Woz: Microsoft might be more creative than Apple
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And they can't do anything about it either, they're damned if they're quiet and they're even more damned if they would speak up because they could never meet him at his level, straight to the point and with an honesty that is probably disturbing them greatly, and responding would likely result in something akin to the Streisand effect, further increasing the visibility of his words.
For those that wish to belittle Steve Wozniaks' contribution to computing: you likely would not be on this forum right now if not for him, the IBM pc only happened after early Apple validated the market.
Steve Wozniak is more of a tinkerer and an engineer, which makes him one of the hacker crowd, something that most business guys have very little empathy with (engineers are tools in their toolbox). As such I listen to what he says because he speaks my language more than the marketing and sales guys and I'm happy I don't have to parse it, all the meaning is there in plain sight, no hidden agendas.
Such transparency, even a sense of naivety is quite rare in the business world, where spindoctors will twist words until they have a meaning far removed from what I would normally get out of them.
Yes sure. Without Apple there would be no desktop PC or internet "forum" users.
a. I've used News/Usenet accessed on a VAX quite heavily b. The Altair 8800 never happened
2. "[..] all the meaning is there in plain sight, no hidden agendas."
A very bold claim without any facts that substantiate it.
3. "[...] even a sense of naivety is quite rare [...]"
Naivety might be cute but it's not a value in it's own like you make it sound.
[edit] More downvotes please. Fits our industry with booing of people that demand facts and upvotes for people with strong opinions with no ground in reality.
I've read quite a bit about and from Steve Wozniak and I've yet to see him exhibit a hidden agenda. He's just as likely to say stuff against his own financial interests as for them. I don't think he speaks for Apple in any official capacity. If you think that he has a hidden agenda I think it is up to you to prove that he does or to come up with an example where that would be evident.
Naivety is not 'cute', it means to me that someone is not out to play me, to say words to please me or to further his own interests. There is a lot off value in there because it means that you can probably believe what they say, whereas words from people that have an agenda and are actively working to twist reality by using words that generate a feeling of trust in the listener need a lot more scrutiny, assuming they have value at all.
2. If the agenda was hidden you probably would not know it. I would call a public agenda not hidden.
"If you think that he has a hidden agenda."
You have to show he has no hidden agenda (should be hard, see aboce) as you have claimed he has none, not me having to show there is one.
A computer with a built-in glass TTY / memory mapped display and a dedicated keyboard was a game changer.
Likely that revolution would have happened eventually but I'm fairly sure (having been there and having used / played with most of the above, if not outright owned them) that the Apple I was a catalyst.
Hidden agendas can be inferred because people say stuff that makes no sense until you realize that they are gaining through some other channel than the one they are communicating on / about.
So if a guy tells you that you should go and deal with a specific bank and makes a real effort to hook you up you can infer that there may be a hidden agenda there. If he does not care which bank you deal with that would count as proof that he likely does not have a hidden agenda.
You can't be sure unless he tells you or until you find evidence.
I'm saying that you'll find it hard to find anything that you could pin on Wozniak that he would say because he gains from those words in an indirect manner at your expense.
I'm the last person on the planet to defend Apple and their products, I think they are just as bad or even worse than Microsoft and I wished they'd see the light and quit trying to push us back into some kind of locked-in new world of computing.
But I'm not going to deny the effect they've had on personal computing and how much I respect Steve Wozniak for his contributions and lack of guile.
"Naivety (or naïvety, naïveté, etc.), is the state of being naive—having or showing a lack of experience, understanding or sophistication, often in a context where one neglects pragmatism in favor of moral idealism."
Naivety does not exclude hidden agendas, cunning or anything else. Your definition of naivety to me seems no the common consensus.
The content of your comment is true. The tone is profoundly irritating. Nothing to do with facts or opinions.
Years before the IBM PC came out, I had a Heathkit H11 (a version of the PDP-11) and was writing and selling software for it. I'm fairly confident that the PC revolution would have happened with or without Woz. I had been working with 11's, 6502's and 6800's for years before that, and it was pretty clear that there was a revolution in the works.
