No, but its Market Cap is what it is because people care about Apple.
Whereas if it was some geek factory making "wild bets" on not-ready-yet technologies, like the kind geeks ask to see, it would be liked by few, ignored by most (and for good reason).
If someone wants that, they can buy all those wonderful innovative products MS, Samsung and Google regularly put out... Rocking their Google Glass look and pioneering VR with their Rift.
I think what makes (or made) Apple what it is, is that it did wild-bets correctly. So that's what people are complaining about - the fact that they can't, or won't make wild bets that win.
Is that extremely hard? Yes of course, but doing that effectively is why Apple got the reputation it has.
Wild bets on what? That people would buy a good smartphone?
That's not exactly Tesla (the inventor, not the company) territory, bet-wise.
Phones were one of the hottest markets already -- and they would have only gotten smarter, iPhone or not. The iPhone just brought lots of smartness and polish in concentrated form all at once -- it took around 3 years for competitors to catch up (Android wasn't released for another full year), and I guess it would have taken them like 5-6 years or so to put it all together (or course with less panache) if they iPhone had not existed at all. But still it was no wild bet (except in daring to deal with the telcos -- that was a big bet and took balls).
So, in 2017, what exactly product would you think Apple should introduce as a bet?
I won't argue this point by point besides saying that those are each overblown concerns.
The broader point here, and this makes the point, is that Apple should be taking on any and all major challenges to keep it as a breakthrough trailblazing company. They have the cash, talent and position to do it.
Perhaps Apple can be accused of trailblazing at times, but only when they think they're going to make sufficient money doing it. I say this as a long-time Apple fan: they've never been in the business of experimental moonshots. They have products that don't pan out, sure, but they don't bring anything to market with a "this is crazy, but let's throw it at the wall and see if it sticks" attitude. What they've always seemed to be best at is looking at other good ideas that aren't setting the world on fire and figuring out how to fix them. Arguably, they did that with the original GUI concepts from the Xerox Alto/Star line, and kept doing it, from MP3 players to smartphones to tablets to smartwatches.
"Any and all" major challenges strikes me as kind of a recipe for (slow) disaster, unless Apple decides to set up a quasi-independent Apple Research division dedicated to moonshots. That would be kind of cool, to be sure, but it strikes me as something that isn't really in line with the kind of company Apple's been the last ~19 years.
I mean we're at the point now that they wouldn't be throwing anything at the wall - they would be doing what they always do, like you point out, which is why it makes sense.
Hololens, all the Daqri products, Meta are all in the HMD space with products that are selling. The AR HMD space is WAY PAST where the mouse and GUI were when they introduced it on the Macintosh. They could even buy Magic Leap if they wanted but could probably do better themselves. I mean I live this stuff. If Apple wanted to do AR glasses right, they could.
And yet, all those spaces and companies are totally irrelevant in the sizes and markets Apple plays. The average Joe would have difficulty even telling what they do from their name. Their utility at the moment is even less.
>I mean I live this stuff.
That's the selection bias issue. Most people don't and don't care for these technologies.
Over the last 20 years Apple has had the same kind for advice to get in to all kinds of fads that never went anywhere and technologies that were way before their actual mass market stage.
all those spaces and companies are totally irrelevant in the sizes and markets Apple plays
Just like the mouse and smartphone markets didn't exist previously.
You do realize that all of the majors are focusing heavily on AR right? As in, most of WWDC was dedicated to ARKit, nearly the entire Zuck Keynote was about AR etc...?
I was asked for what the next revolutionary technology would be that Apple could break out with, I gave it. It's staring everyone in the face and has been desired for the better part of 60 years - through thousands of iterations that never worked because processing, integration etc... weren't there.
>I won't argue this point by point besides saying that those are each overblown concerns
Overblown concerns that all made the Google Glass a total non-starter failure.
>The broader point here, and this makes the point, is that Apple should be taking on any and all major challenges to keep it as a breakthrough trailblazing company.
Nope. Apple should focus on carefully selected markets that keep it as a consumer favorite, best experience, record-profitable company.
Trailblazing breakthroughs in various random "major challenges" can be left to those without commercial concerns, like Google Labs who mostly makes up for money spend in positive press PR for its non-marketable "innovations".
