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Comment by capkutay | Hacker News Reader

I think the jury is still out on Tim Cook..and that jury will report the verdict some time early 2015. If Apple does not break into a new product category this year, it's clear that Tim Cook cares too much about operations and too little for innovation and pushing Apple products to the next level. You can tell by the particularly insignificant iterations of the iPhone. Either he has an excellent poker face and is keeping their new products a secret, or he just set out to turn Apple into a cash cow: sandbagging existing products to maximize profit.

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I don't think it follows that, if Apple doesn't launch a new product category this year, its because Cook has decided to sandbagging to maximize profit. That is not how Apple has operated since Jobs came back. Instead Apple's #1 priority is to create products that offer an amazing user experience. They won't release something until they feel they've reached that.

Consider the iPad. Isaacson's book revealed that iPad prototypes and multi-touch was actually created years ahead of the iPhone. However the power/weigh/performance ratios just weren't there for a compelling product. It was not until the scale of the iPhone drove down costs and improved technology that a compelling tablet experience was possible that Apple released the iPad. And even then in 2010 this was not an easy task. Go back and read the reviews for all the "me too" Android tablets that launch in the 2010-2011 compared to the original iPad. This is just one of a number of examples.

Apple will release a new product category if and when it feels it can make an impact there, not because of a time table set by technology pundits or analysts. This is just how they work.

What product category do you expect Apple to jump into?

The only viable one I can think of is wearable tech, and definitely not a damn watch. I think Apple won't cater to as niche a market as wearable medical, and let 3rd party use their hardware to attack that market space.

Why would a well-done wearable medical device be niche? In America alone there are 1 billion doctors visits per year (http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/docvisit.htm)

Surely there is untapped potential in giving people greater day to day insights into their health, and obviously a lot of people care about their health.

What exactly would this device do? What useful data can be gathered from my pulse and miles walked that would be relevant to my my doctors visit?

This.

Until it can analyze sweat for illnesses and nutrition info that won't get Apple in trouble legally (FDA...) and will spare you from going in for a check-up, then I don't think it's feasible at all for them to venture in that area.

I think it's correct to say that Apple won't launch a wearable tech "medical" device until they know how to break it out of being a niche product.

MP3 players, smartphones, and tablets were all small "niche" markets before Apple entered them.

Everyone is going to say iWatch. But that's nothing.

The two biggest for me will be an App Store for the AppleTV. This could put the end to Nintendo's console hopes forever and open up a lot of new revenue streams. And the biggest by far is payments. iBeacons is starting to take off and with AppleID/TouchID they have the frictionless security mechanism.

frictionless? My touch ID is crap - try doing physical work (building, digging, that sort of stuff) and it will never go. Or a hint of dampness. My thumb print must be subtly different day to day or something, because I only do building stuff at weekends, yet no matter how often I re set the touch ID, even having all 5 prints set to my thumb, I end up entering password most times.

Printers.

http://www.theonion.com/articles/new-apple-ceo-tim-cook-im-t...

I totally disagree. Innovation does not happen on a fixed schedule; you have to wait until the technology is available to match a significant product vision.

Look at how long it took Apple to do a tablet. The iPad launched more than a decade after Microsoft pushed their tablet vision; heck you could buy iBook tablet conversions for years before the iPad.

Samsung rushed their watch out the door to beat Apple to the market. Result: total dud. I'm not eager for Apple to try te same thing. Tim Cook will achieve the best success by pushing his folks to NOT launch until they have a blow-your-mind level product.

Edit to add: this is the primary advantage of having great cash flow and a lot of capital: Apple can choose when to launch new products; they don't have to force things out the door to keep the lights on.

Exactly. They kept an x86 version of OSX for many years until 2005 when they did the switch, so I would expect them to have several prototypes of hybrid OSX / iOS devices like the Surface that they are playing around with while looking to find the right formula, not to mention integrated Apple TVs og Apple TVs with beefier graphics cards.

1) The iPhone iterations haven't been insignificant, unless you're expecting "mission impossible" technologies (or replaceable batteries and memory slots).

2) They have gone on record saying that they will introduce "new product categories" this year, so we'll see whether they keep their promise.

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