The students at Caltech (75-79) I was with were all excited about microcomputers and quite a few designed and built their own systems from scratch (it wasn't very hard, the chips pretty much just plugged together). Hell even I made one around a 6800. None had an Apple II, mainly because a PDP-11 was the preferred system used to dev the software for the microcomputer boards.
Woz certainly made enormous contributions, and nobody can say what the shape of it would have been without him, but it would have happened anyway.
I had a KIM-1 at the time and the Apple was lightyears ahead of it, even though they shared the same processor.
Most other 'personal computers' were still stuck in hexadecimal keyboard territory.
I've rolled my own (6800, '09 and 6502 based boards) and learned a lot doing that but the Apple I and later the Apple II (neither of which I ever owned but an uncle of mine had an Apple II that I played a lot with) was a real computer rather than something more akin to a large embedded system, programmed with paper tape and terminal interface using current loop. The Apple stuff rocked the world of personal computing.
The difference was huge, and I'm pretty sure that the design elements present in the Apple II raised the bar considerably for the competition and had a direct effect on the PC lineage.
It would be nice to interview the designers of the original IBM PC to ask them where they got their input.
Apple had many firsts, but it's an awful stretch to say the PC revolution wouldn't have happened without them. It's like saying we wouldn't have airliners today if the Wrights never existed.
The Wrights are an excellent example because they did what they did when they did it, and there were still people talking about whether powered flight was even possible. Kitty Hawk was a milestone for exactly the same reasons the Apple I was a milestone: huge improvement over the status quo, accelerating development and validating a market.
That's worth a lot in my opinion, it moves the needle with a large jump rather than a tiny increment.
When apple released their kit, there were already competitors in the marketplace.
What the wright brothers did was much more akin to inventing the first computer, period.
Also, the Wright's set aviation back a little with their patents on powered flight and wing warping. Even though control surfaces were better they basically had their competitors under their thumb with other 20+ year patents.
1. The first propeller theory, yielding propellers that were twice as efficient as others. This translates into needing half the power that other rivals needed.
2. The first aviation engine. The Wrights designed and built their own engine, because nothing else available had near the power/weight they needed.
3. The first wing shape based on wind tunnel tests. The Wrights discovered that the lift/drag tables existing were wrong by a factor of two. Much more power and lifting area was needed than anyone else realized.
4. The first 3 axis control system. Other experimenters had not even realized they needed one. Years later, when the Wrights demo'd their flyer in europe, they could literally fly rings around the others. The other planes could do little more than fly straight and level, making wide, clumsy, skidding turns.
5. The Wrights had the first, so far as I know, directed research and development program. They built a series of prototypes, each designed to validate a particular principle. The other experimenters just "winged" it with whatever they thought looked good.
And, of course, the Wrights documented their flight with photographs that are undeniable, and their airplane still exists. Exact replicas of their flyer have been built, they fly, and they fly in a way matching the Wrights' descriptions. The Wrights also built followup aircraft with improvements.
All modern aircraft can trace their design elements in an unbroken line back to the Wright Flyer, and no other.
Was Apple ahead of the others? Sure. By a decade or two? No way. The most generous you could say would be a year.
I don't like this argument at all.
I'm fairly confident that any single invention or discovery in the history of the world would have happened with or without the person we credit it to, someone else would have done it anyway. But that doesn't change the fact that it is an achievement and doesn't give you the right to dismiss the work the person did.
What part of WalterBright's post made you think he dismisses Woz's work?
That's why I stay away from the "business guys" whenever I can.
No die-hard Apple fan will hear what Woz has to say and switch camps, and your average Apple customer— the non-tech-types— will say, "Who the heck is 'Woz'? Wasn't he in that episode of Big Bang?"
He hasn't been involved with Apple since 1987.
Has Woz ever demonstrated any expertise in design or UX?
[edit: For anyone that has accused me of bias or fanboi-ism, let me disclose where I stand. I have run Linux on PC hardware almost exclusively from roughly 1996 through October 2012. I bought my first Mac computer a few weeks ago, being frustrated by occasional hardware compatibility issues running Linux on laptops. I think Apple has good design, but would be happy with a slim Linux laptop that works without issues.]
