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Comment by kdsudac | Hacker News Reader

Disclaimer: I've been a long time apple hater so take what I say with a grain of salt.

I get particularly annoyed when people describe Apple as an innovator. They're really just a mainstream cross over hit, while the real innovators never get the spotlight.

Apple is: incredible at business; excellent at marketing; great at product design; mediocre at innovation;

How much of a MacBook Pro is Apple innovation? and how much of it is doing a great job of pulling together supplier's innovations with some great design and system integration? Even OSX and iOS are derivatives of BSD.

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> How much of a MacBook Pro is Apple innovation? and how much of it is doing a great job of pulling together supplier's innovations with some great design and system integration?

And how much was it that suppliers were being pushed by Apple into being 'innovative'? Would anyone be producing laptop size retina panels if not for Apple's demand? How long would we have waited for retina laptops if we had to rely on HP, Dell, etc.?

Combining old components into new products can be just as innovative as creating new components themselves. Innovation is not restricted to the lowest levels.

Edit: let me clarify this a bit. If apple goes to LCD panel suppliers and says 'you only support 1080p in this size, but give us 2880x1800 and we'll buy x million units', is it the supplier who's being innovative? Remember that apple also had to get nvidia to produce a mobile graphic chip with a much higher max. resolution -- it seems to me that it was Apple's vision of the whole that drove the innovation for the parts.

I noticed you answered my question by asking another question. You bring up an interesting point and I'll answer it; however, I'd appreciate it if you returned the favor and gave me a straight-forward answer to my question.

Q: And how much was it that suppliers were being pushed by Apple into being 'innovative'? Would anyone be producing laptop size retina panels if not for Apple's demand? How long would we have waited for retina laptops if we had to rely on HP, Dell, etc.? A: I have no facts on this and probably only LG and Apple insiders really know. If I had to guess I'd say: LG has been in the display business for decades and have had a long R&D program to research how to make better displays. They (and other companies) figured out how to make very high-res displays at a cheaper price (i.e. they innovated). LG then shopped the technology to several suppliers. HP, Dell, etc. were interested but knew that such a product wasn't a good fit for their product mix and would be too expensive for their typical customer. Apple saw the opportunity (kudos to them) and are able to command a premium price from consumers so they locked up a deal with LG.

Did Apple innovate? Personally, I'd just say they saw a market opportunity and ran with it.

I guess the real point of difference here is how far we can/need/should stretch the word innovate.

To put a twist on your metahphor: Your boss comes to you and says "hey if you can make X go 10 times faster for 50% less, they'll sell like crazy" You then spend a couple weeks figuring out how to achieve that goal. Does that mean he innovated by seeing a market need and setting a goal? No, he saw a market need and deserves a pat on the back for that. You innovated a solution and deserve a pat on the back for that.

I answered with a question because no-one here is in a position to actually answer any of these questions -- it all really hangs on what was said and done behind the scenes; I'm just playing devil's advocate and providing an alternative point of view.

My opinion is that upping the max. resolution for a graphics card is neither especially innovative nor difficult (early reports seem to show that the chip is not really fast enough for it anyway -- see the review on anandtech). While producing a 15" retina display may be more difficult than a 10" model, it seems to me that it's more of a yield and cost issue (but perhaps there's a lot more involved).

On the other hand, having the vision (okay, the deep pockets also help) to get all these previously non-existent pieces together, and to get it working with reasonable battery life and heat, could be seen as innovative -- if any part of the MBPwRD is.

(The redesigned fan is actually my favourite part -- I hate whining high-pitched laptop fans).

As for your final example -- there doesn't seem to be any innovation in it at all? Innovation is about coming up with something new. Let's change it a little -- suppose your boss came up with a complete idea for a genuinely new web app and asks you to build it; much of the innovation is his, in my opinion. If you do something genuinely new in the implementation, then you may also be innovating.

I guess my point is that (I believe that) the product can be innovative even if the parts aren't, and especially if they are.

I am going to argue Apple is an innovator. Invention isn't the only form of innovation.

in·no·vate/ˈinəˌvāt/ Verb: Make changes in something established, esp. by introducing new methods, ideas, or products.

Apple has for the last few years, over and over again shaped entire industries. They didn't create them, but they did commercialize them on the large scale. Mp3 players existing before the iPod, but the iPod absolutely shaped that market. "Smart" phones like WinCE based ones existed before the iPhone, but again -- they shaped a market. They did it again with the iPad -- a product class around since 2000, and pushed by Microsoft in 2002. In the past, they absolutely shaped the personal computer.

I am not currently purchasing new Apple products (Asus and Samsung are almost all my hardware), but I won't claim they aren't an innovator. When I look at the SIII, I am happy apple helped shape the market into something beautiful. I am also happy that Apple often pushes or drops new technology first...

That I said, I have absolute nightmares of a market where Apple wins and is able to really effectively drive out competitors. I only enjoy Apple for its side-effects not direct-effects. I hope that other companies (Microsoft, Samsung, Ubuntu) learn a bit from Apple, and grow some balls and try bold things.

Shaping entire industries might be a little hyperbole, but I'll happily concede they have shaped entire product markets (e.g. mp3 players isn't really an industry; consumer electronics is an industry which they helped to shape).

So we agree they shape markets, but that doesn't mean that the innovate. They are two different things.

What's your source for your definition of innovate? I was intrigued by it, but a quick google search only turned up someone's blog for their homemade artisan bags: (http://www.jaxonbags.com/jaxon-bags/innovate-invt-make-chang...). If this is your source, then that's good for a chuckle. :)

P.S. I don't mean to be a jerk in my response. Just engaging in friendly banter.

https://www.google.com/search?q=define+innovate which pulled it from http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/innovate

I think they do actually innovate, and I didn't even mention the ways they innovate in supply chain (super boring, but makes them a load of money).

IMO innovation doesn't always mean coming up with a completely different genre of products. Here's an excerpt from the wikipedia entry on innovation. Innovation is the creation of better or more effective products, processes, services, technologies, or ideas that are readily available to markets, governments, and society.

OSX and iOS are definitely BSD derivatives with an exception that using them for a normal user is not equivalent to herding cats.

Apple is perfect combination of a mainstream and real innovation. GUIs are the best example which were originally developed by Xerox, but it was apple to innovate on top of that GUI concept to make it work for the masses.

I think when they talk about Apple as an innovator they mean innovative design. I agree that they haven't so much introduced products that changed the world because they were scratching an itch that hadn't previously been scratched- they just provide a much more stylish and cooler way to scratch the itch.

Can you give several examples of what you do consider to be innovation?

I'll give you one example from the electronics industry: Solid State Drives.

Of course, this technology was built on the shoulders of the IC industry and decades of hard-core research by individuals and companies.

My friend's MacBook Pro has a SSD. She really likes the MacBook Pro because it boots fast (awesome!). Apple didn't invent the SSD, they weren't the first ones to put it in a product, but they were the first ones to put the product in my friend's hand. To her, Apple is a incredible innovator.

So they didn't innovate the SSD, they just did a great job of integrated and selling. This illustrates my original points that Apple is "incredible at business; excellent at marketing; great at product design; mediocre at innovation;...great design and system integration"

Being innovative is more than being an inventor. Any novel idea that gets realized (turns into a product, becomes part of a product, gets used to change processes and structures) is very much part of what it means to innovate – and you shouldn’t ignore the realized part, either. Deciding which ideas are good and which are worthless is certainly also part of the innovation process.

To be innovative it is not necessary to invent something completely new (on the low level you are talking about), it’s certainly enough to combine existing inventions in a novel way (but in a sense that’s also an invention, just on a higher level).

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