“Innovate or Die” is certainly one of the most popular maxims that many tech companies go by. The competition is so tremendous that nobody is able to afford stagnation.
In that sense, we are lucky that such a competition wasn’t outlawed back at the turn of the century. Imagine if we had only one major tech company or two…
We'd probably still be playing Atari to this day.
Nowadays, the innovation curve in tech products seem to be accentuating even further. It looks even more fascinating when you take a look at the upcoming products and previews on CES.
Take the phone market for example, not too long ago the iPhone had arguably the best camera in the market with those notorious 13 Megapixels.
Today as I type this, there are many new smartphones with 40+ MPs: Samsung, One +, Asus zenfones, Oppo, Huawei and others.
Many of them have some sort of refreshing features: Triple lenses, rotating camera… Etc.
Not to mention the rest of the specs where Apple seemed to have stayed behind, like the battery life for example.
And all of this with a significantly cheaper price.
So you would expect that Apple would be forced to innovate in order to catch up to the ever-evolving competition. However, it does seem like Apple doesn’t need to innovate as they have secret weapon, an astonishing trick under the sleeve.
Apple have true believers.
You see, Apple is the only company in the world that could sell a computer stand for a 1000 bucks.
And no matter how crazy it sounds, and no matter how much people make fun of them... I doubt Apple are worried at all.
They have a critical mass of hardcore costumers with a dedication that puts Tibetan monks to shame.
While even the hardened and hungry people used to complain about the long waits on those bread lines in the past.
Apple fans on the other hand can do the waiting with a smile on their face.
So if you’re Apple, the logical thing is to start worrying about the future without an innovator like Steve Jobs, and with all the mindblowing laptops and phones coming out from competing companies, right?
But something tells me that they don’t need to worry about that in the slightest. Maybe they would just repackage some of their old products, blow the price to oblivion and make a killing doing so.
My guess? They’ll probably bring back some version of their most vintage styles and market it in a hypster retro fashion.
I suspect it would work too.
But at the end of the day, I’m just glad for all the competition and that we’re not at the mercy of one company. No matter what we’re taught about competition, it has a way of making us better versions of ourselves.