Woz CREATED Apple... Job's single defining contribution to the Apple I was "hey we should sell this!", he did literally NOTHING else.
- hardware internals: http://folklore.org/StoryView.py?project=Macintosh&story...
- hardware externals: http://folklore.org/StoryView.py?project=Macintosh&story...
- user interface: http://folklore.org/StoryView.py?project=Macintosh&story...
I believe if only Woz was Apple, it likely would have been an hardware manufacturer like so many back in those days. Steve made Apple unique.
Has Woz ever shown any expertise in design? I mean really, it's like asking if Michelangelo knew his way around a fucking paint brush.
Jobs also benefited from being favorably contrasted with a series of truly unimaginative replacements. :)
That's true, but that was essential. I was there, I met all the principals, and Jobs made Apple. He didn't design the computer, he sold it. Later, he met and persuaded financial backers to fund Apple's growth.
Wozniak's contribution cannot be denied (who would want to do that?), but without Jobs, it wouldn't have become Apple. The reason? Woz wanted to give his design away, to his peers, an instinct I share now and shared then. That's admirable, but it wouldn't have resulted in the Apple Computer of today, for better or worse.
Without somebody selling this stuff computing would remain relegated to huge rooms in Universities.
Instead of, you know, going all Woz and building one from scratch --which you couldn't even do with modern components, the best you could do would be assembling ready made parts.
Also, Jobs an "MBA idiot"? He never had an MBA to begin with, and as for the idiot part, well, I for one beg to differ.
This isn't meant to address Steve Jobs' role, only to correct the historical record.
I'm not sure that's the point people are making though. No-one dispute's Woz's genius back in the late 70's and early 80's. The question is more does what he did 30 years ago qualify him to speak more authoritatively about Apple than any other random tech commentator?
Yes he's probably done enough to warrant being listened to, but I don't think his words carry any particular insight any more.
Yes. He's the reason the Apple II had support for the Dvorak keyboard layout, hidden as it may have been. That's a big UX thing for me. Huge, in fact. His design skills in terms of putting motherboards together are beyond mere mortals.
May I pose a counter-question, which is if you're bitter that Woz has dissed your cult?
"That's a big UX thing for me" yes, for you and other 10 users of Dvorak keyboard
"His ->ELECTRONIC<- design skills in terms of putting motherboards together are beyond mere mortals."
Woz is a nerd. There's nothing wrong with it, and he is certainly very good at certain things, like creating minimal circuits that do several things at once.
But to say he understands UX is not really true. Having run a music festival and having taught kids makes him certainly (a little bit) more qualified for it, still.
You see, the problem with people who are very good with technology is that they will overcome any usability problems to use said tech. To be good at UX you need to put yourself in the shoes of your grandma and see things as she sees it, which is the opposite of the 'tech' way of thinking.
No, you don't. UX can mean 'ls' just as much as it can Metro just as much as it can MATLAB.
> like creating minimal circuits that do several things at once.
There's a presumption here that this has limited impact on the design of the overall product. It doesn't.
True, having Dvorak is a nice feature, but it's not the whole thing. You can certainly have a UX expert pouring over Matlab commands, then you would be considering several aspects, and would get a friendly command line interface, but not only one aspect as in that case.
"There's a presumption here that this has limited impact on the design of the overall product. It doesn't"
For the Apple I, it was certainly essential, since every part saved could save something like $10, $20 or even more (in 1980 dollars). Nowadays, not so much. Today you can fit the whole Apple I inside a FPGA (around $10) with room to spare.
That's just adding a feature, and one designed by someone else (well, Dvorak) at that, not UX design.
Plus, the Dvorak keyboard was an elaborate scam, an early version of "bio-magnetic bracelets" and such:
http://www.utdallas.edu/~liebowit/keys1.html
It's popular with guys that like the exclusivity of using it and enjoy the placebo effect, but has never been conclusively shown easier or faster to type. Not to mention that for programmers its case is made even worst, because something designed for regular typing is not at all necessary to also be good for programming languages, where the common characters change, and even include ones like {} and such.
