and family using said invention.
It looks like you people are getting confused with this notion of innovation. Quick excerpt from wiki catches this accurately:
Innovation differs from invention in that innovation refers to the use of a better and, as a result, novel idea or method, whereas invention refers more directly to the creation of the idea or method itself.
In that sense Apple, Facebook and Google are of course innovative.
What you incorrectly consider to be "innovations" are actually called "balloon satellites" and they've been around for over half a century now.
Read up about them: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balloon_satellite
Article is nothing more than an attempt to play with the stock market. It is quite obvious when you start off with a giant pile of bullshit line like:
Over the last decade, just three companies — Google, Apple, and Facebook — have generated most of the new ideas and most of the business momentum in the world of computing.
Right, because there are only like 5 or 6 computing companies in the world. Certainly smaller companies could never contribute anything worthwhile to society. Oops, what he really means is that smaller companies are not good for stock trading.
And even still, the premise of "Apple and Google have run out of ideas," is ludicrous at best. (I will give him Facebook, they never had any ideas to begin with.)
I'm a good cook. I'm a fantastic eater. - Steven Brust
One thing is that some wallstreet wannabe wrote this, but that it pops up on Slashdot is another thing.
didn't you mean peek data ?
In NSA America social networks join you!
Google's best innovations came in the server space, not the consumer one. They have dominated smartphones by buying a Linux variant, and their biggest contribution to 3rd party software development has been a purchased what is essentially reverse-engineered Java with some different libraries. If they had focused more on commercializing their server efforts, they could have been a major force in the enterprise, but it seems like they ceded that ground to Microsoft, much like MS has consistently ceded the consumer market to Apple by not adequately commercializing their own research projects.
I remember being in a state school and facebook was an exclusive ivy league social networking tool. When I got an invite from my ivey friends, I was stoked, like I was part of a club.
I was also on myspace, but the cachet of being "related" to someone from Harvard or MIT was more potent.
Now that I'm older (and not necessarily wiser), it's all about what company you're working with and title - through LinkedIn.
But seriously, I wish status didn't make me feel happy but it does. It brings me opportunities I otherwise wouldn't have. I'm so tired of this rat race.
The others are not really innovative.
Elon Musk has it right when he points out that Silly Valley is a great concentration of brainpower pursuing small ideas because of the ease of cashing in on them.
Maybe their will be more innovation in the internet space. After all it's attracting a lot of talent.
But really there are bigger problems. But because they are bigger it seems few want to take them on.
I am not sure where the author is getting the idea that these 3 companies "have generated most of the new ideas". Business momentum I can see, they had the brands, marketing department, and resources to get things out into the public sphere... but most of the new idea? Not by a long shot.
I do not accuse their engineers of sitting on their hands, they came up with some good stuff, but the bulk of the 'new ideas' tends to come from small companies, FOSS projects, research, and students screwing around. A lot of the ideas put out by those people are also crap, but then again a lot of the stuff coming out of the those big three are also pretty bad, even the ones that see the light of day.
I would say if anything it is the marketing departments and executive structures that are 'running out of steam'. As a company matures it tends to get entrenched people who have been there a while and are more interested in a steady return then experimentation and, more importantly, the companies tend to hire more and more 'classical' executives from other industries who are great at investor retaliations but tend to push the company into the 'endless sequels, people like what they have seen before!' direction.
the most surprising thing about OS X Mavericks is that it's not named after a cat
Why is that surprising? They were running of cat names. The choices left were Cougar or Sabretooth. And then the next release would have had the same problem. They had to change the naming scheme eventually. They switched to big wave surfing spots. After a dozen or so versions, they may have to switch again.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
The complete reliance on external expansion by the new Mac Pro could be seen as, perhaps not a "game changer," but certainly as a new direction for a desktop workstation.
Long ago in a magical time called the 90's, "pizza box" desktop workstations frolicked in engineering land. And they did beget the "SCSI rats nest" of external expansion modules. But woe the cables and duplicated power supplies were unnecessarily expensive and came unto the world the internally expandable workstation and lo the nerderatti declared that the sleekness of the "one box" was verily cooler.
Then did the externally expandable workstation form factor creep into the shadows for a generation waiting to be reborn ... as a Cylinder!
Lesson: know some history before you declare Apple's latest box as the first ever of anything.
From the summary:
it's been a long time since any of these companies introduced anything indisputably new
Like forever.
People who use the word innovation are either young or senile. Is there anything that is truly new? The secret to their success is not innovation but excellence. Apple, Facebook, and Google were not the first to make the products that they are famous for, not a single one. But theirs were maybe the best, or at least the favorite.
