I'm not saying Apple isn't successful. In fact, that's my point: they're clearly releasing solid products. But they aren't the category-killers that the company's reputation for innovation is built on. There have been rumors of new innovations (reinventing TV, an Apple Car, augmented reality) but none have materialized.

Regardless of whether you agree they haven't been innovating, my question stands: if they stop innovating, but remain financially successful, will they still be Apple?

Apple now is the world’s largest watch maker both by units sold and by revenue.

In fact Apple Watch’s revenue is projected to surpass that of the entire Swiss watch industry this year.

Even if it doesn’t “kill” the existing category, I’ll say they did a fantastic job carving out the smartwatch category.

Again, I'm not saying the Watch hasn't been successful, or that it's a bad product. I'm saying it wasn't as innovative as many of Apple's other successful products were. It's much more an extension of the iPhone than a standalone innovation.

AKA - watch market is small.

Apple probably sells more watches at a healthier profit than console makers sell. Should the console makers stop selling game systems?

That's not relevant. Apple is one of the worlds most valuable company, and they're stagnating. They've been hitting home-runs with products before, and creating new markets.

Watch, even if it ends up eating the whole current market, but not creating new one, is a failure by Apple standards. Unless Apple is going to branch out and become company like Samsung, that makes everything from watches, to nuclear power plants. Apple success story was never about big portfolio of products - they were always about few products, but extremely focused and creating whole new markets for them.

So exactly what category of electronics do you propose that Apple can enter that has a larger worldwide penetration than the smart phone market - there are 2.72 billion smart phone users worldwide (https://www.bankmycell.com/blog/how-many-phones-are-in-the-w...)?

It's a market that they largely created, and that was their super-power. And now it's up to them to figure out next big thing, if they want to keep their lead and valuation.

They can still be very successful company without that. But not necessarily as one of the world most valuable companies.

They did not create the smart phone market. By 2004-2005 the average middle class American had cell phones. Cheap prepaid phones could be bought for less than $100 with minutes. The Nokia candy bar phone was already selling well in developing countries. The BlackBerry, Windows Phones, and Palm phones were already selling. It was already clear when Apple was entering the market that the cell phone was gaining ubiquity.

It was so obvious that Apple should be entering the smart phone market with a combination iPod + phone that people were already coining the name iPhone 3 years before it was introduced.

What market are you seeing with the clear growth trajectories that the cell phone had by 2002 that Apple should enter within the next 5 years?

fucking cloud computing

they should provide a cloud on which you can use Metal compute

How does that dovetail with Apple’s strengths as a vertically integrated consumer electronics company? What would they bring to the table that would help them compete with the other cloud players? Amazon had first mover advantage and Microsoft had a large enterprise base to draw from and an inside and outside enterprise sales force. Apple has none of that. Google is struggling in the cloud with large companies partially because of no enterprise sales experience and no reputation in the enterprise. Apple would be even less competitive.

I can see that this is the obvious reason why Apple is not doing this. It is a short-sighted view though. Is the Mac Pro (MacBook Pro, etc) a consumer electronics product? Not really. So why do they provide it? Yeah. Same reason they should provide a cloud based on Metal.

These guys have no idea what they are talking about +1000 to all your replies.

The TV is a low margin, bulky product with a very long replacement cycle. Nothing about that market is desirable.

Besides, people are spending less screen time on televisions every year and more on portable devices.

I'm not suggesting those were good ideas, only that they were rumors about innovative products that got a lot of attention, in part because everyone thought Apple must be up to something, because they hadn't made a big splash in a long time. Maybe the problem isn't that Apple's isn't innovating anymore, but that so many others now are as well, so innovation gets lost in the crowd. Companies like Tesla, Amazon, and Google share a space now that Apple had to itself for a long time.

Tesla - losing money

Google - the only thing they are doing profitability is selling ads.

Just look at Apple’s revenue split (second graph). How do you think that compares to Google?

https://sixcolors.com/post/2019/07/apple-third-quarter-2019-...

A “successful” product is one that you can sell for more than it costs to make. Anyone can sell dollar bills for 0.95 cents.

Amazon? Yes AWS is definitely successful and innovative, but the other half of Amazon?

> Amazon? Yes AWS is definitely successful and innovative, but the other half of Amazon?

IIRC, based on their latest report it's the other 30% (by revenue). Amazon is basically a cloud computing provider with a web store.

Apple-focused threads on HN quickly detach from reality when it comes to Google; Google sells "just ads" like Apple sells "just silicon and plastic"

So what other significant profit generating verticals does Google have?

What does any of this have to do with innovation, the topic of the thread? There are lots of very successful companies that don't release innovative consumer products. My point isn't that Apple is a bad company, it's not that other companies are 'better' companies. It's simply that the kind of 'home run' innovation for which Apple is famous has been missing for the last decade. The Apple Watch is a great product, it's very successful. I just don't think it was innovative the same way other Apple products have been.

But let's say it is. Going back to my original question (which I've been roundly downvoted for having the temerity to even ask): if Apple stopped innovating, would they still be the same company we love? Would fans still be so emotionally invested that they reflexively attack anyone who publicly criticizes the company, however obliquely?

I’m asking the same question. What possible home run could any electronic company create that could be a larger market than the phone market? There are 2.75 billion phones in use worldwide. Anything is going to pale in comparison to that market.

I'm not even looking for a financial home run. I'd settle for a Newton. If Apple had released Google Glass, at least it would show creativity and risk-taking. In fairness, it was easier at the time for Google to fail with Glass, though, because no one expects them to be great at consumer hardware (though they're in the process of raising that expectation). Apple has more reputation at stake, and maybe that's made them more conservative design-wise.

So you’re criticizing Apple for not releasing a product in a category that was a spectacular failure, but they don’t get credit for products - the Apple Watch and even AirPods - that are successful and profitable?

They don't get credit for innovating unless the product is innovative, no. Innovation is not synonymous with success, despite what appears in this thread as an overwhelming urge to conflate the two ideas. I'm observing that they haven't really innovated in 11 years. My original question, still unanswered, is if they stop really innovating but continue to be financially successful, will they still be the Apple we love? Can we love them just for releasing solid, evolutionary products (and now software services), or is the anticipation of some big new innovation an intrinsic part of the real Apple's identity?