Topic: Innovation
Bloomberg Article Suggests Apple’s Strategy Rests on Perfecting Rivals’ Ideas (Aug 22, 2017)
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Netflix Announces Choose-Your-Own-Adventure Shows for Kids (Jun 20, 2017)
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Uptime is a goofy video sharing app from Google’s Area 120 startup incubator – The Verge (Mar 13, 2017)
Google was once famous for the 20% time it gave its employees to work on passion projects, but then word started to spread that this wasn’t really happening anymore. And then last year Google announced the creation of an incubator for employees’ projects, which seemed to be trying to resurrect the spirit of 20% time if not the details. The first app from that incubator just launched, and it’s a co-watching app for YouTube videos. On the one hand, there’s an obvious fit with an existing product at Google, which is a good thing, and on the other it’s not clear why the YouTube team didn’t build this. I’m not sure what value is added by having this be a separate app that doesn’t carry any Google branding (even in the App Store, it’s listed as being offered by Area 120, the name of Google’s incubator). If the main purpose of Area 120 is to keep entrepreneurial employees onboard, then perhaps this will serve its purpose, but on the evidence of this first app, I’m not sure it’s going to lead to anything all that compelling. Having tested the app briefly, the overwhelming impression I was left with was that it was incredibly privacy-invasive – it kept prompting or reminding me that everything I was doing would be shared with friends and/or publicly available.
via The Verge
Microsoft launches Skype Lite Android app for India and other emerging markets – TechCrunch (Feb 22, 2017)
This looks like a great bit of innovation from Microsoft – both well customized for a local market and the first really compelling implementation of its bot strategy that I’ve seen. Facebook has been doing well for a while with its Lite offerings, which have expanded its reach in emerging markets, and this Skype version seems to offer some of the same benefits. The future integration with the government identity scheme sounds particularly interesting. There’s obviously strong competition in India for the services Skype provides, many of which already cater for users with limited bandwidth, and Microsoft continues to struggle to monetize its consumer efforts including Skype, but it’s great to see it innovating in this very localized way.
via TechCrunch
Why Apple Is One Of The Most Innovative Companies Of 2017 – Fast Company (Feb 16, 2017)
I’ve never been a big fan of these kinds of ranking exercises – they’re often arbitrary, designed to make news as much as come up with the right answer, and basically meaningless in the real world. So why am I including this item here? It’s about the specific reason why Apple was chosen here: its silicon chips. This is so overlooked as a source of leadership and differentiation for Apple and yet it’s absolutely critical. It took the acquisition of PA Semi and lots of other work besides, but Apple has spent years perfecting its chip design and it now pays off in massive ways for the company. No wonder you see Xiaomi and others pursuing their own chip strategies, but no-one should assume that’s a straightforward or quick process.
via Fast Company (you might also be interested in this episode of the Beyond Devices Podcast, in which we did a deep dive on Apple’s A-series chips)
Motorola Shares Results from Moto Mod Developer Events (Feb 6, 2017)
While LG is stepping away from its modular approach, Lenovo/Motorola seems to be doubling down on its Moto Mods strategy, holding developer events to invite third parties to come up with clever ideas for add-ons to its Moto Z range. Either Motorola is seeing more traction around the concept than LG did, or it’s simply out of other ideas for how to differentiate its phones in the market. I’ve seen little evidence that the Mods (or Moto Z) are selling particularly well, so I’m skeptical that it’s the former. But it’s interesting to see Motorola take the crowdsourcing approach here, both with these developer events and its Indiegogo campaign, which runs through March.
via Motorola
Apple in 2016: The Six Colors report card – Six Colors (Jan 12, 2017)
This Six Colors survey of Apple observers is an interesting exercise, because although this is a crowd that’s mostly made up of Apple fans, most are unafraid of speaking their minds and being critical where warranted (a complete listing along with a link to their verbatim comments is at the bottom of the post). The Mac was the area where Apple was hardest hit in this report card, understandably given the mounting frustration over the lack of new desktops, but I found the criticism on the Apple TV side less warranted – it got decent software upgrades, and the few gaps in video content have been filled, though admittedly it’s ever clearer that it won’t be an important gaming platform. It’s well worth reading the whole thing, because it’s a mostly honest evaluation of the tough year Apple had in 2016, with quite a bit of detail from some of the people who follow the company most closely. The big question for Apple is how it balances the need to please this vocal but arguably unrepresentative audience with its massive base of mainstream users – in 2016 it clearly served the latter more than the former, and got hit hard for it.