The reporter's focus on innovation instead of excellence is my first problem with the article. My other problem is his focus on the size of a company instead of its culture. Culture is more important.
Google, despite its size, looks like it has kept its culture of excellent execution and ideas that are --- I will say "fresh" instead of "new." They've been around before, for some reason failed to catch on, and here are being tried again, with tweaked settings or more competence or whatever so that maybe they'll work this time.
Apple, no matter its size, would probably have tapered off after the departure of Steve Jobs. Read his biography and you'll see just how much his relentless, even maniacal, perfectionism was behind Apple's products.
Facebook, I don't know enough about to comment. It could go either way.
Because each of the companies mentioned have garnered favor with the Federal Government and receive billion$ in protection from competition, tax breaks and special services. In 20 years the Internet has become nearly as fossilized (and corrupt) as the Auto, or Steel industry.
If by "Generate" you mean "BUY", then i agree with you.
BUT, if by "Generate" you mean "INVENT", then i disagree with you.
That's great! They should put that on a book cover or something!
Sometimes geeks have an abysmal grasp of history.
http://www.carhistory4u.com/the-last-100-years/car-production
"During the period 1896 to 1930 over 1,800 car manufacturers were believed to have existed in America"
How many now?
Basically three, although there's a few niche makers like Tesla.
Mature industries consolidate into oligopolies.
Welcome to the end of the IT Boom.
Sure, and "Zune" would provoke squirts...
The problem isn't a **current** lack of innovation...
The problem is non-techies do not understand the difference between a true 'innovation' and a new product that sells alot and gets media hype.
iPod sells alot, has good ads, and gets alot of press. iPod then becomes, in retrospect to the mind of a non-techie, an 'innovation'...and the marketer who brought it to completion...well he's the 'innovator'...
wrong. iPod wasn't an 'innovation' and Steve Jobs was a marketer/salesman.
however, that's not the end at all! The **click wheel** was the 'innovation' and it wasn't designed by Jobs. But ask any young kid to name an 'innovator' and they'll say Jobs, the salesman.
Not 'knocking' Steve Jobs (getting major lables to put their music on iTunes IMHO required true innovative salesmanship)...
The greater point is that a grand misunderstanding of why tech is awesome and the nature of 'innovation' in practice...that misunderstanding creates the context where this errant article could be developed.
Don't look at what sells to find innovation...that's a lagging indicator...look at what busy people in high stress jobs do to get things done...it's the pressure of necessity that mother's innovation ;)
Thank you Dave Raggett
Apple went *YEARS* without major innovation, then had a one-two punch of iPhone and iPad. (Yes, technologically, both were just evolutionary refinements of existing ideas; but Apple pulled them off in such a way as to revolutionize both markets.)
Google's innovation has been sporadic, with Google being a firm believer in the "throw 100 ideas at the wall and see which 5 stick, and which 1 is excellent." Eventually they'll hit again.
Facebook? I'd put them in the same bucket as Apple - evolutionary refinement pulled off perfectly. But THEY have only done it once. It would be a surprise to see Facebook do it again.
I think it's better to say that:
-Google is a huge data mining operation with zero concern for user's privacy. They give free tools to developers and end-users to provide an incentive so people will give away more info. The more they can gather from you the more money they can make.
-Facebok is another huge data mining operation with zero concern for user's privacy. They allow people to socialize better as an incentive to keep giving away your personal information. As with Google, the more they can gather from you the more money they can make..
-Apple is an overpriced hardware company with the firm intention of creating vendor lock-in either through hardware or software. The more they can lock you in the more money they make.
-Microsoft is a monopolistic software vendor with the firm intention of creating vendor lock-in so they can keep charging you for continual upgrades to their systems. The more they can lock you in the more money they make.
As you see, this is the main reason why the Free Software Foundation is totally right regarding software freedom. There are zero guarantees that an undemocratic for-profit corporation, especially the big ones will play fair. The government is supposed to do that but they are too slow and not prepared to deal with such tasks. The main problem is that we have software patents and hardware is not exactly open source, where I believe vendors should be forced to document how to interface with their equipment at the very least.
Google, Apple, and Facebook ... generated most of the new ideas
As they say in the Sesame Street song: "One of these things is not like the others".
Google and Apple are truly innovative companies, squarely placed in the fast-growing mobile-device space, creating an entire ecosystem of devices, systems, and apps.
Facebook is a vanity web-page hosting service. Their biggest "innovation" was figuring out how to manage a million lines of PHP code.
