Lorem Ipsum is Greek huh? How can I read the rest of the article without vexation knowing that the writer can't identify a simple foreign language and a prolific tool of design?
"Greek" is the correct design term for any dummy text in a mock-up.
You Can't Innovate Like Apple
11–20 of 71 posts
Re: You Can't Innovate Like Apple
#12"Apple wraps great ideas inside great ideas", reminds me of JJ Abrams Mystery Box idea at TED:
Re: You Can't Innovate Like Apple
#13I'm reminded of the story of NUMMI [1], the American automobile plant that was a 1980s joint venture between GM and Toyota. (It was covered in an episode of This American Life).
In a nutshell, the story of NUMMI involves American GM workers building Toyota-designed/GM-branded vehicles using Toyota's radically different manufacturing processes. The plant itself was a smashing success for GM; the plant achieved much higher quality and productivity than any of GMs traditional plants, and it gave GM valuable insight into their rival's manufacturing and design processes.
But this insight into Toyota's processes failed to transform GM because the GM corporate culture was so entrenched. It took the company the better part of 20 years to really adopt these changes they learned in 1984, as they continued to bleed market share to the Japanese.
The point of that story is that I believe the corporate culture of any large tech company is equally entrenched, and in my experience it's this corporate culture that utterly determines how a company's products are designed and produced.
So it really doesn't matter how Apple does things, it only matters that they're different and successful; their competitors will be completely unable to react or change. Every company is full of powerful employees who have worked their entire careers to get where they are, and they will fight tooth and nail to prevent losing their position over anything else. Do you think all those PMs at Microsoft are going anywhere?
So companies like Microsoft, Motorola, HP, Acer, Nokia, Sony, and Nintendo can only do what they've always done. And if you look at their products, that's exactly what they continue to do in the face of a radically changing landscape. That's why a Toyota or an Apple or a Google is so truly threatening to their entrenched competitors. They achieve dramatically better results by doing things differently.
Re: You Can't Innovate Like Apple
#14If this is true then how did ping and the new iTunes icon make it past the 10-3-1. I am joking but not everything is perfect. Just not sure how those two slipped through.
Yeah, the new iTunes icon and the new Remote for iOS icon doesn't seem up to par with Apples aesthetics. Maybe they've gotten a new design lead that took those decisions.
Re: You Can't Innovate Like Apple
#15If this is true then how did ping and the new iTunes icon make it past the 10-3-1. I am joking but not everything is perfect. Just not sure how those two slipped through.
Exactly. He says, "Quick, identify 10 different pieces of technology that truly meet your needs and that don’t bug you due to a major flaw you either have to live with or compensate for in some fashion. Could you come up with more than five? I didn’t think so," as if Apple's strategy is to land on that list. I use and enjoy my share of Apple's wares, but even if I could come up with 10 different pieces of technology…
I would argue that the iTunes and App Store experience is by far the best from a user perspective. From a hacker perspective... I don't know. But I think regular computer users are more than happy with iTunes and App Store. The ease of the App Store plays a good part in how sucessful apps has become.
Re: You Can't Innovate Like Apple
#16Before starting my company, I worked as a product manager for a good 10 years and few other things after that. Truths like the Henry Ford quote: "If I’d have asked my customers what they wanted, they would have told me ‘A faster horse.’" are good and true but as this article points out, there is only room for one Apple and one Ford at any one time or any one industry. The rest of us have to be pragmatic and consider…
Can you elaborate further on why there is only room for one company of this type in any one industry? I am struggling to see why that would be the case.
Re: You Can't Innovate Like Apple
#17I'm reminded of the story of NUMMI [1], the American automobile plant that was a 1980s joint venture between GM and Toyota. (It was covered in an episode of This American Life). In a nutshell, the story of NUMMI involves American GM workers building Toyota-designed/GM-branded vehicles using Toyota's radically different manufacturing processes. The plant itself was a smashing success for GM; the plant achieved much hi…
> So companies like Microsoft, Motorola, HP, Acer, Nokia, Sony, and Nintendo can only do what they've always done.
I'm not sure Nintendo fits well in this list. They have seemed pretty willing to "take risks" (in a controlled way) and do things differently in recent years (since 2002~2003 and the start of the DS project, though they weren't initially as bold with it as they could have been, calling it a "third pillar" alongside the GBA and the GC, which we now know was utter bullshit)
Re: You Can't Innovate Like Apple
#18I think there are plenty of companies that innovate like Apple, but none of them make hardware. You can make a great piece of software with just a few programmers. But making a great gadget requires so many different specialized services and such a large scale operation that it's impossible to get everyone drinking the same kool-aid. If DIY manufacturing ever takes off, that's when you will see Apple caliber products…
Do you really think we'll live to having a DIY manufacturing unit that builds me an iPhone 4?
Re: You Can't Innovate Like Apple
#19Lorem Ipsum is Greek huh? How can I read the rest of the article without vexation knowing that the writer can't identify a simple foreign language and a prolific tool of design?
"Greek" is the correct design term for any dummy text in a mock-up. See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greeking
No way. I would have called it Latining! Don't I feel like an idiot.
Re: You Can't Innovate Like Apple
#20Before starting my company, I worked as a product manager for a good 10 years and few other things after that. Truths like the Henry Ford quote: "If I’d have asked my customers what they wanted, they would have told me ‘A faster horse.’" are good and true but as this article points out, there is only room for one Apple and one Ford at any one time or any one industry. The rest of us have to be pragmatic and consider…
Agree. Article quotes Apple as having just 20 designers who come up with the cool products. Article also says they don't do market research. This makes sense- 20 people come up with amazing ideas on their own (easy to reach consensus), and then I'm sure test prototypes in front of users. (They must get their products in front of users, even if it's a small set of users).
Contrast to Microsoft, which has competitive designers and programmers working in silos, vying for their little feature to win real estate on one of their programs. No wonder everything is bloated. (Source: I heard this from MS employees when I worked a consulting project for them while at a well known design firm).
Here's an interesting post on how Apple's "benelovent monarchy" stacks against Android's crowdsourced approach. http://blog.p2pfoundation.net/crowdsourced-curation-reputati... Does Apple's innovation win in this case?