It's the ideal keyboard layout for the guys that make optimizations without profiling.
You can see some automatically-optimised keyboard layouts here, and decide whether they look different enough from Dvorak for it (or the site itself) to qualify as a scam: http://mkweb.bcgsc.ca/carpalx/?full_optimization
You can get metrics for sequences of text here: http://patorjk.com/keyboard-layout-analyzer/
Or, more here, if you're (somehow) not bored yet: http://dvorak.mwbrooks.com/dissent.html
I doubt common sense comes into play into such complex matters as determining keyboard layout performance. Without testing between different options, using control groups and working on some specific domain (e.g performance for programming vs prose writing), common sense is useless.
(Not to mention that even in programming common sense can be both right and irrelevant --e.g. common sense might correctly assume that some function can be optimized to perform 3x faster, but fails to that it takes only 0.2% of the total running time in the first place so the win would be negligible).
>You can see some automatically-optimised keyboard layouts here, and decide whether they look different enough from Dvorak for it (or the site itself) to qualify as a scam: http://mkweb.bcgsc.ca/carpalx/?full_optimization*
I never argued against alternative keyboard layouts, or that qwerty is the best. Just that Dvorak is not worth it (and mostly, badly tested placebo solution). I've read the mwbrooks article in the past, the points he makes are not really worth it -- mostly a hack job.
In any case, if we need a future keyboard layout standard, it would have to take into account use cases (e.g programming vs journalism, etc), modern typography and extended glyphs, and of course since this is 2012, international language switching (I, and billions of other people, alternate between english and my language layout).
His claim to fame are some pretty innovative chip designs for the pre-Macintosh era Apple computers.
No offense but I am almost certain, you will not be asking this question if Woz was praising Apple and dissing Microsoft.
*corrected spelling.
Wrong. I'm asking these questions because I want to know why people fawn over Woz's opinion. It's the same opinion that thousands or millions of people hold, but no one cares when they say it. For some reason, because Wozniak worked at Apple many years ago, when he says it, it holds more weight? I'm much more interested in the opinions of people who analyze the strategy of Microsoft and Apple and who actually make -good- predictions, rather than some guy who worked with Steve Jobs 30 years ago.
Never react to ad hominem attacks, people who claim you're a fanboi just don't have any facts or arguments to bring to the table.
I have seen no evidence that this is the case. He gives his opinion, and people say, "oh my god, did you see what Woz said?!" and it's 'news' for a few days. And then everyone forgets about it. The only reason anyone listens to him anymore is because he was at the right place at the right time 30 years ago.
Woz built a computer with an integrated programming language (Integer Basic) that he wrote himself. So the first Apple II hardware and software were both Woz' creations, including of course, the UI, primitive as it may have been: the first computer that you turned on and was immediately available for programming, with a color display, and nice tricks like the ability to display the code you're typing and the graphic result at the same time by splitting the screen, something that AFAIK never was made available on any other similar 8 bit computer.
So yes, indeed, Woz back in his time revolutionized personal computers UI, too.
By contrast, remember that the Altair had no screen and no keyboard (many used various terminals, ASR-33 teletypes or S-100 expansion cards to provide for a UI), and that you had to load a program from either the front panel keys or paper tape before doing anything with it, which was a huge PITA.
Nobody else in the world actually cares, "Streisand effect" remarks aside. The guy's a putterer and a philanthropist - and as much as the same geeks like to pit him against the hated Jobs as if the two men were "geek" and "suit" archetypes, Woz has only been able to putter about with various projects and give away money because Jobs actually made them both rich.
There aren't very many smart, public personalities around that have been part of The Revolution since the beginning. There are even fewer who bring this particular perspective. It's valuable for that alone, and I'm glad Wozniak's considered newsworthy.
