Where would we be without Apple? What kind of tech would we have?

[G+_roger bambino]

Where would we  be without Apple? What kind of tech would we have?

http://www.techjaja.com/what-if-just-if-apple-didnt-exist/

http://www.techjaja.com/what-if-just-if-apple-didnt-exist

[G+_Anthony Kafka]

Simple. No pomposity.

[G+_roger bambino]

Indeed.... I guess we wd still have dull looking devices

[G+_Anthony Kafka]

The market would have demanded slick devices regardless of what Apple or anyone else did.

[G+_roger bambino]

Tru... With the advancement in technology, size of chips would definitely make devices thinner... Not to deny Apple opened up a lot of doors in latest trends of devices we see

[G+_Anthony Kafka]

Not at all. They found the opening first. They sure are gonna pay for walled garden at some point however.

[G+_roger bambino]

Stephen Anderson great we all agree on that.... I would imagine BlackBerry would still be king of smartphones and Samsung would be fighting with them Instead....

[G+_seb mitchell]

LG released the first capacitive touch mobile before the iPhone. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LG_Prada

[G+_roger bambino]

True but Apple was the first to put it in very Tim dick and Harrys hands..... Being the first to make something and shoving it under the table or it doesn't sale never counts. Ppl will always remember the one who brought it them first.. Otherwise u have a great point there seb mitchell

[G+_roger bambino]

Stephen Anderson before apple came out with the iPhone, Steve Jobs made it clear to talk ill of the blackberry keyboard and said the future was going to be onscreen typing (during iPhone launch). Clearly apple saw bb as its biggest competition back then. Even here in Africa most cooperate companies were relying on bb services and devices. Till now wen we have android and iOS it has introduced the byod (bring your own decide) culture and this has put BlackBerry out of business.... This it's just to mention but a few

[G+_Anthony Kafka]

Its really a cycle thing. Apple did a lot to push the industry in the direction we see now. Which in itself was taking a lot of what was already in place and putting it together in one thing called iPhone. "Good artists create. Great artists steal." -- Steve Jobs

[G+_seb mitchell]

The interesting thing at the time of the first iPad, people like Leo Laporte, wall street, etc were expecting apple like price near $1000, but the base model was just $499.

Some more of my ramblings -

The OLPC, one laptop per child, "is regarded as one of the major factors that" that sparked low cost netbooks. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Netbook  

 "the iPad owes a bit of debt to the little laptops."

more quotes from wiki article

"The netbook demonstrated the potential of an inexpensive, portable second computing device, with a screen size of about 10 inches, intended primarily for media consumption and light productivity"

[G+_Josh Anderson]

Apple did open a lot of doors but I think we are at a stage where we can stop asking that question and move on. Android has improved the smart phone so much and Apple has decided to not change.

[G+_Dave Trautman]

Okay, you got my attention.

 

Here's what I think would be different if Apple had not been invented or succeeded.

 

1.  The little Apple II and IIe was a sandbox where people in everyday life could learn to program as well as to do things like write and calculate and communicate without having to get into a computer school or buy some major workstation.  This opened up possibilities, and provided a doorway, for people to create their own programs.  Developer communities sprang up like weeds after this.  By the time the Macintosh appeared there was already a healthy competition between box makers and software designers.  There were a lot of DOS systems out there trying to expand the possibilities of storage and retrieval.

 

2   The Macintosh pushed things farther.  Not only with graphical representation of the data and the structure of the file system but with a pointing device and a higher capacity, more reliable, diskette storage system.  It also networked and connected to more peripherals than the Apple II series.  This spawned a wholesale expansion of the makers of storage and output and PostScript and scanning and even video.  The publishing business was completely upended by Macintosh using PostScript™ fonts and printing at high resolution.

 

3   Apple saw the experiments with digital cameras and did a little experiment of their own.  They showed the makers how to do it smaller and cheaper in collaboration with Kodak (who were seriously worried they would be left behind).  Apple also saw the impact small devices for contacts and scheduling were having on business and did another experiment in a stylus, handwriting, portable, mobile device called a Newton.

