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The thing is, it's easy to say this, but doesn't it ignore the fundamentals of what's behind the magic in the first place. All of their major breakthrough products (Mac, iPod, iPhone and iPad) came at a time when the technology that made them possible had just reached maturity. Add on top of that, their undoubted refinement of UI and industrial design and they created some major winners.

What I think Apple lacks at the moment, is any new just-mature technology on which to base its 'next big thing'. That's not to say Steve Jobs didn't have a huge roll in making all their previous products a big hit, just that there is nothing new on the scene at the moment with which to craft a break through tech hit.

Interesting thoughts. I don't wholly disagree. You are right that the maturity of solid-state drives and multi-touch displays played a big role in the timing of new Apple products in the past. Though, I could point to VR and Electric Vehicles as just-mature technologies where Apple could have made a big investment. How excited would people be if Apple released an electric car... or just bought Tesla.

I know Tim Cook has mentioned VR as something "interesting" in the recent past, so they may be waiting for it to become a little more mainstream.

Amazing new graphics cards from Nvidia, Apple have all the bits to make a nice VR headset and laptop / ipad that will drive it. I'm surprised they haven't dropped any hints yet.

So, they've thought it through and decided now is not the time... why? Why not get in there while Playstation is getting in there. I guess they aren't really a games company, yet the iPhone and iPad are both great for casual games. So maybe that's not the reason. Could be that there is something better in the pipeline (hololens) or that VR isn't consumer ready yet.

There's no way Apple would make a VR headset tethered to another device. To be on-brand it has to be elegant, which means all-in-one. It probably needs a new OS... certainly none of the UI from iOS can be reused, and it needs VR-specific heat and power optimizations, probably with a new low level graphics toolkit.

From Tim Cook's statement it seems pretty clear that they're going to wait until they can do AR glasses, which also fits their anti-nerd brand strategy. AR is more social, more human.

Although when the standalone Google/Oculus headsets hit next year I suspect people will be surprised how well they sell. The mobile VR app ecosystem should hit puberty around then. Assuming Oculus/Google can hit a $600 price point I think we'll see an iPod-like growth curve in that category, which would lure Apple into the market for sure.

Isn't AR less immersive, less good as means of escapism ? And less "Addictive" ?

and that means VR will have a larger market ?

Immersion is nice for "experiences", but AR has the potential to be used all day, just like smartphones. Besides, they'll eventually converge.

The problem is that while potentially more immersive, VR is more exclusionary. By definition it's not an experience that shares well with meatspace. So it's easy to cut off and be cut off from other people in the same room. That's fine for a teenager in their room but not so much someone living with a significant other or children.

VR is at that "just mature" cusp for video games, but not for general computing interfaces. I believe that's why Apple hasn't jumped in yet. They don't want to be a video game company like Steam or Oculus. They want to create a completely new general computing UI, and VR just isn't ready for that yet, nor is AR.

Positional tracking plus something like Leap Motion on a mobile headset will get us there. We're just a year or so out from that yet.

Personally I think/hope that the next "magic" thing will be practical and affordable hologram projectors/volumetric displays a la R2D2 (but of course better.)

Apple has made a big investment in both VR and electric vehicles. Tim Cook has spoken publicly- really rare- about the preference for AR, so he's already positioning the companies approach. This tells me that they have a compelling solution that is being refined. (who knows when it will hit the market).

It looks like they are still working out the compelling solution to electric vehicles and so there's no reason to talk about it before they have a product ready.

My best is that AR/CV and conversational UI will be the next big things.

> How excited would people be if Apple released an electric car...

If the car looks just as clunky as the Apple watch, I think people will not be very excited.

Apple would likely claim they invented the electric car, too.

Also, Apple was buying their way upwards.

After the candy imacs i think much of their tech is bought.

Best i recall at least the iPod firmware, iTunes, the iPhone multitouch tech, and even Siri was startups Apple bought and internalized.

>What I think Apple lacks at the moment, is any new just-mature technology on which to base its 'next big thing'.

So what you're really saying is that Apple is waiting for other technology companies to come up with something new so that they can take that idea, put their spin on it, paint it white and announce their next big thing.

It's the "undoubted refinement of UI and industrial design" that was so important, and it's that same thing that is dying within the company.

It's not over yet, but they need a cultural shift back toward the light.

Apple has invested hundreds of millions of dollars in their car project which they just cut back on significantly, so I'm not sure I buy the argument here that they're not wiling to try something new and risky because it's expensive. Just because their R&D failures aren't very publicly visible doesn't mean they don't exist.

I'm also not sure in what way they continue to regress. Back when Jobs was alive, the only Apple product I liked enough to buy was a MacBook Pro. I greatly preferred Android phones back at that time; the early iPads weren't that great; the original MacBook Air was incredibly expensive for the hardware you got; I could never even take the old colorful iMacs seriously.

Now with Cook at the helm, in addition to the MacBook I also have an iPhone 7 Plus, Apple Watch, Apple TV (4th gen.), I subscribe to Apple Music, I use and love a 5K iMac at work, and I'll probably be getting the new MBP whenever it's finally available. To me, Apple's product line is far stronger than it's ever been before.