Also, new isn't necessarily better. I think Microsoft is in a position right now where they have the choice of duplicating the iOS/Android experience, or trying something completely different. Since they've shown a willingness to spend tons of money on new projects and play the long game, I think their strategy of trying new things is good for them. Products don't generally start out great, but rather get there over time and over multiple incremental iterations. I think Microsoft is essentially still searching for v1. Apple on the other hand already has a product that people love and buy in huge numbers. They have their good v1 and are now trying to make it great through incremental improvements.
They haven't really done anything truly new for decades now. The iPod was what made their comeback. It was an MP3 player. Those have been around for a while at that time. Then there was the iPhone which was a really good effort but didn't really invent the smartphone. It evolved what we already had (Nokia and Sony Ericcson had Smartphones on Symbian that did most things the iPhone did, only worse. They played MP3s, you could use them to browse the web and you could install Apps on them). Don't get me wrong, the iPhone was like a catalyst to the smartphone world, accelerating the development of mobile platforms, but it was not a true innovation. In fact, Android was already in development for quite a while at the time the iPhone was released. And to me, the iPad is basically a big smartphone that can't make phone calls. I don't really see much innovation there either. Did it create markets? Yes. Was it really innovative? No.
On the software side there's not really any innovation either. OSX is really a polished BSD. Sure, Apple seems to know what they're doing in terms of UX but again, no real innovation - just one of the few companies that knows how to do it properly.
So yes, I agree with the Woz quote in the title. Microsoft Research has some pretty staggering projects going (both for developers as well as consumers) and Apple seems to be milking tried and tested cows lately. It works for them but it's neither creative nor innovative. This is exactly where Microsoft has to shine these days because people got incredibly bored with MS. Windows 8 is pretty much a disaster on the desktop and the Surface tablet seems to be too slow to handle proper loads. I hope some of those research projects make it into applications even if just for the sake of competition.
There was nothing like the iPhone in the market. Not even close. It was like alien technology at the time. You must be joking about Symbian. My brother's Palm from 2003 could play MP3s, 'browse the web' and install apps too, yet it looks as sophisticated as a wristwatch today.
The development version of Android before iOS still had physical keyboards and a trackwheel, running on 240x160 screens. I'm not even going to comment on OSX or iPad because that's starting to sound like a troll.
By your standards, Tesla isn't doing any innovation either. Batteries and cars have been around for centuries, in fact the first cars at the beginning of the 20th century were battery-powered. It's just a really polished electric car.
Microsoft sat on huge market influence and a captive market for 15 years with Windows. Even with the recent changes in the consumer OS market, they still have a incredible market power. Yet, You can't really honestly say that they haven't advanced the product with innovation. Apart from Windows they also went into new product categories. They've been developing genuinely futuristic technologies.
Compare the innovation at MS to the innovation at Sony or Panosnic, IBM or SAP. There is (was?) a lot of hype around companies of more recent generations. Take Salesforce. They were applauded for being innovative and pioneering SAAS for enterprise. Forbes most innovative company. They are innovative, but not more that Microsoft. Nt over the long term.
Compare MS (or Apple) to companies considered creative outside of the tech industry and it's Mike Tyson vs a skinny 14 year old. Ikea? Toyota? The Prius is creative and innovative. Toyotas quality system is one of the big innovations in manufacturing. Ikea really has had a cultural impact with their designs. Their way of setting up stores is innovative and creative. But these companies do not compare to MS or Apple. If you take 3-5 year blocks individually you will find big-to-huge innovations from Apple or MS in every block. If you look at Ikea or Toyota, you won't.
"Even hardware from Apple is a subscription, in a couple of years it isn't going to work with the newer stuff".
Well... duh, but goodluck finding a company with a much better record on this front.
And how is Apple non-innovative for "pumping out the iPhone" compared the Android world with hundreds of failed models, or Windows with its reluctant shape shifting on what constitutes a good smart phone.
I like Woz, and he did a good job fielding some very biased wording in the questions - but really, it's been a long time since he was at Apple.
Historically, Apple hardware has kept its value very well. I could just as well still be using my 2008 Unibody Macbook. Equipped with an SSD, it's still plenty fast enough for my work.
