Apple has done a very good job of taking the technology others have created and building them into a product and marketing that product so people want it, but are they pushing for new tech?
They used touchscreens that others had developed. If the touchscreen wasn't available, would Apple have created it?
What is the 'cutting edge' technology in Apple products? I think it is mostly commodity components engineered into their products.
The difference with respect to choking the production lines is that when a manufacturer comes to Apple or Apple sources a product from them, they take almost all the stock meaning others can't get that product.
For example, the 10" screen on the ipad, from what I've heard, other manufacturers had a difficult time getting that size screen for a year. but is that really Apple pushing the progress in tech?
Someone more knowledgeable than I could shed some light on this possibly choking technology progress.
For instance, CES 2010 showed lots of tablets before Apple announced the iPad. It took a year for many of those products to get to market, and I believe part of that was due to the limited availability of the screens.
Is that Apple pushing innovation or slowing innovation as others are unable to develop products?
> For instance, CES 2010 showed lots of tablets before Apple announced the iPad. It took a year for many of those products to get to market, and I believe part of that was due to the limited availability of the screens.
There were a lot of products speculating what the iPad was going to be, but were no where near ready for mass production. Just because Apple (or any other company with tight lips) doesn't show you what they're working on until they ship doesn't mean they aren't ahead of the competition.
Apple doesn't announce products at CES. If you haven't noticed they don't even participate in these events anymore. A lot of product gets announced at CES, but most of it doesn't make it to market (especially amongst the smaller tech companies who use CES as a way to raise funding). The iPad was announced and shipped one month later. A lot of CES tablets were announced and shipped 6-9 months later.
The $499 price point was absolutely devastating to every other tablet maker because up to then they were assuming Apple would price it at $800-1000. Which meant they could price it at 600-800 and have comfortable margins. Their announcement one month after CES sent everyone scrambling back to the drawing board.
Except for the Archos, I can't remember a single tablet from CES 2010.
More than that, Apple does not announce products unless they have to (because they need developers to start working on it right now so everything's ready for release for instance).
I don't think Apple is directly behind these innovations, but they finance it and make things feasible at industrial scale.
Apple is basically doing what Wal-Mart did for the retail supply chain: they aren't sitting around waiting for their vendors to bring them product, they figure out what will sell and demand it from their suppliers, using their fantastic capital resources to make it a sure thing.
Apple tends to pre-pay manufacturers (of e.g. LCD screens, flash memory, etc) large sums in exchange for lower per-unit prices and first access to the supply chain. This results in Apple's part orders taking priority over everyone else's for a specified length of time.
There was a time, not too long ago, where every MP3 player manufacturer in the world had a hard time getting flash memory because Samsung, the world's largest manufacturer, was selling most of its supply to Apple. Thanks to the tendency of such large companies to operate each division as a separate business unit, this meant that even Samsung's portable phone and MP3 player division had a hard time getting flash memory.
In the end, prices went up for everyone except Apple, since the supply was severely depleted.
My understanding is that Apple has done the same thing for 10" 1024x768 LCD screens, resulting in a diminished worldwide supply (and, as a result, an increased price for anyone looking to purchase them).
Comments
I'm not sure I agree,
Apple has done a very good job of taking the technology others have created and building them into a product and marketing that product so people want it, but are they pushing for new tech?
They used touchscreens that others had developed. If the touchscreen wasn't available, would Apple have created it?
What is the 'cutting edge' technology in Apple products? I think it is mostly commodity components engineered into their products.
The difference with respect to choking the production lines is that when a manufacturer comes to Apple or Apple sources a product from them, they take almost all the stock meaning others can't get that product.
For example, the 10" screen on the ipad, from what I've heard, other manufacturers had a difficult time getting that size screen for a year. but is that really Apple pushing the progress in tech?
Someone more knowledgeable than I could shed some light on this possibly choking technology progress.
For instance, CES 2010 showed lots of tablets before Apple announced the iPad. It took a year for many of those products to get to market, and I believe part of that was due to the limited availability of the screens.
Is that Apple pushing innovation or slowing innovation as others are unable to develop products?
> For instance, CES 2010 showed lots of tablets before Apple announced the iPad. It took a year for many of those products to get to market, and I believe part of that was due to the limited availability of the screens.
There were a lot of products speculating what the iPad was going to be, but were no where near ready for mass production. Just because Apple (or any other company with tight lips) doesn't show you what they're working on until they ship doesn't mean they aren't ahead of the competition.
Apple doesn't announce products at CES. If you haven't noticed they don't even participate in these events anymore. A lot of product gets announced at CES, but most of it doesn't make it to market (especially amongst the smaller tech companies who use CES as a way to raise funding). The iPad was announced and shipped one month later. A lot of CES tablets were announced and shipped 6-9 months later.
The $499 price point was absolutely devastating to every other tablet maker because up to then they were assuming Apple would price it at $800-1000. Which meant they could price it at 600-800 and have comfortable margins. Their announcement one month after CES sent everyone scrambling back to the drawing board.
Except for the Archos, I can't remember a single tablet from CES 2010.
> Apple doesn't announce products at CES.
More than that, Apple does not announce products unless they have to (because they need developers to start working on it right now so everything's ready for release for instance).
I don't think Apple is directly behind these innovations, but they finance it and make things feasible at industrial scale.
Apple is basically doing what Wal-Mart did for the retail supply chain: they aren't sitting around waiting for their vendors to bring them product, they figure out what will sell and demand it from their suppliers, using their fantastic capital resources to make it a sure thing.
> For example, the 10" screen on the ipad, from what I've heard, other manufacturers had a difficult time getting that size screen for a year.
You hear this story a lot, but I don't understand: did Apple buy all 10" screens from all display manufacturers in the world?
Apple tends to pre-pay manufacturers (of e.g. LCD screens, flash memory, etc) large sums in exchange for lower per-unit prices and first access to the supply chain. This results in Apple's part orders taking priority over everyone else's for a specified length of time.
There was a time, not too long ago, where every MP3 player manufacturer in the world had a hard time getting flash memory because Samsung, the world's largest manufacturer, was selling most of its supply to Apple. Thanks to the tendency of such large companies to operate each division as a separate business unit, this meant that even Samsung's portable phone and MP3 player division had a hard time getting flash memory.
In the end, prices went up for everyone except Apple, since the supply was severely depleted.
My understanding is that Apple has done the same thing for 10" 1024x768 LCD screens, resulting in a diminished worldwide supply (and, as a result, an increased price for anyone looking to purchase them).
And they have reportedly done the same thing for larger lithium polymer batteries.
I wouldn't be surprised if they were already lining up whatever the next major battery tech is going to be as well.