Oct 11
13
In the aftermath of Steve Jobs untimely passing, one of the most alarming articles I’ve read was one claiming 4 years of Apple product design had been left behind by Steve. (Daily Mail article)
Conceptually this is only alarming if Apple rely solely on these designs and fail to innovate for the future. The concern revolves around the fact technology life cycles are around 8 years. Look at Wifi, Virtualisation and many other new technologies and you’ll see a common pattern. They start life in a fairly shaky manner with Geeks and Technologists as the early adopters.
Over the first 4 years the product improves in leaps and bounds, to the point where in year 4, the uptake by the mainstream is fairly solid, and the product’s pretty stable.
By about year 6, almost everyone has the product or technology. Innovation has slowed significantly, and big improvements are few and far between. The product is as close to “finished” as it’s going to get, and there’s not much more than can be done to improve it further.
It’s usually around years 6-8 that technology around the product has started changing to such a degree, that people are beginning to do things entirely differently. The Internet for example, smart phones and most recently tablets.
For the last ten years Apple have been at the forefront of some of the big changes in the way we do things. The iPod, iPhone and iPad. Their notebook products have been cutting edge as well, not to mention the trackpad and whole touch concept that has completely changed the way we interface with our devices.
In order for Apple to stay at the forefront of technology, they can’t rest on their laurels. Steve has certainly left them in good stead with OS X Lion, iCloud and the iPad. However, the iPhone is starting to enter that phase where it’s no longer innovating. iCloud has certainly integrated it far further. Technologies like AirPlay and AirPrint have massively improved it’s usability. At another level however, it’s starting to languish behind, with updates being catchups, rather than setting all new standards.
Features in my view that have been long overdue are the centralised notifications. Ability to customise all system sounds. The lock screen could still do with some improvements, such as being able to see the weather and calendar on the lock screen all the time, as you can in the notification centre.
Hopefully the team that has been built can be as innovative as the innovator himself. If that turns out to be the case, I believe Apple will in fact be that much better off as their ongoing success will not be at the hand of an individual.
Long live Apple Innovation.