Also, your 2008 macbook probably isn't worth as much as you think it is. Over the last few years Apple has done an excellent job of driving their prices down. A typical macbook pro from 2012 is more than 25% cheaper than one from 2008, if you're okay with a smaller screen an Air would be lighter, faster, and even cheaper.
What is true is that hardware requirements, in general for all OS's and software, have been stuck in neutral for the last few years. Whether your computer is a desktop Dell, a home-brew gaming rig, or a Mac, you probably haven't really needed to upgrade for a period of more than twice as long as you would have even just five years ago. That's why your 2008 Macbook doesn't seem like a hunk of junk, not because it's particularly powerful. While other manufacturers are being bitten by the slowing obsolescence cycle of computer hardware, Apple is very deliberately speeding the obsolescence cycle of their hardware up with a combination of marketing, reduced ability to upgrade, and price reduction.
There are aftermarket Air SSDs.
http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/SSD/OWC/
Note that they even sell IDE drive upgrades.
He makes an interesting point about Microsoft's creative development for sure, but because it's 'Apple cofounder disses Apple for Microsoft!' it has column inches galore thrown at it. Plus it ignores the fact that Apple's development cycle for it's products (release, iterate, 5 years in, release new product, iterate, repeat) has been ongoing for at least 10 years. Apple does innovate, they just do it on a much slower cycle than we'd all like, but it's good for business.
I mostly like Woz because of his honesty and straightforward manner, but it's telling from the article: "He seemed to almost decry the iPad as something that's easy, for normal people, but not for the true nerdy geek.". Apple shouldn't be building products for the true nerdy geek, we're a small percentage of a small percentage. It'd be lovely if they made an Apple Macbook Pro developer edition with all sorts of random additional tools and ports and so on, but it'd sell poorly and be waste of time. We're not their core market. That's okay.
MS has the one of the best (or the best when it comes to language research) R&D department; there are too many brilliant people doing brilliant stuff there. And they are only just starting to use that power. That should give them their edge (besides a monopoly on the desktop and billions in the bank ofcourse), about their design skills i'm not so sure.
I'll believe Woz when he says MS is more innovative than Apple, but I think Woz makes the classical geek fallacy that more innovation is the end goal. The end goal is innovation that people actually benefit from, and that involves more than paying a lot of people a lot of money to conjure up new amazing technology and then ship them in boring, poorly implemented products.
I believe that at some level MS realizes what it needs to do, but corporately it has trouble getting there. The core problem here is that the company simply doesn't sweat the details, and continually, severely underestimates how critical details are in today's market. They developed a no-frills, cheap-plan device that taps directly into our social network addictions, and then failed to actually ship the "cheap plan" part.
They released a new, innovative smartphone OS where performance was a critical differentiator from the competition (Android 2.x), and then failed to ensure that 3rd party apps had access to the same performance abilities.
And now they've released an innovative new desktop OS that bets the farm on touch interactions being the wave of the future - and their own first-party apps are in many places poorly designed for touch interaction. Major parts of the core OS are also not touch-ready.
The details matter, and MS never, ever gets the details right.
What about Windows 7?
I loved metro when I first saw the build videos in 2011, but that's because I looked at the demo apps as early and unfinished examples of the direction they were taking. Now over a year later I see almost nothing has changed and the same level of quality I saw back then is what is being released now. A lot of things are unintuitive, apps have awkward layouts, the icons are downright awful, etc.
There was a lot of promise for Windows 8 back then, and to some extent I still expect them to refine the UI and make it into a better user experience by the next version of Windows -- but by then the feeling of "innovation" will be gone and they will have missed their chance to make the big impact that they needed and would have otherwise gotten.
"I don't believe Steve [Jobs] had to be as much of a real rugged bastard, put people down and make them feel demeaned."
"I don't think that was necessary for Apple to have great products"
Edit: Google? I don't know if he is?
Being nice is good and all, but if you want to challenge the status quo in a significant way, you need to ruffle some feathers.
