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Insider Extra: Rethinking the Conference Room
June 2, 2015
Win10 + Intel Skylake + Thunderbolt 3 = Interesting PC
May 26, 2015
The IOT Opportunity is Wide Open
May 21, 2015
Insider Extra: The Carrier Challenge for Consumer IOT
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Maker Movement Drives the Future
May 14, 2015
Insider Extra: The Next Step for Wearables: Health Care
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Making Sense of IOT
May 5, 2015
A Fresh Look at Wearables
April 30, 2015
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April 28, 2015
The Device Dream Team: Large Smartphones and Thin Notebooks
April 23, 2015
Insider Extra: Mobile Sites Should Be Dead
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April 14, 2015
The Future of Wearable Power Is Energy Harvesting
April 7, 2015
Twinning Is Key to Connected Devices
April 2, 2015
Insider Extra: Competing Standard Co-Existence For Wireless Charging and IOT
March 31, 2015
Riding the High-Res Tidal Wave
March 24, 2015
Smart Cars Accelerating Slowly
March 19, 2015
Insider Extra: The Future of Computing is Invisible
March 17, 2015
Smart Home Decade Dilemma
March 10, 2015
Apple Event Surprises
March 3, 2015
Flat Slab Finale?
February 26, 2015
Insider Extra: "Phablet" Impact Continues to Grow
February 24, 2015
Paying for Digital Privacy
February 19, 2015
Insider Extra: The Wire-Free PC
February 17, 2015
Whither Apple?
February 12, 2015
Insider Extra: The Real IOT Opportunity? Industry
February 10, 2015
Business Models For The Internet of Things (IOT)
February 5, 2015
Insider Extra: Is "Mobile Only" The Future?
February 3, 2015
Sexiest New Devices? PCs...
January 29, 2015
Insider Extra: iPhone Next
January 27, 2015
How Will Windows 10 Impact PCs and Tablets?
January 22, 2015
Insider Extra: Hands-On (or Heads-on) With HoloLens
January 20, 2015
Whither Windows 10?
January 15, 2015
Insider Extra: Mobile Security: The Key to a Successful BYOD Implementation
January 13, 2015
Smart Home Situation Likely To Get Worse Before It Gets Better
January 6, 2015
More Tech Predictions for 2015
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Top 5 Tech Predictions for 2015
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June 9, 2015
By Bob O'Donnell
One of the biggest challenges that any highly regarded company faces is the difficulty of living up to the expectations that its previous successes create. No company in any industry faces this challenge as much as Apple. This company has provided absolutely incredible performance for its investors over the last decade or so, thanks to its hit-machine of great products and sticky ecosystems, and that, in turn, has created an enormous supply of happy customers who have come to expect the world from the Cupertino-based company.
Common logic will tell you that those kind of expectations can’t go on forever, and at some point, there’s bound to be some kind of let-down. I’d argue that yesterday’s WWDC (Worldwide Developer Conference) keynote in San Francisco could be the start of a return to earth that many have been predicting for Apple for quite some time.
Don’t get me wrong. It was still a good event, and there were several interesting new announcements from the company during yesterday’s keynote. The iOS 9 improvements around contextual intelligence, smarter search, and iPad multitasking were all quite nice—though I have to admit I was disappointed to learn that some of the coolest new iPad multitasking features require an iPad Air 2 (the most recent iPad, in case you haven’t been keeping score).
In fact, for many vendors, the kind of additions and enhancements that Apple announced yesterday would be perceived as being pretty impressive. But this is Apple, and rightly or wrongly, we have been trained by the company to aim our expectations generally much higher.
Thankfully—I guess—early rumors suggested that this year’s WWDC might be relatively light on major news developments, so I went into the event with relatively low expectations, and frankly, those expectations were met.
Part of the problem, quite honestly, is that it’s getting really hard to make major innovations in product categories that are already pretty good. In the case of Mac OS X El Capitan, for example, senior VP of software engineering, Craig Federighi, described and demonstrated a number of nice innovations, but nothing that’s going to dramatically change a typical Mac user’s experience. I see this as more of a reflection of the relative maturity and sophistication of Mac OS X than a problem with Apple. We’re reaching a point of diminishing returns.
Even many of the iOS 9 improvements, while definitely more impressive, essentially amounted to incorporating into the core OS (and its main apps) the kind of functionality you can already find in 3rd party apps. From the Transit information incorporated into Maps, to some of the recommendations that Siri now makes for locations you plan to visit, to the Flipbook-like capabilities of the new News app and the Evernote-like extensions to Notes, Apple is integrating some of the innovations we’ve seen other companies create into their core offerings. It seems to me there’s a software company in Redmond, WA that’s done similar things in the past and caught a fair amount of grief for it. But I digress….
I was also very disappointed at the almost complete lack of updates that Apple provided on HomeKit and CarPlay. Given the intense interest in IOT overall, and particularly connected homes and connected cars, I expected Apple to come out swinging and describe why their solutions are better and more robust than the growing competition in these fields. Unfortunately, we got nothing of the sort.
Apple Music looks interesting, but I really didn’t see anything that suggested Apple had cracked the code on how to do a killer streaming music service. The offerings certainly look better than what the company has done in the past, and given Apple’s brand and overall position in the digital music world, it’s bound to have a decent impact. However, if I’m a happy Spotify or Pandora user, I’m not sure I saw enough to get me to switch. Yes, the Beats1 radio station concept is intriguing, but it’s a single channel with a single genre of music, and that’s just not going to appeal to everyone. In the end, Apple Music could end up as yet another app on your phone or tablet that you just can’t delete.
You could argue that my criticisms of Apple’s latest offerings aren’t completely fair, and in a way, you might be right. However, I’d argue that the world of business isn’t about fairness, and Apple has managed to maintain a “reality distortion field” for an incredibly long time. Perhaps by failing to meet unrealistic expectations, the company may actually benefit, because, in the long run, doing a reality check can be a very good thing.
Here's a link to the original column: https://techpinions.com/the-challenge-of-rising-expectations/40518
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