Steve jobs on innovation

[I3R0K3N7FEET]

http://www.xbitlabs.com/news/other/display/20111027124605_Steve_Jobs_Microsoft_Will_Not_Chang e_As_Long_As_Steve_Ballmer_Is_Running_It.html

reading that article got me thinking.

I couldn't agree more. Is the target of getting rich and making money and all the stupid profiteering getting in the way of true innovation?

While making money is always part of a business. the arguement is. for the past 10 years, Apple DID change the world and the digital medium. the iPod, iPhone and iPad really have revolutionised the start of the millenium. But now he has gone, a true pioneer. who is left to innovate? create new things? will the next 10 years be boring and lifeless with no real revolutionary technology? will all the large companies be sold out to salespeople who are looking to make a quick buck?

[heavywater]

for the past 10 years, Apple DID change the world and the digital medium. the iPod, iPhone and iPad really have revolutionised the start of the millenium.
I absolutely agree.

I also absolutely disagree that Apple innovate. They rely on exactly what Steve Jobs condemned, incredibly clever marketing and sales pushing.

Apple are not innovators, they take other companies' technology, hone it and call it a revolution. And a revolution it is not.

[I3R0K3N7FEET]

fair enough! thats the point of debate though. though king of contradiction he may be, steve jobs does have a point about the attitude of CEOs and so forth..

[msparsons]

Down with capitalism! *fetches flaming torch*

I think that apple were very innovative with the iPod, iPhone and iPad. I don't really see how the fact that they were stealing others' tech makes a difference... Standing on the shoulders of giants 'n' all that! It wasn't the hardware or the function of the things that made then innovative, it was the idea that smart technology should be
available to all. Obviously a large part of their success was marketing as it will be with a product of that nature.

Saying that...you know what else kills innovation Steve? Stupid :censored: lawsuits!

Sent from my HTC Desire

[Toonshorty]

The problem I have with Apple is this.

Smartphones and tablets already existed, Apple just enhanced the experience to create something a lot better. Now, I've got no problems with companies taking each others ideas and improving them. It helps the economy and creates competition, thus creating better products.

The problem I do have is Steve Jobs being all "Good artists copy, great artists steal" and enhancing ideas only to turn around and get all butthurt when somebody uses some of his ideas. The man may have provided us with some great tech but what I've read about him so far is pure ignorance and selfishness, the man doesn't even sound that nice. He left £8bn to his wife and gave nothing to charity, compare that to Bill Gates who gives absolute mountains of cash to the people who need it most. Android was in development at the same time as the iPhone, when it comes out Steve Jobs goes mental and claims that it's a blatant rip off.

If we can "learn from others mistakes" then we can create from others ideas. If Apple and Android could copy each others ideas without lawsuits it would actually be very interesting to see how quickly tech would evolve.

[msparsons]

That's very true you can't complain about anyone stealing your ideas after that gem of a quote! XD

Sent from my HTC Desire

[andyn]

As others said, I don't see Apple as innovaters. I see them as a company which is very skilled at spotting an existing product for which 'the time is now right', packaging that product in a very consumer friendly manner, and then selling it. They haven't been innovaters since the early days when they were selling kit PCs through the homebrew computer club. Steve Wozniak was the innovater, Steve Jobs was the marketing / corporate guru.

They've successfully done this 'productising' a number of times, with mp3 players (they were not the first, but they were the first to make it mainstream), smartphones (not the first, but the first to do it in a non-geek-friendly manner), tablets (not the first, but the first to get the timing and marketing right). A recent example is siri, taking technologies which have been around a long time, packaging it up nicely, and pushing it to the consumers in an effective manner.

So there won't be less innovation. There may be less effective packaging and 'productising' of innovations however. But it's certainly not going to stop, they were hardly the only company doing what they do, they were just the best at it. And Apple is more than steve jobs, there will be a lot of bright people there. And despite the current trend to deify Steve Jobs, he actually got it wrong as often as he got it right, there are plenty of failed Apple projects if you care to look at the record.

[Icm76]

As others said, I don't see Apple as innovaters...Agreed, and nice summary.

Apple did a great job getting their act together with iPod & iTunes store, and made the most of it, but iPhone and iPad has been all about great marketing and cash rich corporate power. The iPad situation particularly is pretty sickening, I can't believe how many people have bought into this lie that Apple were an inventor here, all they did was buy up all the components first and make a very grand entry into the market. The concept has been around since early sci-fi, how Apple can claim to own the tablet concept and people believe them is infuriating.