And don't be fooled into thinking that a stratospheric market capitalization implies innovation. Facebook is causing a tremendous amount of cognitive dissonance on Wall Street -- they see all the buzz it generates, but they haven't been able to identify a concrete way in which Facebook differs from its predecessor MySpace, except that its CEO is far more inexperienced and quirky.
The Internet of Thing is the next big IT revolution. It needs IPv6, BigData and 3D printing to really kick off though.
A fool throws a stone into a well and a thousand sages can not remove it.
This article feels a little trollish to me. Sorry.
Flying balloon WiFi, boom!
Apple, Microsoft and Google don't need to grow to survive. They can continue to operate profitably at their present size. AAPL has a P/E ratio of 10. MSFT, 18. GOOG, 26. Those are all reasonable price/earnings ratios for successful mature companies. F (Ford Motor) is at 10, and IBM is at 13. Both are century-old companies, still doing well.
Now look at Facebook, P/E of 514. And that's after the stock declined 37% since "the world's most hyped IPO." Facebook just doesn't generate much profits. Facebook's traffic and revenue peaked in 2012. In revenue terms, Facebook was never that big. It's in the class with Adobe, not the big boys like Microsoft, Google, and Apple. If Facebook didn't have a two-tier stock structure that gives most of the votes to Zuckerberg, he would have been fired by now.
That's Facebook, the biggest success in "social". Everybody else is doing worse. Zynga just had a big layoff. Social looks like the first dot-com boom and crash - the players were talking about "clicks now, worry about the revenue later". Well, "later" is here.
The fundamental problem with "social" is that the revenue model is to crank up the ad density, which annoys the users. In the last year, Facebook introduced "sponsored stories" and Twitter introduced "sponsored tweets". Myspace tried that strategy. It didn't end well.
Mind blowing, industry disruptive invention is not going to stop. It's just that it doesn't happen rapidly and never has! Apple first built iPad prototypes internally and decided to take the technology to the iPhone and release it first. So in 2007 before the iPhone was announced there was an early iPad prototype. The iPad didn't get announced until 2010! So for three more years the iPad was refined and improved, while the iPhone was also improved. Only when Apple was satisfied enough with the iPad was it released to the public. The App Store wasn't announced until 2008. The MacPro hasn't changed much since 2010, but the new cylindrical MacPro was announced via sneak peak at WWDC 2013. I would bet money it's been in design for years! A new design starts after the last one shipped. There may be a bit of a break after a stressful launch but they always go right back to the drawing board when they return. One of the reasons the 2010 MacPro wasn't updated were Xeon delays at Intel. The Xeon E5 Ivy Bridge / E3 Haswell design hasn't really started shipping till now. The E5 Xeon is the processor of choice used in workstations and smaller servers. So the new MacPro cylindrical design will have dual E5 Xeon's with up to 12 cores (6 cores each).
Apple's pace hasn't changed, they have always been about releasing when it's ready and not before. The media forgets how long it took for these products to ship. I guess there was this long period of customer awe in between that's dissipated lately as new products are not as stunning. That doesn't mean there are not things in the R&D pipeline that will change the world! There has always been an attention to detail with Apple designs that exceed that of the rest of the industry. The secrecy is what drives articles like this. But it's also what allows Apple to compete. If they announce products early, the competition will have a "Me Too" product ready. Even though a "Me Too" doesn't come close, it will be cheaper and not as good but will still sell fairly well.
Apple is working on changing television as we know it. I have already built a home solution that far exceeds what the industry has available. However, it's extremely geeky and not ready for general consumer use. But I can watch the TV shows and movies I want, how I want, when I want, and where I want. I have complete freedom to beam it around the house from iPhone, iPad, and multiple TV's. I have a server that manages the content like a TiVo would but much much better. It's the media delivery mechanism and the content itself that has to adapt. Apple is no doubt struggling to get the media companies to play ball. Movies studios, TV networks, Sports distribution channels, etc. They all have to radically change the way they do business. It's not about Prime Time any more. I don't consume media on a schedule any more. I rarely watch live TV. I don't see commercials. I can pause a show in the living room and resume it in the bedroom or on an iPad (No, it's not AT&T Uverse either and it's not streamed from a data center). I can even have new shows transcoded and sync'd to the iPad so when I take a long train commute, I can watch my show on an iPad offline. Apple's competitors know they are working on TV and they are trying to produce new TV's that innovate. Samsung has voice and motion controls, Sony has PS4, Microsoft XBox One, etc. They all think they know what Apple is doing but I would bet they aren't even close. Apple cannot announce their new TV solution until they can get the content providers in line. They did it first with the music industry and they did it with the book industry now it's time to do it with the TV/Movie/Video industries.
