Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Apple R&D Reveals a Pivot Is Coming

aboveavalon.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

11–20 of 269 posts

Re: Apple R&D Reveals a Pivot Is Coming

#11

Post by ggreer »

mozumder wrote: post #7

There's so much Apple could be doing that are a more natural progression from their existing product lines. They could take inspiration from some of their previous consumer efforts to target entirely new product lines, such as a camera (QuickTake), printer (LaserWriter), or game console (Pippin). A modern version of all these would sell out. Or they could reintroduce their enterprise/business products, such as XServe…

Apple already makes the most popular camera and the most popular gaming device: the iPhone.

Re: Apple R&D Reveals a Pivot Is Coming

#12

Post by epistasis »

bitmapbrother wrote: post #4

Apple's not going to pivot. I'm sure they'd like to, but I can't really see what they would pivot too. Instead they'll just throw their hat into the usual next big thing everyone else is chasing - VR / AR and electric cars - of which I don't think they'll have a lot of success in. Their bread and butter will always be the iPhone and they'll ride that wave until it comes crashing to the shore.

If we're going to go on history, it's quite likely that whatever Apple pivots to, lots of people will say "yeah, whatever Apple, that's a tiny market and there are already like four players in there and they're all more serious than you." Then within three years Apple will have taken what seemed not so consequential, completely dominated, expanded the market by several orders of magnitude, and left everybody in their dust.

That's what a successful Apple pivot looks like.

VR, electric cars?! Maybe, but extremely unlikely. Those are obvious things that everybody in Silicon Valley is thinking about and has overhyped to death. Apple would probably take some smaller category that people hadn't thought could hit the big time. IMHO, it's obviously not going to be VR, that's been completely overhyped, sounds cool to nerds but completely impractical and practically useless, and will have basically no impact on the majority of lives out there.

Re: Apple R&D Reveals a Pivot Is Coming

#13

Post by [deleted] »

bitmapbrother wrote: post #4

Apple's not going to pivot. I'm sure they'd like to, but I can't really see what they would pivot too. Instead they'll just throw their hat into the usual next big thing everyone else is chasing - VR / AR and electric cars - of which I don't think they'll have a lot of success in. Their bread and butter will always be the iPhone and they'll ride that wave until it comes crashing to the shore.

[deleted]

Re: Apple R&D Reveals a Pivot Is Coming

#14

Post by heifetz »

Apple needs a visionary. Google, Amazon and Facebook all have founders who are visionaries and drive the focus of the company. Tim Cook could be a great CEO, but he is not a visionary and does not drive products. Who is driving the vision at Apple? It's not Jony, I have no idea who is doing that. That is also something you can't do by committee. Apple seems to be really floundering and does not have any great visions for new products or focus to make people excited! People have certainly slowly lost interest in the iPhone. Apple needs to spend its cash and bring Elon Musk onboard!

Re: Apple R&D Reveals a Pivot Is Coming

#15

Post by mozumder »

traskjd wrote: post #9
mozumder wrote: post #7

There's so much Apple could be doing that are a more natural progression from their existing product lines. They could take inspiration from some of their previous consumer efforts to target entirely new product lines, such as a camera (QuickTake), printer (LaserWriter), or game console (Pippin). A modern version of all these would sell out. Or they could reintroduce their enterprise/business products, such as XServe…

One of the biggest challenges that Apple has, is what would actually be meaningful? I loved a comment I saw recently that highlighted that a 10 digit revenue item can be counted as largely insignificant to a company the size of Apple. So, if you start looking at product spaces that have: 1. A meaningful market size (ideally all consumers) 2. A price that is significant 3. Enhances the brand image as chic/cool 4. Is g…

The problem they're facing with the big bets is that they can lose big as well. With iPhone sales dropping 30%/year, they're losing about that much revenue also, since the company's revenue is tied so much to that singular product.

A broad product portfolio will always be more stable over the long term.

Re: Apple R&D Reveals a Pivot Is Coming

#16

Post by darawk »

Is this a surprise? Isn't it well known that Apple is working on a car?

I think the big question here is not are they working on a car, but can they deliver a car that represents a significant improvement over what's out there. And that i'm highly skeptical of, unless they deliver full autonomy. But there is just no way Apple is going to beat Google to market with that technology.

So, I agree they're working on a car, but I feel fairly confident that it will be an absolute disaster for them. Though most times that's been said about their products in the past decade or two has been a disaster for the person saying it.

Re: Apple R&D Reveals a Pivot Is Coming

#17

Post by rdl »

The other depressing interpretation is that they're achieving less per dollar spent on R&D (becoming less efficient); they certainly seem to be achieving less per release of product now, so it would be consistent. Maybe there was a time when Apple got the most brilliant people wanting to work there because it was Apple; if that's no longer true, their efficiency would decrease.

(Arguably the same thing happened in K-12 education; when women were largely excluded from other professions, teaching positions were filled by the best women in the workforce; now, many of them would rather be doctors/engineers/lawyers/etc., so the quality of educators has decreased to the market level.)

Re: Apple R&D Reveals a Pivot Is Coming

#18

Post by Eridrus »

traskjd wrote: post #9
mozumder wrote: post #7

There's so much Apple could be doing that are a more natural progression from their existing product lines. They could take inspiration from some of their previous consumer efforts to target entirely new product lines, such as a camera (QuickTake), printer (LaserWriter), or game console (Pippin). A modern version of all these would sell out. Or they could reintroduce their enterprise/business products, such as XServe…

One of the biggest challenges that Apple has, is what would actually be meaningful? I loved a comment I saw recently that highlighted that a 10 digit revenue item can be counted as largely insignificant to a company the size of Apple. So, if you start looking at product spaces that have: 1. A meaningful market size (ideally all consumers) 2. A price that is significant 3. Enhances the brand image as chic/cool 4. Is g…

This is exactly the sort of thinking that leads to companies becoming irrelevant; almost nothing can move the needle for them, so they fail to see the next thing coming.

The initial theory of disruptive innovation from The Innovator's Dilemma is about this exact issue and how companies can deal with it.

Re: Apple R&D Reveals a Pivot Is Coming

#19

Post by datashovel »

I think the ideas presented appear somewhat contradictory. I may be missing something here because the following 2 ideas seem contradictory to me.

1) Apple's secrecy 2) Apple's pivot

If they're pivoting, why be secret about it? One of the reasons provided was that being public about new products could hurt current product sales.

If it's an entirely new product line (ie. car), I have a hard time believing someone will think twice about buying an iPhone because Apple is coming out with an electric car.

Instead being secret seems it may hurt more than help. If I'm in the market for a new car, and there's a real release of an affordable Tesla that has already happened, while at the same time I have no idea what Apple is doing or if they're even going to do it or what kind of timeline the project is on, I'm probably going to buy the Tesla.

Otherwise if I'm somewhat certain that Apple may be coming out with a new car within a year or two, I may decide to hold off with my purchase of the Tesla for the time being in order to consider buying the Apple iCar when it comes out.

Re: Apple R&D Reveals a Pivot Is Coming

#20

Post by Animats »

Apple may be developing automatic driving technology, but actually making cars seems unlikely. They mostly outsource manufacturing, after all.

Apple might be working on something to take a bite out of Facebook or Google Search or Amazon's Echo. The next big thing is likely to be "you just talk to it and it does the right thing". Siri with common sense.

Post reply on HN