Apple now are now the 800lb gorilla of patent trolls, and doing their utmost to strangle innovation.

[msparsons]

Who says they are buying into the lie? They made the first tablet that was fun/intuitive to use. If I was going to buy a tablet I would buy an iPad...because the tablet was invented by apple? Of course not! I'd buy one because I think that the majority of developers still targets iOS. The locked down nature of iOS appeals massively to the people creating the content for them.

Please don't assume that all apple customers are morons that know nothing...

(I have never owned an apple product in my life)

[Icm76]

Who says they are buying into the lie? see Stephen Fry, idiot judges in Germany and the Netherlands etc.


If I was going to buy a tablet I would buy an iPad...because the tablet was invented by apple?
It's a good product, that isn't the issue. The lie I refer to is the idea that Apple invented the concept, I think Apple believe their own hype.

There is no invention with iPad, it's merely been a case of waiting for the critical components to get small enough, and cheap enough to produce for the mass market.



Please don't assume that all apple customers are morons that know nothing...

(I have never owned an apple product in my life)I don't, and I have owned Apple products, but that won't stop me criticising them (or their fanboys)

[Pullen]

They don't innovate products, they innovate an extremely simple and pleasant UI. I know if I buy an Apple product I don't need to try one out first to see if it runs well/see it's input response time, if there's any lag etc as I know I'm not going to have a problem with it. For me, technology is fast and does what I want when I want it; the SGS imo was just bleh the way when you turn it on all the apps start running which makes it unusable for a good minute (+ the start up sequence thingy) or so was just horrible. Also when installing updates for apps there is no CPU usage cap (which I assume on iOS there is?) which means whatever you doing on the phone grinds to a halt whilst it installs. Yea you can install lag fixes etc. but you shouldn't have to do that. Having to wait for something just infuriates me now, which sounds very pompus but that's how technology should be, that's why I hate the SGS as the annoyance of it has built up since I've had it :P

I've now got an iPod Nano (6th Gen), iPad 2 and an iPhone 4S and as you all know I'm becoming very fanboi-ish but I wouldn't say I'm a blind sighted one, if there's a better product I'd be more than happy to embrace it but better is a very subjective thing, the important thing is how the product suits your needs and Apple are damn good at getting all of your boxes ticked.

[Pullen]

There is no invention with iPad, it's merely been a case of waiting for the critical components to get small enough, and cheap enough to produce for the mass market.

But Apple don't do that though, they push the limits of technology forward buy chucking money at the right people, they then get factories to give them a discount compared to other companies for the new technology which means that they make more money so they can start the cycle again.

[Toonshorty]

But Apple don't do that though, they push the limits of technology forward buy chucking money at the right people, they then get factories to give them a discount compared to other companies for the new technology which means that they make more money so they can start the cycle again.

Push the limits of technology?

I wouldn't call an 800MHz Dual Core "Pushing the limits".

[Pullen]

Push the limits of technology?

I wouldn't call an 800MHz Dual Core "Pushing the limits".

Well there's no point in having excess CPU power as it's just going to drain the battery power very quickly.

But the fact is they can do a better job with less powerful CPUs then Android when they have better hardware specs as you've seen.

[Toonshorty]

Well there's no point in having excess CPU power as it's just going to drain the battery power very quickly.

But the fact is they can do a better job with less powerful CPUs then Android when they have better hardware specs as you've seen.

That's been the case for some time since Android has lacked any form of hardware acceleration.

Android 4.0 has brought this acceleration and while not as optimised as iOS can be, it's certainly significantly faster with the Galaxy Nexus beating the iPhone 4S in the few benchmarks I've seen.

Not to mention it's irrelevant anyway, they may not need any more but they certainly aren't "pushing the limits" because they don't have to.

You kind of contradicted your own point.

[FunkY]

http://www.xbitlabs.com/news/other/display/20111027124605_Steve_Jobs_Microsoft_Will_Not_Chang e_As_Long_As_Steve_Ballmer_Is_Running_It.html

reading that article got me thinking.

I couldn't agree more. Is the target of getting rich and making money and all the stupid profiteering getting in the way of true innovation?