That makes me wonder whether being fired changed his character so that he started making more conscious use of his "Yang" side. Before being fired, it seems he would just argue with directors and be at war with everybody in the company in a very immature way. Afterwards, it seems he was more harsh in the sense of demanding results and such. Given Apple was successful after his return, that probably reinforced his behavior.
I would imagine that any intelligent Apple exec (presumably a tautology) would also worry about Microsoft, they just wouldn't chat amiably about it with someone from TechChrunch.
I'm not suggesting that what Microsoft is putting up is any good (I'm really not), they have been experimenting releasing a more varied range of products than apple has lately. That's the point Woz is making..
If you phrase the question as "Has Apple been innovative in Jan 2009- Dec 2011?"
I think you find they've been pretty innovative.
The iPhone was released 5 years ago. The iPad, 2 years ago.
It actually took _more time_ to go from the first iPod to the iPhone, than the whole period the iPhone exists.
What exactly has the competition (MS, Google) produced at the same time that is innovating (not in some "groundbreaking tech" sense -- in the "a new product category/market" sense)?
Nothing at all. Google's innovating thing was search and maybe mail. Android is a me-too, first sold one whole year after the iPhone. MS innovating was mostly Windows and Office and the .NET ecosystem. Surface is a me-too going after the iPad and Metro is just a UI (and not a very good at that). So what's the point of comparison here? Vaporware like the Google glasses thing?
Plus, Apple brought to mass market (or, more precisely, brought to market, because only like 10 guys had those before) stuff like hi-dpi displays, unibody construction, and thunderbolt. And that "ultraportable" thing (as opposed to the dying netbooks), mostly inspired by Air? Introduced merely 4 years ago, again by Apple.
Note that your definition (and even my response) ignores a massive amount of innovation that goes on under the hood; If Google Search (e.g.) used the same algorithm and had the same performance as it did ten years ago, it would be _horrible_ by today's standards, and that's precisely because we've been spoiled (in a good way) by the fact that the algorithm and the infrastructure is constantly improving, not only through small iterative improvements but also through occasional leaps which undeniably fit under the definition of innovation.
I've largely left Microsoft out of my counterexample, but that's only because saying "Google hasn't innovated at all in the last 5 years" is just such incredibly low-hanging fruit. Most of what I said applies to Microsoft as well, albeit perhaps a little less so, given that they were on the tail end of their "lost decade".
Well, true I have to count Maps (Earth/Street View) to Google's innovations. It's an important thing that millions use everyday, and that rules it's field.
Chrome, OTOH, is just Apple's webkit work with a sandbox. Not substantially better than either Firefox or Safari. If we count that as innovation, then sure, Apple put out 2 versions of it's OS and several iOS versions with hundreds of new features, the new iMac, etc etc.
As for the glasses and the self-driving cars, when we actually see them in the market I'll count them as innovations. Heck, I'll count them as innovations for Google even if someone else brings them to the market. As it is, they don't amount to much better than vapor(hard)ware. Plus, we know that behind the secrecy veil Apple also has dozens of prototypes and testing products most of which will never see the light of day. If they did a Google or Microsoft, they would have saturated the media with vaporware too.
On the one hand, we simply can't dismiss Woz by stating nonsense such as "he hasn't designed UI", "hasn't been involved with Apple since 1987", and "Jobs is the reason for Apple's success." Because that's all simply bullshit. UI, UX, Steve Jobs, him not being involved with Apple since the plane crash - has zero to do with this post and our discussion of it. So some of you need to cut out the Apple fanboy bullshit.
Now, to his thoughts. But first, let's define "creative" because reading some posts in here, I'm alerted to many of you not knowing what that even means.
"Creative" is defined as "Relating to or involving the imagination or original ideas, esp. in the production of an artistic work"
Does Apple have any more original ideas? Of course it does. Perhaps there are some still left in the pipeline from the Jobs era (these companies have long roadmaps). Jony Ive is still there and he's quite creative unless I'm mistaken. So creativity will flow. Albeit from different sources and no, Tim Cook is not creative. He's simply the supply chain guru. Are these "original ideas" good? Maybe. Maybe not. Maybe they'll fail. They can still, however, be creative.
