Ok Cult of Mac, I get you love Apple, but get real…

The following article is directly reprinted from Cult of Mac and I have to say…wow. (Commentary included)

After a decade of being the clear leader driving market trends in computing, Apple’s influence could wane in the post-Steve Jobs era, according to a thoughtful piece posted Tuesday at TG Daily.

Industry analyst Rob Enderle describes Apple’s amazingly diverse impact on wider market trends:

* The iPhone immediately became the gold standard for mobile phone manufacturers, resulting in an explosion of new devices and innovation across every mobile software platform;

It takes longer than you think to bring a phone to Market. Touch screen isn’t actually a new an innovative technology. Sure the Apple iPhone is a gorgeous product, I actually own one, but it’s ridiculous to speculate that without the iPhone no other manufacturer would have produced any of the products they have on the market now. Do you think a company can conceptualize a phone, develop all the software and have it to market in under a year? I don’t think so.

* Apple created integration between power and graphics in computer processors that would not have been possible without the company’s commitment to OpenCL, a framework for writing programs that execute across CPUs and GPUs;

Which integration are we talking about here? I must be missing some dramatic technology that doesn’t exist on my Windows PC. And while we are on the subject, if it’s so awesome, why does the Core Graphics powered Aperture run like garbage on every Mac I own where Lightroom is fast and smooth? Maybe it’s NOT such a good idea to try and force so much to the GPU.

* Apple’s focus on design and higher margins resulted in the introduction of products such as the recently released Dell Adamo, a PC notebook designed and marketed to emulate Apple’s attention to every detail from the packaging inward, down to the absence of stickers promoting Microsoft Windows and Intel;

I’ll give you the Adamo, that one is obviously meant to compete with the Macbook Air set, but at least it isn’t as underpowered as a hamster powered Yugo.

* The elegance of the user experience in Mac OS X virtually doomed OEMs’ embrace of Linux to a competition not with Apple but with Windows, an outcome which will affect the introduction of Google’s Android when it comes to market next year as well.

This is an awesome angle. Linux doomed Linux, I wouldn’t go around taking credit for that. That’s like bragging that you beat up a 3rd grader. Oh, and Android is on the market, just nobody noticed.

In short, Enderle writes, “Apple is at the core” of all recent change in the computer industry, that “as a result Apple’s efforts, the products we will see from a variety of vendors will be vastly more amazing than they otherwise would have been.”

Ok, Apple is making some awesome products. But they are also doing some insanely stupid things. I hope that some of the changes don’t make it to mainstream manufacturers: Button less devices, dropping connectivity that everyone uses, no options, overpriced upgrades, software that up sells itself when a new version is out, trying to force you to install other products you don’t want, requiring Apple to install certain upgrades lest you void your warranty, tyranny…oops, that’s just implied.

None of the above is really subject to debate. Enderle goes on to question whether Apple can keep it up in the post-Jobs era, however, and this writer disagrees. Follow the jump to find out why.

Oh it’s up for debate

Enderle sees the general lack of excitement from Apple’s last couple of release events, produced without Jobs, as indicative of waning leadership skills. He believes the introduction of Windows 7 may drive Apple — in the absence of Jobs — back to the position the company was in in the mid-90s. Now that other major vendors understand Apple’s approach, he writes, without Jobs or an apprentice who can continue his work, the changes we have seen in the past decade may stop coming.

General lack of excitement? Of course. They have released an iPod nobody wants. They have released software that you can’t get yet. They have released a Mac Pro that costs more but provides less. They have released a top end consumer computer that doesn’t offer a quad core chip. They have released a bargain computer that costs $600 with no monitor, keyboard or mouse. They have decided that we don’t want numeric keypads anymore. They have decided that Firewire is out dated. They have decided that you should use DisplayPort to connect your monitor then only offer one that costs $800. If you ask me, Steve Jobs must be dead, I just can’t imagine him calling a press conference to release the ridiculous Mac lineup that they offer now.

It’s a given that no major corporation, in recent history, anyway, has been associated with a single individual the way Apple has been with Steve Jobs. And Apple will evolve into something different than it is today when Jobs’ influence becomes the stuff of legend rather than live and in person on a daily basis.

You have that one right.

But even in the period of Steve Job’s greatest influence, Apple’s impact has come from the products themselves. If the products — the hardware and the software — as well as the business model of innovations such as iTunes and the AppStore, had not been transformative, the rest of the computer industry would not have been forced to innovate to stay competitive — no matter how brightly Steve Jobs’ personal aura shined in a keynote presentation.

Again, you can’t honestly take credit for everyone else’s innovations too, seriously. I know you are smug but damn.

And while no one waiting in the wings at Apple has the personal magnetism or child-like enthusiasm of Jobs on the presentation stage, as long as the company continues to innovate in the design studio and on the product front, because it is so far ahead of the competition today it should be able to continue driving innovation among the rest of the industry.

Apparently Personal Magnetism + Child-like Enthusiasm = Big Dick.

It says here that iPhone 3.0 and the inevitable iPhone hardware refresh are going to leave everyone scratching their heads, wondering how in the world to meet the new standard.

I have the iPhone 3.0 software. So I get push email and copy paste along with a few other trivialities and app store apps can use my iTunes library, GPS and talk to my speakers. I am going to need a bit more to make me sit and scratch my head.

Enderle believes Windows 7 is going to be more like Win95 and less like Vista, but if Snow Leopard delivers a new user experience that continues to differentiate the Mac OS and helps increase the perceived value of Apple’s offering, Apple’s rich margins can be preserved and the company will retain the financial position it needs to perpetuate the cycle of design excellence and feature innovation that Steve Jobs put into motion.

Didn’t Apple already say that Snow Leopard is NOT a new user experience but a 64-bit update of the Foundation? I find it hard to believe that the difference between 10.5 and 10.6 are going to be so substantial visually that they are equivalent to 4 version jumps of Windows, get real.

People may one day grow tired of look-alike drones imitating the Steve Jobs dog and pony show, but they will never grow tired of using beautiful products that work the way they are supposed to work and that let people do cool things they never thought they might be able to do, or do so easily.

There is much less imitation than you think going on buddy. Just because Apple gets something to market first doesn’t mean they thought of it. Contrary to common thought, Apple did not invent touch screen phones, online music sales, mp3 players, GUI computers, etc. Just because you make one really nice doesn’t mean you get to claim you invented it.

Apple, and the computer industry itself, ought to be less concerned with who may one day replace Steve Jobs and more with how to keep delivering ever more amazing products. And it doesn’t have to be three or four amazing new things a year, either. One or two every couple of years ought to do just fine.

Well tell them they are un a slump since iPhone, I haven’t been amazed since.

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