While making money is always part of a business. the arguement is. for the past 10 years, Apple DID change the world and the digital medium. the iPod, iPhone and iPad really have revolutionised the start of the millenium. But now he has gone, a true pioneer. who is left to innovate? create new things? will the next 10 years be boring and lifeless with no real revolutionary technology? will all the large companies be sold out to salespeople who are looking to make a quick buck?

iPod - overpriced mp3 player, not a new idea...
iPhone - overpriced smartphone, not a new idea...
iPad - overpriced tablet PC, not a new idea...

So tell me again, how have Apple been showing us any innovations this decade?

[izarian]

What's funny is that he said Microsoft aren't innovative. Have you seen what's been coming out of Microsoft's research labs? The Kinect and the Surface are the most high profile, but they are working on some immense stuff. For example, programming languages for composable DNA circuits, programming languages for genetic engineering of cells in vivo, "software circuits" (i.e. a program that is simply made on silicon), Augmented Projectors (i.e. hand-mounted projectors - I actually saw a working prototype at a tech symposium in London), higher capacity barcodes...all sorts. They're truly innovative.

EDIT -- Found a link to their research site.

http://research.microsoft.com/apps/dp/areas.aspx

[Plan9]

http://www.xbitlabs.com/news/other/display/20111027124605_Steve_Jobs_Microsoft_Will_Not_Chang e_As_Long_As_Steve_Ballmer_Is_Running_It.html

reading that article got me thinking.

I couldn't agree more. Is the target of getting rich and making money and all the stupid profiteering getting in the way of true innovation?

While making money is always part of a business. the arguement is. for the past 10 years, Apple DID change the world and the digital medium. the iPod, iPhone and iPad really have revolutionised the start of the millenium. But now he has gone, a true pioneer. who is left to innovate? create new things? will the next 10 years be boring and lifeless with no real revolutionary technology? will all the large companies be sold out to salespeople who are looking to make a quick buck?
sorry, but that's the biggest load of egotistical cow-dung I've read in a looooong time.


Steve Jobs, the co-founder and former chief executive officer of Apple, said in an interview with his biographer Walter Isaacson that companies like Microsoft, IBM or HP were becoming “irrelevant” because at some points salespersons took the helm and the quality of products became less important than selling them in mass quantities.

From a very early point in Microsoft's history Bill Gates said he had a dream of putting a computer i every home. A dream he realised and one he never wavered from.
As for IBM and HP, they're pwning Apple in the business / server markets - a market which has always been their core business (the clue is even in IBM's name!). Both have even been hardcore UNIX contributers for decades before Apple even conceived OS X.


“It’s easy to throw stones at Microsoft. They have clearly fallen from their dominance. They’ve become mostly irrelevant.
Is that why they're still operating at a ~90% market share for desktops?


They were never as ambitious product-wise as they should have been.
I would say aiming to get your product in every home and on every computer is pretty ****ing ambitious.



I admire him for the company he built – it is impressive – and I enjoyed working with him,”

BS. You hated the guy ever since he stole WIMP from you (which also wasn't your idea, but let's not split hairs)



“John Akers at IBM was a smart, eloquent, fantastic salesperson, but he didn’t know anything about product. The same thing happened to Xerox. […] It happened to Apple when Sculley came in, which was my fault, and it happened when Ballmer took over at Microsoft. Apple was lucky and it rebounded, but I don’t think anything will change at Microsoft as long as Ballmer is running it,” said Steve Jobs.

Win7 was the fastest selling OS of all time. However I agree that Ballmer far short of filling Gate's epic proverbial shoes.
Xerox were idiots, that's also true. But that's ~20yrs ago now so hardly relevant now.
As for Sculley, well he wouldn't have needed to come in if Jobs wasn't driving Apple to bankruptcy pushing products nobody wanted.



You build a company that will still stand for something a generation of two from now. That’s what Walt Disney did, and Hewlett and Packard, and the people who built Intel. That’s what I want Apple to be,” explained Steve Jobs.
So why single IBM out earlier when IBM predate all of your other examples but quite some time?

[I3R0K3N7FEET]

what i find funny is, your post, adds nothing to the discussion.

we are talking about the corporate attitude and innovation. whether or not APPLE was innovative or if steve jobs was innovative. his statements about how innovation lacks when salesmen take over as CEO of huge companies. they lose drive and it all becomes about sales.

