I was enjoying my recent blog fame, sitting alone, doing nothing. I opened a new tab in Safari on my Mac and up popped the top sites page. I decided to go to CNN and I browse around the technology section until I see something that makes me scream. I read through it again and again, trying to make myself believe that it is a dream. It isn’t. This pile of dogshit (or is it horseshit?) is real:
Apple also isn’t nearly as versatile at adding new software features to its devices. Apple usually makes users wait a year or more for a new version of iOS, and even then some older devices can’t access all the latest and greatest features.
Apple CEO Tim Cook likes to say tablets — not laptops — are the future of computing, yet it feels like Apple’s software goes out of its way to limit what you can do on the machine.
Meanwhile there are others, especially Samsung, that appear to be innovating at a pace faster than Apple can.
–Steve Kovach for CNN and Business Insider
I suggest you avoid the article at all costs. It is one of the most idiotic things I have ever read on the Internet, and I have read every single article by Dan Lyons! I don’t even know where to start. Let’s start with this part of the quote above:
Apple also isn’t nearly as versatile at adding new software features to its devices. Apple usually makes users wait a year or more for a new version of iOS, and even then some older devices can’t access all the latest and greatest features.
Poor iOS users, who are forced to wait a year for a major new OS version. Meanwhile, Android users have to…usually wait about a year for an update (Gingerbread, Ice Cream Sandwich, Jelly Bean). The second part is the most ridiculous part of that sentence. Let’s ignore the huge amount of fragmentation in the Android market and focus just on Samsung. The Galaxy S2 only recently got Android 4.1 (not 4.2). The Galaxy S3 didn’t get the update immediately either when it came out in the summer. Major versions of iOS, however, are available to every single user with a compatible device immediately. The 3GS was updated to iOS 6, which is pretty incredible seeing how old it was. I would rather know if and when my device would get the next major update than play a wait and see game. I doubt I am alone on this.
Apple CEO Tim Cook likes to say tablets — not laptops — are the future of computing, yet it feels like Apple’s software goes out of its way to limit what you can do on the machine.
As opposed to Android tablets which have a great number of productivity apps and support from business users!
Meanwhile there are others, especially Samsung, that appear to be innovating at a pace faster than Apple can.
Aha! Samsung is more innovative! Why? What have they done that is innovative?
The best example of this is the Galaxy Note, a smartphone-tablet hybrid with a giant screen. When that device first hit the United States about a year ago, critics (including me) slammed the device for being too large. It couldn’t fit comfortably in your pocket. It was really thick. And it came with a stylus, that relic of the Palm Pilot era, making the Note feel like a step backward.
None of that mattered. Samsung sold at least 10 million Galaxy Notes. The company came out with an updated version with an even larger screen called the Galaxy Note II a few months later and sold another 5 million (at last count), a very big achievement for a single Android device.
Innovation is a bigger screen. That must have been so hard for Samsung to do. They were already making bigger screen phones, and Apple was winning in the tablet market. Some genius thought to combine the devices and made INNOVATION. The Galaxy Note and Galaxy Note II sold a total of 15 million over a year and a few months, according to Kovach. Meanwhile, Apple sells 35-40 million iPhones each quarter. Doesn’t matter. It’s innovation!
Samsung isn’t afraid to tout its cool factor either. Since the first commercial debuted in late 2011, you’ve probably seen those “Next Big Thing” ads that make fun of starry-eyed Apple fans waiting in line for the next iPhone. Whether it is boasting about the bigger screens or sharing content by tapping phones together, Samsung seems content to blast Apple for its stuffiness while showing in a practical context what its devices can do.
Because cool is tapping phones together. Seriously though, the only reason Samsung’s ads are capturing people’s attention is because they spend ridiculous amounts of money on them. They are constantly playing. I think the ads are effective because people just hear “Samsung Galaxy S3″ over and over again. I don’t think it is the cool factor. I know personally that all of my non techie friends had no clue what the ads were supposed to be saying (especially that extremely odd Super Bowl ad). Apple is extremely successful with just a tiny fraction of Samsung’s advertising budget. Also, I don’t see how this is innovation–ads are not innovation, they are the work over two good teams working together. Apple has that. Most do not, but I wouldn’t say ad making itself is innovation. Next:
On the software side of things, Samsung is taking advantage of its mobile devices’ processing power to layer premium features on top of Android, such as the ability to run two apps at once in a split screen or separate window. Samsung’s best tablet, the Galaxy Note 10.1, can do all that plus take advantage of a stylus so you can draw and take notes on the screen.
That sounds great! Styluses are innovation! They totally haven’t been around for almost two decades! Well, since Apple hasn’t done it, it’s an innovation. The other thing? Split screen apps? I think that split screen apps wouldn’t work well on a phone, where you don’t want your focus to be diverted. But lets assume that you want such a feature–do you call that innovation? Two applications next to each other have been around for a while. Like, since the 1980s. INNOVATION. Of course, he doesn’t mention this tasty little tidbit in the main paragraph and mentions it right after:
There is a downside to the split-screen thing, however. Developers have to tweak their apps to work in split-screen mode on the Note 10.1. There are only about 20 apps right now that can do it.
Downside? I call that not-a-feature. I was surprised by that quote above seeing how often Samsung has advertised that feature (though I guess I shouldn’t have been, knowing Samsung).
But what’s most important…
Please, tell me.
But what’s most important is how nimble Samsung has become at improving its mobile devices through software updates. The Note 10.1 launched last fall, but it received a software update with a new version of Android and a slew of other features like the voice assistant Google Now, which is a lot more impressive than Apple’s original Siri.
It received an update (though it still isn’t on the latest version of Android)! I guess this is impressive in the Android world, but he decided to include Apple. He didn’t say: “How Samsung is out-innovating other Android manufacturers.” He said: “How Samsung is out-innovating Apple.” He brings up Google Now, which, to be fair is very good (though I would like to point out that it is made by Google, not Samsung). However, remember, until Google Now, Apple was ahead with Siri (and Apple is still ahead with Siri in terms of human-like responses, which react better with the human race), and Google surpassed Apple in some areas a year later with Google Now. I don’t expect Apple to not improve Siri, and I believe big changes are coming. My point is, technology companies leapfrog each other all time. I think Siri vs Google Now will play out in the same way.
Samsung’s director of product planning, Shoneel Kolhatkar, said the company takes user and reviewer feedback into account when preparing to deliver new software updates. Instead of making users wait a year for new features, Kolhatkar said Samsung can use that feedback to deliver “incremental innovation that keeps the product alive.”
Because Apple doesn’t put out .01 and 0.1 updates throughout the year? Apple doesn’t listen to customer feedback and put out updates. And as I said above, Samsung and Google only really release major features on a yearly basis.
Based on all this evidence, Apple feels behind. Take a look at its newest fourth-generation iPad. It has a killer processor and other great hardware features, but the operating system doesn’t take advantage of any of that. The home screen is still just a grid of static icons that launch apps.
With very powerful first and third party apps that let you replace most of the tasks you do on your computer. EDIT: John Gruber kindly linked to me and talks about the iOS homescreen in more depth.
It seems to me that today, innovation means a feature that Apple decided not to implement. This is a very stupid way of thinking. All the things that Kovach listed in his articles were features with caveats. Innovation is redefining an entire product category, something Apple has done at least five times (Macintosh, iPod, iTunes Music Store, iPhone, and iPad). Innovation can’t be bought, it can’t be created through ads, and innovation is not just merely strapping on features to an OS. That is laziness. And writing an article like the one he did is just plain old bullshit.
