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Comment by siglesias | Hacker News Reader

I think Gruber's point about "Apple not innovating anymore" is especially apt. One needn't look beyond the diff quality between iPhones (or iPad!) under Jobs. The diffs have held constant, if not increased, under Cook [1]. I think this tech crowd fancies itself rational and immune to mythologizing, but claiming things were once better in the face of the hard facts is doing just that.

1) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6258275

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I don't really. I agree that it's too early to tell, but his argument reads a little strawman-ish. IE, the haters that call the post Jobs releases incremental, would have called the ipad "just a big iPhone.”

I think thats a little silly. There clearly is a difference between an incremental update of a product from a 5th to 6th generation (which is also hard, important and can be impressive or unimpressive) and a release or update that is a Big Deal in the way the iphone 1 was a big deal.

The reality is that under Jobs, Apple did some big things. Macs (which you you might call several big things). ipods, iphones, ipads. These all had very big impacts on technology, economy & culture. You can't expect these kinds of things to keep coming every three years. Maybe they would have stopped even with Jobs. But, at some point, a post Jobs Big Thing needs to happen.

I saw needs to happen and that's a little harsh. Realistically, Apple are an enormous company. Several very successful product lines that can carry them a long way, perhaps through several successful CEOs. Incremental improvement on those product lines is not the end of the world. There's no reason the iphones and ipads can't last as long as macs.

I believe the new Mac Pro is post-Jobs Apple’s first big thing. It’s not a consumer device and it won’t sell tens of millions, but it is a completely new computer with a radically different philosophy than how Apple built workstations before.

If it doesn't sell tens of millions it doesn't make a big impact on Apple's bottom line. It might have some other effects like incubating tech that will make it into other products, but then those products become the new important products.

I guess that in the maybe category then :) (I haven't used one myself).

I now see that by ‘Big Thing’ you meant a new cash cow. I thought you meant ‘a great new product no-one expected’.

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