via Apple in 2016: The Six Colors report card – Six Colors
Why Apple’s Critics Are Right This Time – WSJ (Jan 8, 2017)
This piece rehashes all the recent stuff that’s been said about Apple without really adding anything new. AI is mentioned a few times, and that’s the ostensible focus, though it’s not clear that AI is really what’s meant – it’s mostly about voice assistants specifically, and this article repeats a lot of the prevailing narrative about Amazon being ahead in voice, a situation that’s significantly more nuanced in reality. But in some ways the key point here is that we’re starting to see a steady drumbeat of this kind of thing lately, and that’s notable in its own right.
via Why Apple’s Critics Are Right This Time – WSJ
Apple community reacts to lack of Mac Pro – Business Insider (Jan 4, 2017)
The version of this headline on BI’s site is much blunter, and the gist is that Mac fans are ticked about Apple’s lack of upgrades for the Mac Pro. Some see this as a sign of broader issues at Apple, while others see it as merely a side effect of Apple’s tendency to focus resources on a small number of products at once. I do think the Mac Pro boxed Apple into a corner somewhat – having boasted about the US manufacturing, it likely finds it difficult to back away, but I suspect it may regret some of the form factor choices – the lack of upgradeability means Apple needs to update the computer more frequently, something it hasn’t been willing to do. I think we’ll see an update in 2017, but I’m really curious as to what the new version will look like.
via Apple community reacts to lack of Mac Pro – Business Insider
Energous still isn’t delivering truly wireless charging, but says it’s coming later this year – The Verge (Jan 4, 2017)
Energous and its version of wireless charging has always been far more interesting to me than the standard, mat-based version, because the latter is actually less flexible in some ways than cable-based charging. Charging over distance is the real innovation here, but no-one has cracked and released it yet in a mass market product. The big question about Energous specifically is whether Apple is or isn’t the mysterious partner it frequently refers to – if Apple puts this technology in products and it works well, that will be game changing for a whole range of products from iPhones to Watches. But if it isn’t, Energous appears to be stalling indefinitely on technology that never seems quite ready.
A Magic Moment — Liss is More (Jan 1, 2017)
This isn’t news per se – it’s not even a normal review. But it is a personal experience someone had with an Apple product – specifically, AirPods. This is still the strongest kind of counter-evidence to the Apple is Doomed narrative – that Apple still knows how to make magical products. It’s just one user’s experience, but reviews of the AirPods have been almost universally positive, and my own experience with them reinforces this too. They’re not perfect, but they’re very good.
via A Magic Moment — Liss is More
Apple’s 2016 in review – Chuq von Rospach (Jan 1, 2017)
This piece explicitly disclaims the Apple is Doomed narrative, but it’s in line with quite a number of critical pieces over the past year from those who have generally been supporters of Apple. And it still draws broad conclusions about the state of Apple from a series of individual events that did and didn’t happen in 2016. I suspect Apple in 2016 was viewed more negatively than it might have been because there wasn’t a single big-bang new launch – it felt like mostly an incremental year. The one big exception was the AirPods, but they launched so late, and were themselves one of the examples of the problems Apple has faced, that it made little difference.
The Verge 2016 tech report card: Apple – The Verge (Dec 29, 2016)
I’ve seen lots of this sort of thing as we approach the end of the year – quite a number of Apple observers seem to see 2016 as an off year for the company. And yet so much depends on how you few key innovations – yes, the Watch changed relatively little, but those features will please runners, swimmers and wheelchair users, and the price drops that accompanied them created new markets. The same can be said for many of the other changes. Apple news continues to be something of a Rohrschach test for observers.
via The Verge 2016 tech report card: Apple – The Verge
Apple is losing focus again — with no Steve Jobs coming to the rescue – Business Insider (Dec 20, 2016)
This is one of the most enduring narratives about Apple – that it’s somehow lost its way and is heading for a repeat of the late 1990s. These pieces are often so overblown that they’re hard to take seriously, but the drumbeat does seem to be getting louder lately. Apple always struggles most to control the narrative when it doesn’t have big, exciting, new products to shout about, and it feels like we’re in one of those periods right now.
via Apple is losing focus again — with no Steve Jobs coming to the rescue – Business Insider