 

4.  Having suffered from marginalization for so long Apple made a decision to use style and whimsical design to distinguish themselves.  This – along with a revamped user facing graphical system – came with a drastic reduction of their core products to just 4 main areas.  But they also brought the concept of a digital hub to the question of "what do you do with your computer?"  Making the Mac handle everything in photo, music, writing, calculating, browsing, editing, and video opened up more possibilities for developers and started to attract the makers of digital media devices toward various standard approaches so they could connect to a Macintosh.  First with USB™ and FireWire™ (or iLink™) and adopting WiFi and 100baseT ethernet the peripheral connectivity opened up all kinds of other opportunities by handling the files, photos, tracks, and clips on a common box.  *Mix-Rip-Burn*

 

5.  Aluminum.  It was nearly a completely plastic world before Apple adopted aluminum for both their Macs and mobile devices (as well as a brushed aluminum applications design).  Until then it was not possible to manufacture a lightweight rigid portable laptop with a large screen and a big battery.  This contribution alone, I believe, was one of the most groundbreaking advancements they could stake a claim with.  Re-usable aluminum meant they could find a flaw in the case and just melt it down to make another one.  Trying that with the steel and plastic devices meant spending far more than the flawed case was even worth.

 

6.  A Camera – A Phone – and Internet communication device.  Flip phones had cameras.  They didn't have a computer inside.  Phones could browse the web, but the experience was like pulling your nails out.  And the iPhone design was so beautiful few could resist.  But the innovation here was NOT the device so much as it was the idea that you could have a new phone by just changing the software.  It was so obvious once you saw it.  Like with the first PCs you could put software into your phone to do different things.  Until the iPhone you didn't have permission to change how the phone did something.  Just take a minute and remember a time when the "apps" on the phone were there before you bought it.  Palm™ understood the power of adding and changing apps on a device to make it do specific things.  RIM understood a phone needed to have secure and far-reaching data handling capabilities.  Nokia knew a phone had to have style.  All Apple did was put it into a single package.  Then they broke the stranglehold carriers had to decide "for the customer" what they were prepared to support with their networks.  Apple opened this up so anyone could decide for themselves what they wanted to do on their new handheld computer.  It caused an explosion of interest in developing for that platform.  Once again Apple created an opportunity for other people to start up their own specific exploitation of their platform.

 

7   Music.  A lot has been written about how record companies had a lock on who got to sell in the stores.  The barriers to entry and the gauntlets great musicians had to endure were the price to pay for selling millions of albums.  Apple felt people wanted to buy tracks and not albums.  They cleverly opened up the music business to more sources and lowered the barriers to entry for independent labels and bands themselves to get sales.  They simplified ownership and satisfied the needs of the royalty-payers to control ownership and reduce theft.  They did this by both offering music at reasonably low prices ($0.99 a track) which meant it was cheaper and easier to just buy the track than it was to pirate it.  And it leveled the field between huge acts with a large back issue library and new acts with one time hits.  Apple may have started it, but a lot of people jumped in.  Just as they have done many times, Apple saw a problem and devised a simple and easy way to solve it.  From there a lot of other people made money; as did they.

 

8   Apple demystified the computer by making it visual.  They then erased the mouse (which they had championed for so long) and got people to use their fingers.  They figured out how to make higher capacity batteries without making them bigger.  They disrupted moribund business models which were strangling creativity and they put the tools of software making into the hands of everyone who had a neat idea.  They were not the only ones to do this.  But they realized if the developers had a target device to develop for, which was attractive and innovative, then more of them would build for it and not for the competition.

 

Conclusion (gasp!)

 

If there had not been an Apple Computer Inc. I believe we would still be struggling with piracy, getting poor WiFi at the library, taking pictures and storing them on memory chips, using clever little keyboards on plastic handheld devices which break easily, and we would be still using the same PCs we had at work.  There would be no GoPro™ cameras, no magnetic power connector, no Netflix, and maybe Moby might not have sold as many tracks as he did.  There would certainly be many fewer app developers in the world today.

 

None of what I have been describing had much to do with the machines Apple manufactured.  People seem to miss the fact that Apple Inc. had a bigger influence on culture and industry than it had on the computer game.  They have always been the minority in PCs and they are still that in Phones.  But their impact on the world is from creating new opportunities for other people to succeed and I can't think of many other companies on the planet who have done as much.  It is true they are rewarded handsomely by the consuming public by a nearly devotional attachment to using their branded products, but I think some critics are blind to the attraction when they only see the devices or services.  They can't see the expansion of opportunity or the liberation from the constraints of old media which Apple consistently provided.