I agree with Gruber's central argument that innovation happens in small incremental steps, and I don't in any way think that 2013 was a waste of time, but you've got to admit that this has been a light year for Apple. Between November 2012's announcement of the iMac and June 2013's WWDC, there were no product announcements (well, OK, they did announce that the iPad would be available in 128Gb, but you get my meaning).
That's a very long time for them to go with nothing to say. Sure, iOS 7 must have been a substantial amount of work, I'm really liking Mavericks, and the new Mac Pro is an interesting piece of hardware - but it does feel like Apple announced less this year than they have in previous years.
So it's got me speculating on reasons why. Did Forstall's exit result in a rocky few months as jobs were reshuffled? Is there some big product that gets announced in 2014 that's been sucking up all the engineering resources? Is Apple under Tim Cook becoming a company that moves a little more slowly and deliberately?
No, there is no secret project sucking up the engineering resources for the simple reason that we know where the engineering resources have been spent. iPad Air. iPad mini retina. Ios7. Mavericks. iPhone 5s. Mac Pro.
That's a big bunch of products to roll out in one year. Which does not mean that we won't see something different, like a 20" tablet, or Kinect style controls on a new Apple TV, but the fact is that Apple have released a large number of best in breed products this year, so we don't need to speculate on where engineering resources have been spent - the answer is right in front of us.
Another thing to consider - I wouldn't be surprised to hear that Apple started work on, researched, went through prototypes, and then canceled a number of products that didn't meet their minimum standard of quality/market fit.
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I agree with Gruber's central argument that innovation happens in small incremental steps, and I don't in any way think that 2013 was a waste of time, but you've got to admit that this has been a light year for Apple. Between November 2012's announcement of the iMac and June 2013's WWDC, there were no product announcements (well, OK, they did announce that the iPad would be available in 128Gb, but you get my meaning).
That's a very long time for them to go with nothing to say. Sure, iOS 7 must have been a substantial amount of work, I'm really liking Mavericks, and the new Mac Pro is an interesting piece of hardware - but it does feel like Apple announced less this year than they have in previous years.
So it's got me speculating on reasons why. Did Forstall's exit result in a rocky few months as jobs were reshuffled? Is there some big product that gets announced in 2014 that's been sucking up all the engineering resources? Is Apple under Tim Cook becoming a company that moves a little more slowly and deliberately?
I don't know, but it's fun to think about.
No, there is no secret project sucking up the engineering resources for the simple reason that we know where the engineering resources have been spent. iPad Air. iPad mini retina. Ios7. Mavericks. iPhone 5s. Mac Pro.
That's a big bunch of products to roll out in one year. Which does not mean that we won't see something different, like a 20" tablet, or Kinect style controls on a new Apple TV, but the fact is that Apple have released a large number of best in breed products this year, so we don't need to speculate on where engineering resources have been spent - the answer is right in front of us.
Another thing to consider - I wouldn't be surprised to hear that Apple started work on, researched, went through prototypes, and then canceled a number of products that didn't meet their minimum standard of quality/market fit.