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Comment by gfodor | Hacker News Reader

Uh, Apple created the Macintosh, the iPhone, and the iPad. I would give them a bit more credit for creating new industries if we're going to start comparing them to Google on that front.

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I think credit is given . . . that's the past though, only so long you can rest on your laurels, and creating a snazzier phone and an app store doesn't really measure up to autonomous cars and robots in my opinion . . . its very nice don't get me wrong, but not in the same category of hard research into technologies where there isn't an obvious usecase yet, and thinking ahead 15 years.

The difference is that Apple doesn't advertise what they're working on until it's nearly ready to ship. They don't do vaporware. So they're always going to lose out on that comparison.

Apple grew those industries they did not create them. Important, yes, but also by a large a safer role.

If you were to oversimplify the creation of the PC industry down to a single company, you'd probably land on Apple with the Apple II.

I'm also not sure which industry Google is supposed to have created?

true, but its not that there weren't personal computers, smartphones or tablets before. Apple knows when the market and tech is ready for new products and executes extremely well, but they hardly ever invent anything risky like self-driving cars or Google Glass.

The products I listed above were all written off as being doomed to fail by many when they launched. They were incredibly risky products.

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