APPLE lead a revolution in smartphones, mp3 players with itunes and the portable computing tablets.

they did not CREATE any of those divisions. they simply created the GUI and quality people were wanting. which is why other companies fell in line and offered similar alternatives, thus the competitive nature generated a whole new buzz of innovation. which apple, at the very least, can take credit for being the catalyst of.

[Plan9]

what i find funny is, your post, adds nothing to the discussion.
I wasn't trying to add to your discussion. I was making my own comments about how much tripe was in that article.


we are talking about the corporate attitude and innovation. whether or not APPLE was innovative or if steve jobs was innovative. his statements about how innovation lacks when salesmen take over as CEO of huge companies. they lose drive and it all becomes about sales.
To be fair, I think I pretty much debunked that myth with my comments about how:
* Microsoft (and Gates) had always been about sales. Nothing changed there
* IBM and HP haven't lost their drive - in fact quite the opposite as they've both returned to their core business rather than trying to get quick money from consumer markets.



they did not CREATE any of those divisions. they simply created the GUI and quality people were wanting. which is why other companies fell in line and offered similar alternatives, thus the competitive nature generated a whole new buzz of innovation. which apple, at the very least, can take credit for being the catalyst of.
MP3 players existed a long time before the iPod. It's just they were seen as geeky. All Apple did was make them cool. That's hardly innovation.

As for the iPhone, well that "revolution" would have happened with or without Apple anyway. LG had released an iPhone-like phone before Apple (in fact they were so annoyed at Apple for copying their UI design and capacitive touch screen that they considered suing - I'm amazed they didn't actually). Plus many of the iPhones features were direct rips of other smart phones - including Android which hosted many features before iOS.

With the smart phone market - I think it's one of those moments were everyone woke up around the same time (well, everyone except MS, Nokia and RIM it seems) and had the same epiphany. The funny thing about IT is that it IS possible for two or more people to have roughly the same idea at the same time; and that's exactly what happened with Apple, Google and LG. Google had already been working on their touch screen devices around the same time as Apple and, as I said before, LG even beat Apple to market with theirs.

As for this tablet craze, I'll happily give Apple credit for that one. While everyone else was developing tablets thinking "let's try and give this thing the power and flexibility of a PC", Apple were the only ones that thought "what consumers really want is a really big phone which doesn't make calls". I mocked Apple for it and said such a device was utterly pointless. However here we are, 2 or 3 years down the line and everyone wants a phatt smartphone. I genuinely didn't see that coming.

Don't get me wrong, I don't hate Jobs nor Apple. I just get fed up of people believing the BS that Steve Jobs spoon fed them. All that rubbish about a fairly standard -albeit top-end spec'ed in terms of hardware- mobile phone being "like magic" just makes me facepalm. And the dumb thing is, people not only believe his tripe, they so passionately believe it that their whole perception of reality becomes distorted (see RDF if you don't know what I mean). They start to believe that Apple deserve to own the sole rights to basic gestures, black rectangles and the most standard of OS features. They believe that Apple are right to not only sue the **** out of any rivals who also dare to build a black, rectangular tablet, but to prevent sales of any competitors black rectangles in what most normal people would class as a "free market".

What worse is that Apple copy and steal just as many ideas as the rest of the technology sector. In fact Apple are one of the worst for it (OS X is built on free technologies: Mach, BSD, CUPS, etc. Safari (or rather WebKit) is kHTML - a Linux render for KDE. And I could go on). Apple would be nowhere if it wasn't for standing on the shoulders of giants (Dennis Richie, Xerox, KDE development team, etc) and yet they only give back the bare minimum required by law due to licensing agreements of the tech they pinched. They "steal" this technology while suing their competitors for using similar technologies and lobbying for their own customers to criminalised as terrorists (see iPhone jailbrakers vs GSM hacking FUD). Yet while all this is going on, their fanboys are parading around singing about how "revolutionary" Apple are.

The double standards in Apple is terrible. So quite frankly, I'm sick to death of hearing people bleat on about them while the true heroes of technology go largely unsung. So maybe you could start a dmr thread? Because without him there would be no OS X nor Objective-C. Without him, iOS wouldn't exist. Or how about a thread praising Richard "neckbeard" Stallmans vision which lead to the open sourcing of so many of the technologies Apple have ungracefully borrowed? Without RMS, there would be no kHTML and thus no Safari.