I think at this point the mobile hard- and software industry is simply much further developed and it's harder for everyone to innovate, not just for Apple. We can't expect that magic of 2007 to come back on a year to year basis. That said Apples products continue to be very solid. For me personally, MacBook Pros are in amazing state right now and OSX feels and looks great on high-dpi displays.

While I agree with the gist of what you've said, MacBook Pros are the one area that definitely DO feel stale to me. I think this article says it pretty well: http://www.forbes.com/sites/brookecrothers/2016/10/16/how-di... .

For a long period no other laptop manufacturer could top Apple when it came to build quality and durability. The MacBook Pros have definitely fallen behind in the past 4 years. I'm really looking forward to the rumored refresh at the end of the month.

I'm writing this on my late 2013 MacBook Pro Retina 13", which has become practically an extension of my body. It's lightweight, fast (SSD and decent CPU), and has decent WiFi. But most importantly, I can read text all day long without my myopic, presbyopic eyes bugging out. Thank you, Tim Cook and all the others responsible for this machine. (Oh, and I'm quite happy with its solid aluminum body.)

How do you know if they have cut back on the car project, or if there really is a car project? The latter seems clear from their job listings, but as near as I can tell there have been no public announcements or SEC offerings confirming any kind of a car project.

No-one really expects new magic in iPhones - We just hope there will be some incremental improvements and the rest stays as cool as it is.

What the people expect is rather a magic new product. The watch is merely a gadget. The iPod was a revolution. The Macbooks still are unreproduced on the market. The iPhone changed humanity (or at least it was the first to do so). Each wasn't an incremental improvement but a complete new line of products. Each didn't eclipse the previous line (the iPad didn't replace the Macbooks) but multiplied Apple's publicity.

At the level of Apple, innovation could be a VR tool that encompasses our life, a car, a teaching tool, or they might go to services and launch a global platform for press, privacy, work or start-ups. But the only reason I watch each keynote is that I don't want to miss the next time they innovate.

The iPhone changed humanity

It seems a but off-topic, but I have to say it. I have a problem with this.

I know iPhone's changed the industry.

But seriously, it was only a phone. A few years ahead of its time.

You know what did change humanity?

Internet.

Cell Phones.

Not iPhones..

To be fair, it wasn't just a phone. This has been beaten to death at this point, but the innovation of the iPhone was all the stuff it could do that had nothing to do with making phone calls.

Fair enough. And thanks to iphone all that functionality is now taken as a grant on a phone.

But none of that functionality is as important and effective as phone calls. And almost all of that is based on the foundation of The Internet.

> But none of that functionality is as important and effective as phone calls.

Wait, what? Making phone calls is almost always the least efficient last resort.

> And almost all of that is based on the foundation of The Internet.

Absolutely, but the Internet is dramatically more useful when it's always on, and always with you, and tied into sensors that help decide what you need.

BlackBerry gave us smart pagers. Microsoft gave us a microscopic desktop with all the charm and utility that implies. Neither were successful with the mass market because neither were particularly relevant to consumers.

The problem with saying iPhone was a few years ahead of its time is that iPhone defined the future. Without it we might still be divided between 10-20% of the user base with stylii and physical keyboards and WAP web browsers and the rest of us with feature phones.

"Wait, what? Making phone calls is almost always the least efficient last resort."

Right. The nuances of a voice conversation is less efficient than what? A text message with some emoji? A Facebook poke? Tagging someone? If you're going to tell me that all these apps are the communication method of choice...

"The problem with saying iPhone was a few years ahead of its time is that iPhone defined the future. Without it we might still be divided between 10-20% of the user base with stylii and physical keyboards and WAP web browsers and the rest of us with feature phones."

Eh, my phone had a HTML web browser before the iPhone was a twinkle in the eye.

>If you're going to tell me that all these apps are the communication method of choice...

I can't remember the last time I used my phone to actually make a call. In fact, in 2012 making a call was only the fifth most-used feature of the average smartphone, following after internet, social media, music, and games. I'm guessing that in 2016, with the plethora of messaging apps and the huge push by Facebook and others to drive adoption of those apps, making calls is even less of a priority for people.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/mobile-phones/9365085/...

>Eh, my phone had a HTML web browser before the iPhone was a twinkle in the eye.

I bet it was a total piece of shit though.

Stand at a platform at a train station and look at the crowd. Everyone who is not looking down is currently talking to a person, either on their phone, or there at the station. Everyone else is looking down, fiddling with their phones. Before the smartphone, the only people who did this was the rare book-reader.

The smartphone would have come to us eventually, but the iphone hastened it's arrival by more than a few years.

For me at least, the other functionality is more important than phone calls. After all, I'd never pay $1k or even close for a device that can just make phone calls, but I would pay that much for a device that can do everything else a modern smartphone can do.

And which among those things had not already been done at that point by the likes of Palm, Blackberry, Nokia, Motorola, et al?

