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Comment by Wavelets | Hacker News Reader

What a silly article. How someone could look at Apple's chip developments (A, T, S, W, etc. series of processors) and think they aren't innovative is mind-boggling. Apple developing key silicon in their devices is a major security benefit for their users and I consider that an innovative model.

The Apple ecosystem itself is innovative and I don't think there's a single company that does it better.

They still lead in interfaces (biometrics...FaceID) and multi-touch gestures.

I don't use Siri, but I'm glad they are developing that technology in a way that doesn't flat-out violate the privacy of their users. I just hope all the criticism comparing Siri versus Google Assistant and Cortana don't push them to change that posture.

It feels like Apple hate is becoming a meme. You can certainly criticize the company... their product line is becoming confusing, but to say they "used" to be an innovator is ignorant.

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> It feels like Apple hate is becoming a meme.

Hasn't it always been, though? This probably comes off as conspiracy-theoretic, but I feel like there's a real financial incentive to keep their stock prices as in-flux as possible to allow for proper buy-in/cash-out gains.

After seeing Jim Cramer mention on camera the idea of putting out a false Apple rumor (example given in 2006 was "The iPhone is being delayed"), I'm less inclined to write off conspiracies in this regard. Don't know that it's a full-blown Conspiracy™, but the financial incentives are there for the right people.

The financial incentive is much more pedestrian: hot take clickbait for struggling news organizations.

I can certainly believe that there are plenty of people that try to manipulate the stock price, but most Apple haters aren't playing the stock market.

By far the most common cause of Apple hate I see is what appears to be consumers who are essentially disgruntled that none of Apple's products are targeted at their own use case: eg. gamers who always decried the Mac Pro because they wanted a cheap traditional desktop, not a workstation; or people who wish Apple was competing in the $500 laptop market, or the 8+lbs mobile workstation or gaming laptop market. A large portion of complaints about Apple hardware being overpriced can be traced back to misunderstandings about what Apple's actually selling and how it differs from the Dell that somebody tries to compare it to. (Of course, there are plenty of things that Apple does over-charge for.)

Next most common are probably the people who despise the "walled garden". They're quite vocal in these parts of the web, but I doubt they outnumber the previous category of Apple detractors.

Or people who don't like having to deal with dongles.

And TouchId. And FaceID. And Apple Watch. And Airpods. And Apple Pencil. And TrueTone. And Swift. And the new file system.

Anybody who thinks Apple isn’t innovating is an ignorant jackass.

None of those are innovations, merely entering a market space that already existed. Sure, they've done that in the past with the phone...but they crafted it so well it put everyone to shame. Outside of the Apple Watch the others in your list haven't really pushed boundaries. Even the Apple Watch has a lot of gimmicks that no one uses and things like the Fitbit can easily mimicked at a much lower cost.

All of these things are true but none of those have even come close to the way they moved the needle with the phone/pad.

Of course let's count the number of years it took them to get there from the newton. You can't just shit out a new groundbreaking ecosystem/product every year like clockwork. If you try 99% of those will be huge misses.

Apple Watch is dominating the wearables space.

And the level of sophistication and complexity in the Series 4 version is really impressive e.g. ECG, Heart Rate Monitor, Siri, Apple Pay.

Exactly they cannot keep inventing the wheel.

> Apple Pencil

huh...not a joke

Not an artist, but apparently the pencil is way better than the pen and tablet solutions shipped by companies like Wacom. And apparently the new version could possibly be the smallest inductive charging system yet produced.

> And apparently the new version could possibly be the smallest inductive charging system yet produced.

I think that title is still held by Samsung's Note 9 stylus.

biometrics...FaceID

The face is not a particularly good biometric modality - its main use is identification without user cooperation.

Iris recognition wins in pretty much every category.

Putting conditions on the use of the hardware is distinctly harmful to consumers in a way that otherwise good design cannot ameliorate.

Conditions like "must log in to a Google account to use this" and "must agree that Google can harvest your private data for financial gain so we can pay off those executives" yes that is harmful.

No argument here :)

I've yet to see a product that requires that. Let's compare Apple's devices against devices that actually exist instead of terrible devices that exist only in fantasy.

Relevant:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17944311

You can run as Guest on a Chromebook. No Google account required.

Oh, Guest mode, that makes everything OK then. lol

It certainly breaks your claim and shows that Apple is the worst offender.

Uhhhh... no.

Which has nothing to do with innovation. You might not like it, but it’s a meaningless argument when you’re asking about whether Apple is innovative or not.

Also, good luck finding a phone that doesn’t do that.

I wasn't arguing against them being innovative, I was pointing out that they are definitely also a landlord.

> Also, good luck finding a phone that doesn’t do that.

Not a good defense of amoral behavior.

Fair.

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