There have been many pioneers in IT, but like most other industries, the showmen with charisma gets remembered above the mathematicians and scientists behind the products themselves.

sorry for the long post, I really wasn't expecting to type that much hehehe

[wuyanxu]

innovation is different in different people's eyes. in Jobs' vision, innovation is about producing a product that is what the consumer wanted, at the right moment with just right hardware. Innovation in most people's eyes here is to create new technology that changes tech world. that is the difference between entrepreneurs and engineers.




As for this tablet craze, I'll happily give Apple credit for that one. While everyone else was developing tablets thinking "let's try and give this thing the power and flexibility of a PC", Apple were the only ones that thought "what consumers really want is a really big phone which doesn't make calls". I mocked Apple for it and said such a device was utterly pointless. However here we are, 2 or 3 years down the line and everyone wants a phatt smartphone. I genuinely didn't see that coming.


i certainly did see it coming. :p i owned original iphone not long after its UK release, it was my first Apple product purchase (owned a first gen shuffle as a gift, didn't like it), the phone was revolutionary in crowd of plastic HTC touch screens back then, simple to use, webapps that is a pleasure to use on wifi. When iPad came out, i knew it's a winner simply because it is a repeat of iPhone’s release: simplicity and usability over complex user interface on all other tablet PC’s (they were running Windows XP/Vista at the time).

[andyn]

The word innovation includes the latin word for 'new'. So 'refining' a product is NOT innovation, by any reasonable understanding of language. Only the creation of new ideas is innovation.

[wuyanxu]

The word innovation includes the latin word for 'new'. So 'refining' a product is NOT innovation, by any reasonable understanding of language. Only the creation of new ideas is innovation.

so working out what the consumers want is not innovation? by definition, that IS creation of new ideas, an idea of how a device/product must operate, through collection of many other technology. (Standing on the shoulders of giants 'n' all that)

introducing a new product that is different to most others out there, streamlining every single aspect of user experience does not count as innovation?

[Plan9]

innovation is different in different people's eyes. in Jobs' vision, innovation is about producing a product that is what the consumer wanted, at the right moment with just right hardware. Innovation in most people's eyes here is to create new technology that changes tech world. that is the difference between entrepreneurs and engineers.

I agree that 'innovation' can be subjective and you do raise a very interesting point about Jobs' classification. But I still don't see how Jobs' classification fits into the actual definition:

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/innovation
1. something new or different introduced: numerous innovations in the high-school curriculum.
2. the act of innovating; introduction of new things or methods.

However I don't want to sound like I'm dismissing your comment as I'm now just arguing semantics and your point about Jobs' classification is a good one. :)




i certainly did see it coming. :p i owned original iphone not long after its UK release, it was my first Apple product purchase (owned a first gen shuffle as a gift, didn't like it), the phone was revolutionary in crowd of plastic HTC touch screens back then, simple to use, webapps that is a pleasure to use on wifi.
The reason why I struggle to call it 'revolutionary' is simply because there were a few devices, all near enough the same and all coming to market within months of each other. I guess you could argue that Apple were part of that revolution. However many people claim Apple started the revolution, which they did not. They were just (at the time) the biggest selling of a few who were all leading the charge.

Plus (and in my opinion at least), only supporting webapps was Apple's biggest mistake on the original iPhone.



When iPad came out, i knew it's a winner simply because it is a repeat of iPhone’s release: simplicity and usability over complex user interface on all other tablet PC’s (they were running Windows XP/Vista at the time).
I totally agree that existing tablets were over complicated. However I thought the iPad was pointless because it was worse than a reader for eBooks, it was worse than a netbook for typing on and worse than a phone because it's size made it less portable.

Quite honestly, I couldn't have been more wrong about that. lol

[Aaron]

so working out what the consumers want is not innovation?

To me, putting an already existing product in a different package and releasing it when the consumers want it isn't innovation. Its IS fantastic Market Research, but it doesn't quite fit the innovation definition - although I think how people reads that will be different for each person, hence the different viewpoints even in this thread.

[andyn]

introducing a new product that is different to most others out there, streamlining every single aspect of user experience does not count as innovation?

In a word, no. There are already words for that: refinement; 'polish', if you prefer. But not innovation.