Google is not a tech company, they are an advertising company that uses technology. Facebook is not a tech company, they are a social media advertising company that uses cheesy technology. Apple is not a technology company either but a design company that mixes technology and the liberal arts. HP, Samsung, etc., etc. these are electron
Google, Apple, and Facebook were never "groundbreaking". They were well executed implementations of largely known technologies and ideas. And much of the innovation that came out of these companies actually was acquired, when they bought up startups and academics, thereby also spreading the wealth.
And that's not going to stop either: people are going to continue to come up with innovative ideas, form small startups, and then the Googles and Apples of this world are going to buy them and stick their name on it.
I'll tell you what Facebook innovated. (You're not going to like it, though, because we tend to think of innovation as synonymous with "progress" and progress is usually measured in terms of end user utility. And what I'm about to say is totally not that.)
Facebook somehow had a website that was popular (that's not a part of the innovation, but it's an extremely important prerequisite) and then got a million other websites to embed references to Facebook resources into theirs, like Google did with Google Analytics. Since most browsers, by default, are happy to load any embedded resource referenced on a page, that gave Facebook an incredible number of "hits" from diverse sources.
Most classical (i.e. naive) 1990s-thinking web people would see these "hits" as totally valueless, because they're not pageloads, they aren't showing ads that you got paid to run, or whatever. The clever people, though, saw that you use this sort of thing with a cookie and combined with referer[sic], to build marketing profiles.
The mid-late 1990s clever people knew that too, but their references were ads themselves (e.g. doubleclick). They had to pay to get other webmasters to embed this crap. Nobody is going to embed a doubleclick image (i.e. an ad for something) unless you give them money.
You don't get paid to embed Google Analytics javascript, though. You don't get paid to embed a Facebook "like" button. So Facebook can do all the same "spying" that doubleclick.net could do a decade earlier, but without paying for it.
And webmasters embed these things for free, because they feel they get something out of it. With Google Analytics, you get the reports and analysis. Sure, you could get a lot of that from your own logs, but not all of it (Google knows some things about your visitors, that you might not, and this is their business, they're able to "keep up") and GA is easy and there and waiting for you. With Facebook like buttons, discussions, etc, webmasters are counting on the popularity of Facebook, to make it so that people who use their own site, will generate events on their Facebook profiles which will be seen by other Facebook users who don't use their own site, and maybe someone will curiously click through and you get a new visitor.
You gotta give Facebook some credit for that. I get how Google turns their spying into money, but I still don't really understand how Facebook does. (Apparently Wall Street doesn't understand it either, judging from the ever-falling stock price.) But there's probably an angle, and however it can be used, Facebook has very successfully put into place at least half of it already. Getting so much of the web to embed your script or iframe (and without having to pay them for it) -- holy crap, I totally can't imagine that happening fifteen years ago.
So it's innovation. Just not the kind users like to see happen.
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" just three companies — Google, Apple, and Facebook — have generated most of the new ideas and most of the business momentum in the world of computing."
Those three companies are responsible for most of the ideas and business momentum in CONSUMER computing. Enterprise IT has been innovating at a brisk clip without contributions from those three companies, thank you very much.
Obviously the article is wrong, since Facebook introduced hashtags only this week. The goal is to set the bar low as to what is innovation. Gnome 3, Windows 8, and the upcoming new FireFox are "innovating".
In the early 1980's IBM, a dinosaur sued for monopoly, released the PC and changed the world. Sure, Apple,IMSI, and others had blazed a trail, but IBM quickly defined the market.
Even a dinosaur can give birth to a flock of new birds. Don't give up on our big boys.
Google is not an innovator. They are the copy and clone company that so far hasn't produce anything new.
One of these things is not like the other...
Facebook and Google's biggest innovation is that they made privacy unfashionable for their hundreds of millions of users. Oh sure, there are still privacy advocates but more and more they sound like those weird basement geeks with too much time and not enough money in their hands. Now when we hear about government surveillance we simply shrug, thinking that it can't be that bad because even Google is doing it. And we know that Google can't possibly be evil.
It's even older than that. Sinclair ZX-80. Out of the box, basically neutered - 1k. Expansion port + devices (like RAM) and suddenly you could do stuff. And you know what people often did with it? Took it out of the stock case and moved it into one where they could add more stuff.
Apple's new Mac Pro... the very best idea I've heard of so far is a case that the new Mac Pro would load right into, in which the drive bays and video conversion connectors to standard video tech would be placed. Bingo... you get the horsepower of the machine, the clean design of a proper all in one system, the physical and vibrational security of enclosed drives, single power supply, perhaps even a PCI chassis. And best of all? You don't have a stupid trashcan on your desk.