Has Apple released any "original ideas" in the past 3-4 years - I'd say no, they haven't. The iPad might have been the last really "original" concept (if you can even call it that, but hell with it, they can have it). The iPod, the iPhone - what else? The GUI, no. They didn't inven the laptop. See - not much originality here. I digress.
Microsoft. They might be considered more "creative" (by Woz) because of their departure from the desktop with Windows 8 - so in essence, they're being more "creative" because the ideas are more original than iOS4>5>6, iPhone 2>3>4>5>5S and iPad 1>2>3>4 (all refreshes). We also have the new voice recognition initiative which, if successful, will be a big game changer for Microsoft. WAY more "creative" than Siri or anything from Cupertino. Can Microsoft's "creative" ideas fail? Of course. And from what I've been reading and personally have experienced, Windows 8 RT is not that good, and confusing.
So, yeah, seems Woz is right so far, doesn't it?
It's a multi-dimensional issue here of creativity and innovation. Apple simply isn't innovating, whether you want to admit it or not. They appeal to the consumer, they're a solid company, huge margins, and that's fine. I've owned most every product they've ever made from XServes to Mac Pro's to Newtons to Powerbooks to the IIe and Peformas, list goes on. I love the company. I wrote my first program in BASIC on a IIe.
Will a flat-screen TV from Apple be considered "innovative" or "creative" maybe a little creative but it's certainly NOT what Woz is talking about.
Remember, Woz is an engineer, so he's not here to market consumer products and sell 5 million of them in a quarter. He's speaking purely on innovation and creativity in technology. He loves technology. You can tell. From the CL9 remote to devices and what not - he loves the craft. So he's right, Apple isn't being creative, they're just constantly refreshing products to stay competitive in an insanely competitive market. They sort of have to. The iPhone 5S is already slated for June! What in the hell will be different about than the current 5?! An A6X and... Unless that phone charges wirelessly, is 1mm thin, and has a new cutting-edge battery for 40 hours of talk time - there's NOTHING creative or innovative about it.
So, maybe Woz is right. Microsoft is taking bolder steps, they're breaking from the norm of Windows desktops, getting into a different space, taking risks, trying innovative concepts such as voice translation. To me and apparently Woz, that's more innovative than "the new iPad"
The page at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Innovation compares all three.
The iPad was LESS than 2 years ago. April 2010. See how fast the spoiled consumer takes things for granted?
And you sure as hell can call it an original concept: No tablet had succeeded in the market before it, other companies started making copycat products immediately after, and it still commands the huge majority of the market, to the point that most of the competitors are statistical noise and the best ones are at 20% at most.
>The iPod, the iPhone - what else? The GUI, no. They didn't inven the laptop.
True, some guy in the seventies invented the laptop, I'm sure. It was like 80 pounds, with a 6 inch black and white display. Should I care about _that_ laptop?
As for Apple they just made the best, or some of the best, laptops (at least according to most reviews, judging by most alpha geeks at programming conferences, and by a certain Linus Torvalds).
Oh, and in the same 3-4 years, they have brought to the mass market: Hi-DPI displays, SSD drives, thunderbolt, unibody construction, ultraportables (the Air defined the category, and had Intel offer a bounty of millions to PC manufacturers to copy it). Oh, and Siri and a Cloud offering, integrating file storage and backup across a range of devices.
Not bad for a stagnant company.
>Microsoft. They might be considered more "creative" (by Woz) because of their departure from the desktop with Windows 8
Departure? They kept the whole desktop, and merely added a gimmicky (and poorly favored in reviews) tiled/touch interface on top.
>- so in essence, they're being more "creative" because the ideas are more original than iOS4>5>6, iPhone 2>3>4>5>5S and iPad 1>2>3>4 (all refreshes)
Windows 8 is Windows NT -> XP -> Vista -> 7, with a thin new facade that you venture off of every time you actually use an app. All refreshes here too.
>We also have the new voice recognition initiative which, if successful, will be a big game changer for Microsoft.
That's a big if.