> ...the differences between consecutive iPhone versions, from 3G to 4S, are purely incremental improvements or aesthetic embellishments, not hardware breakthroughs. Sure, better cameras, higher resolution screens ...but no significant surprises or breakthroughs in hardware.
Personally, I consider the retina display to be the most exciting hardware enhancement since Wi-Fi, and certainly qualifies as a breakthrough in my book. It's not a slightly better resolution, it's a completely different screen.
What kind of breakthroughs is the author asking for? It's not like any other manufacturers appear to be providing them.
I agree. This article comes off as confused and unguided. First it mentions the "inability of analysts (or anyone) to understand Apple" (unpredictable). Then, it says Apple's hit-driven business results in their product refreshes being incremental/expected (predictable).
The self-contradictory ramble continues. He mentions how Apple knows how to design a user experience, rather than being design-blind and spec-obsessed, then goes on say that Apple has hardware spec issues, and that's a "dilemma". What...?
To top it all off, Apple is actually leading as far as hardware specs go (unless by "good specs" you mean "cram every feature you possibly can into the chasis without regard for user experience whatsoever"). The retina display is one obvious example. I wouldn't even consider a tablet without one at this point. The iPad 3's GPU is yet another example of Apple's hardware advantage. The fact that they bested NVIDIA, a company dedicated to designing the best GPUs, is extremely impressive.
Imagine you're a consumer walking into a store to buy a laptop/tablet/phone. From your perspective, who is leading the pack in every way that actually matters to you? I don't see a dilemma here for apple.
I'm fairly amazed that people are still stuck on the idea that Apple sells lower-specced products for more money and makes it up with, depending on your opinion of them, either a good experience or flashy marketing.
Certainly they don't win on every spec, but I think that if you do a fair comparison on all specs together, weighted by the ones that actually matter, you'll find Apple near the front of the pack. I guess people's opinions take a while to change.
As for the article, I agree completely. I finished it thinking, "That was interesting... wait a minute, none of that really made any sense." Too bad.
Please. The retina display is a higher resolution screen. Apple shipped a 165dpi display on the original iPhones. The Android manufacturers leapfrogged that by about 40% to ~235dpi (in the Eclair/Froyo devices). Then Apple upped the ante by another 40%, going to 330dpi. This is the way technology works.
It only looks like a "completely new display" if you weren't paying attention to competing devices in the year or so leading up to the iPhone 4 release.
Methinks Apple's brilliant insight (other than profound supply chain management) is: specs shouldn't matter. Specs are an excuse for underwhelming performance.
Author touches on the point with “People don’t want to buy a quarter-inch drill. They want a quarter-inch hole.” Apple is doing what it can to ensure that users don't care about specs; the just want X done. Retina is a good starting point: the resolution is now so high that nobody will ask about pixel count - whatever it is, it's better than users' eyes. Likewise with other specifications which Apple is straining or succeeded at making irrelevant: iPad battery life is "charge at night, use all day", MacBook Air size/weight so low it fits in a manila envelope, pervasive use of wireless so cable compatibility is nigh unto a non-issue, progressive elimination of files & filesystems, instant-on behavior ... all vs. competitors' "no, really, it's good enough" specifications of "5 hour battery life if you're careful, 6 pounds and hope there's enough space in your briefcase, USB/Firewire/Ethernet/PS2/Centronix/RS-232/eSATA/XYZPDQ/OMGWTFBBQ ports, don't forget to put double quotes around the file path, 90 second startup..."
Users don't want to ask "is X compatible with Y?" and have to learn technical obscurities about what that question means. They have X, they want to get Y, and put together they should just work. Forget specs - if my mother-in-law has to know about technical specifications, the manufacturer did something wrong.
> vs. competitors' "no, really, it's good enough" specifications of "5 hour battery life if you're careful, 6 pounds and hope there's enough space in your briefcase, USB/Firewire/Ethernet/PS2/Centronix/RS-232/eSATA/XYZPDQ/OMGWTFBBQ ports, don't forget to put double quotes around the file path, 90 second startup..."
Not to mention the PC MacBook Air clones, which in addition to questionable battery life, screen resolution, etc., ALL fail to have an actually usable trackpad. They've tried to emulate various multitouch gestures, but it all feels absurdly clunky and impossible to actually use. I tried one in a store and every time I tried to scroll with two fingers, it would intermittently zoom in like crazy. When it did actually scroll, it was laggy and choppy.
I know this is a bit off topic, but seriously, does anybody know what is up with PC track pad drivers? Why are they so laughably bad. Actually, it's not even laughable it's so pathetic... I'd cry (if I was a PC manufacturer).
Seriously though, I'm genuinely worried/curious about this. I am still looking for a Windows laptop that rivals the MacBook Air, because I do programming both on Windows and Mac (I by no means have an emotional attachment to any OS or HW vendor, so I'm pretty unbiased when it comes to these things). I'm still confused as to why this does not exist in any usable sense.
What I noticed recently is that Apple has been pushing the new iPad based almost purely on specs - i.e. Retina. Now that's not to say that the Air didn't also differentiate in part on specs: light thin and long battery life, but those had obvious functional implications, where as the Retina display is largely a drag on hardware performance.
To the contrary: "retina" is the opposite of specs. Resolution is so high users don't care what it is; like weight, size, and battery life, screen quality is now so good nobody cares what the numbers are because it just is.
The screen is there for me. The size is fine, given the limitations of having a usable keyboard. The weight is fine, though no one would complain if it were even less.
The Retina display makes the whole device vastly easier and more pleasant to use. The iPad is basically a device for reading text and viewing images. The new display makes both of those far better.
Apple has the best hardware-software-service integration in the industry, bar none. So the fact that the new device wars are now actually fought not on hardware specs but on vertical integration accords Apple a unique advantage.
Apple's secret sauce is this realization: That customers want their problem solved, and the way to deliver that with personal computing is through vertical integration. I'm not sure anyone else gets it yet, even Microsoft and Sony, which already have retail stores.
Personally, I consider the retina display to be the most exciting hardware enhancement since Wi-Fi, and certainly qualifies as a breakthrough in my book. It's not a slightly better resolution, it's a completely different screen.
What kind of breakthroughs is the author asking for? It's not like any other manufacturers appear to be providing them.