Of course, if they price that trashcan where I expect them to, that's the end of that.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
Look, I *own* a Mac Pro. It's a great machine. The new one... it's neither innovative or great.
A machine that requires external expansion? Not new since Sinclair ZX-80 (or probably earlier.) A high power design that uses a vertical cooling tower? Audio's been doing this forever; all kinds of actually innovative cooling designs can be found in the history of audio power amplifiers. Tunnels, polygons, forced air, liquid, even semiconductor. Odd physical configuration? Tons of 'em out there. Raspberry pi. Mini ITX. or this. The new Mac Pro has a new CPU in it, as does virtually every iteration of these machines; it has a flash boot drive, like a lot of computers; and you're gonna have to spend a lot more money to make a worthwhile computer out of it... like a ZX-80. It's also likely to be very, very expensive. You know what that spells? "Not Buying"
But hey. You can always by a Mac Mini or an iMac. Those, at least, are working multicore computers out of the box. Or, I hasten to add, the current generation Mac Pro, which is a great machine.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
Meh.
Xerox wasn't a startup when it created PARC, and PARC couldn't have been created by a startup. It takes money and time to truly innovate, and startups tend not to have too much of either.
Apple has already re-invented itself at least once. Whether or not they can innovate anything else depends not on some sort of bogus historical model, but on whether or not they can get people the time and resources to devise something new, and recognize it as such.
Let's assume that the next big thing is big-data based AI. Will a tiny startup be able to come up with this innovation? Of course not... they don't have the data or the processing resources to mind it if they did. Remember, small businesses are living hand-to-mouth.
Innovation doesn't always come from little guys by way of natural selection. It also comes from the big shops thinking for the long term, from the military in times of war, and from the pornography houses.
I remember when the name "iPad" would provoke giggles.
Still sounds like a sanitary product to me.
Facebook never really innovated anything except Facebook. Google innovated search and better email, but has switched trying to compete with Facebook. Apple has always innovated, even if it meant sacrificing successful products (eg: The famous killing off of the iPod Mini at the peak of its success.). I think he is wrong that Steve Jobs was Apple's chief innovator. Steve simply focussed doggedly on whatever ideas he had until he could make them reality, and fairly never compromised. Now if Apple can keep that focus... He is right about innovation though overall. The announcement of iTunes Radio and car integration seems to be more about the spread and normalisation of existing technology. Everyone is focussed on maps and getting people to interact with where they are right now. The technology has to become over-saturated and stagnant and open the way for someone to innovate at the right place and time.
What is the point of the internet?
the most surprising thing about OS X Mavericks is that it's not named after a cat
Yea, it's named after a Meerkat...how original.
Amazon's done far more innovating than Facebook. Consider the breadth of AWS and how this powers at fairly large chunk of the 'big Internet' from services like Netflix to Reddit... It is the envy of everyone from telcos to enterprise vendors to hosting companies to Microsoft -and it isn't even their principle business! - it's pretty amazing.
Also the idea that Google is tapped out is kind of ludicrous. What with Glass, self driving cars, and Speech/AI stuff I think they still show a ton of promise for the future.
Apple shows the least promise of future innovation, but this is already conventional wisdom on Wall Street and on the savvier parts of Main Street.
the automobile didn't come along until cities were deep in horseshit
Statistically, you're looking at it all wrong. Lots of companies innovate, including the big ones. But any given innovation only has a 1 in 10,000 chance of succeeding.
If you get it right, then you've a decent shot at hitting the big leagues like Apple, Google, MS and FB.
But assuming because they managed a successful innovation once means they've got a greater chance of finding a second one is ludicrous. It's like expecting a lottery winner has a better chance of winning a second prize.
Of course, having said that, there are some companies that *have* managed multiple successful innovations, but they're *exceedingly* rare.
(I'd give Apple the Apple II, the Mac, the iPod, the iPhone and the iPad. I'd give MS MS-DOS, Windows and Office. At this point, Google and FB are still one trick ponies. But they're magnificent tricks. Criticizing such companies is like criticizing someone for only holding one world record.)
Social apps have seen their peak and the next cycle of growth will come from what we currently term 3D printing. Perhaps the most indepth review of this is Kevin Carson's 'The Homebrew Industrial Revolution.' Combined with the sustainability and maker movements, the changes in global fabrication will make the likes of Facebook and Apple seem about as historically pertinent as Betamax and pet rocks.
"Well, at the risk of making myself into a pariah around Silicon Valley, I have a prediction to make"
Sigh. I hate people who write that kind of silly crap. If you're so worried about your image in some kind of idiotic Silicon Valley nerd club, your opinion is likely to be entirely irrelevant.