Apple's major contribution is making consumer-grade technology look at once both cool and friendly, such as by putting an icon of a smiling, happy computer on the boot screen of a Macintosh. Their greatest strength is in making objects that might otherwise seem intimidating or ostentatious into something hip and approachable.

That isn't to say they don't innovate. They clearly do. But that is not where their profits come from. Those clearly derive from brand image and network effects.

What you are labeling as brand image is also dedication to usability that no mobile competitor at the time had. It's not that iPhones "seem hip" so much as they don't make you feel like a fumbling idiot when attempting complex tasks

What you call "dedication to usability" I am more apt to label "dedication to user interface". There is an important separation of meaning there.

The technology learning curve is less steep with an Apple product, but the capabilities of the device eventually hit a wall, unless you are willing to undertake the additional effort of learning to jailbreak. Competing devices have a steeper learning curve, but they go all the way up to the hardware ceiling without such a big discontinuity. Rooting or re-flashing an Android device is still a leap, but it is much less of a shock to someone who has gone to that point. In comparing Apple and Android devices, I'd say that stock Android is more capable, but Apple is more user-friendly. Carrier-crippled Android devices reduce the functionality to that of an Apple device or less, without the mitigating factor of the superior user experience.

It turns out that doing all your user hand-holding with soft, warm hands has significant market value.

I disagree with the claim that you need to jailbreak an iPhone in order to break past some capability wall. This was true in 2007 before the app store, and maybe parts of 08 and 09 before the multi-tasking and notification API's were fully fleshed, but all jailbreaking gets you know is customization. Usually at the price of reliability. (I used to be a big fan of jailbreaking a few years back).

So if I wanted to install Chrome or Firefox, with uBlock Origin to block ads, how hard would it be for me to do that on iOS?

That seems like a relatively simple and common thing to do for an Internet-connected device. Is the hardware capable of doing that? Is the software capable of doing that? Does Apple corporate policy allow customers to do that on the devices they own?

Ok, granted, the average mobile user does not block ads. But how about moving photos off the device, or loading existing music files onto it. Can I plug in a standard USB cable and mount even a portion of the local storage of the phone as removable storage on the desktop computer?

>but the capabilities of the device eventually hit a wall.. >competing devices have a steeper learning curve, but they go all the way up to the hardware ceiling..

The problem with this line of thinking is it ignores the needs of the vast vast majority of current consumers. Most don't ever hit that wall you insist is inevitable. The ability to hit the hardware ceiling, via the investment of a steep learning curve is not attractive or necessary for most people. You are not a model consumer.

The smartphone enabled internet usage in the third world, which was a pretty big change.

Symbian and feature phones were already doing that.

yep.. i can't overstate how annoying the change is in iOS 10 from swipe to unlock to pressing the home button. I understand they are desperate to introduce "widget" type interface, but that's only because the normal iOS experience is just mindless grids of app icons... ugh. I have to support iOS at work, but use Android personally. Once you go Android, you don't go back.

> Once you go Android, you don't go back.

I've been a user of Android since Eclair. It wasn't good the. So I went back to iOS. I have many friends who are android only or iOS only. I prefer to use whatever is best at the time.

I'm currently typing this from a 6S+. I was looking forward to the Pixel but I'm not impressed. So I'll see what happens after the Pixel.

I really wanted the Note 7 but you know the story...

i'm speaking in contemporary times of course, the current versions of android including the previous couple of major versions, have greatly surpassed iOS in terms of flexibility in usability.

I use Android and hate every moment of it.

I also hate iPhones. I used to use one for work because I wanted to try it out. I switched to the Nexus 6p this year. I still keep the iPhone around, though, just to remind me why I hate iOS so much.

I'm not a fan of either. I've considerably more experience with Android.

My point is that familiarity need not breed love.

Been to Android and have developed on Android professionally. Android is widely known as a much more frustrating platform to develop with. I'm always open to change, but I couldn't leave Android fast enough.

I don't know where Apple will go, but those of us that were around can certainly remember how the old Apple without Steve Jobs used to be and I have a feeling that is going on the same direction.

However, given the amount of money on the bank they still have lots of time available still, so I still look forward to whatever they might think of doing next.

Besides all of the other counter-arguments presented here, remember the article isn't arguing that Apple won't create a ceramic iPhone, just says that it'd be impossible to hide such a massive manufacturing shift so it effectively can't be the next one.

I just want something other than this aluminum garbage. My iPhone 4 lasted four years (still fully functional in a drawer), all the while never accumulating a single dent. I owned my iPhone 6 for 3 days; dropped it once from less than 3 feet off the ground (was actually sitting, not standing), an act which completely destroyed the outer case.

Their aluminum build is utter Chinese trash, built to the lowest common denominator of pennies per square inch. Yes, the iPhone 4 was smaller and a heavy clunker; but it was a sturdy device compared to their pathetically fragile materials as of late. And it's done to save maybe $10-20 on what could have been a quality build. Apple used to be about good hardware, but they've fallen into the same unapologetic Chinese manufacturing bullshit as everyone else.