Re:Dear Apple, there’s nothing ‘really sad’ about using a 5-...
by mikehearn on Wednesday March 23, 2016 @01:18PM
(#11346393)
As a hardware company, if a huge percentage of your user base is still using a product you made five years ago, there are two schools of thought:
1. "Great! Our products are so well-made, stable and backwards-compatible that users do not have to upgrade."
2. "This is terrible. We have failed so thoroughly to innovate that people are content with using five-year-old technology."
It's not like Apple is unaware of virtues of #1, but as a company they are clearly in bucket #2. In five years, if 600MM users are still using the iPhone 6, I'm certain they would also consider that "very sad". I don't think Schiller and the exec team have blinders, they are just holding the rest of the PC industry to the same standard to which they hold themselves.
1. "Great! Our products are so well-made, stable and backwards-compatible that users do not have to upgrade."
2. "This is terrible. We have failed so thoroughly to innovate that people are content with using five-year-old technology."
It's not like Apple is unaware of virtues of #1, but as a company they are clearly in bucket #2. In five years, if 600MM users are still using the iPhone 6, I'm certain they would also consider that "very sad". I don't think Schiller and the exec team have blinders, they are just holding the rest of the PC industry to the same standard to which they hold themselves.