He did present things as revolutionary that already shipped months ago elsewhere, and this was irritating at times. But. This is exactly the point that so many other companies/brands missed. Serve your usebase, make the product revolutionary with as boring tech as possible.
Yes of course Apple, a fantastically capital-strong enterprise did spend a lot on tech R&D, but they usually did their own non-standard thing. (Vertical integration, the consequence of narrow focus, later the advantage of product/brand differentiation.) Of course, again, all possible due to the wildly successful Mac/MacBooks.
> He did present things as revolutionary that already shipped months ago elsewhere, and this was irritating at times.
He knew that who did it first didn’t matter as much as the first one to do it right. New technology can’t be revolutionary if the products it’s sold in flop or never escape their tiny niche, no matter how cool it is.
Mac and MacBooks were not wildly successful back then. iPods were, though. I can’t find a graph for 2000s, but Apple desktop and computers started being used more after iPhone came out (and after MacBook Air came out).
They did, I am just disputing the notion that they were “wildly” successful.
iPod and iPhones I would describe as wildly successful. Even AirPods. Even iPads. They were THE device to get in that market segment, and if you looked around lots of people had them. The M processor MacBooks are also wildly successful. But I don’t remember the iMacs being like that in early 2000s.
> He did present things as revolutionary that already shipped months ago elsewhere, and this was irritating at times.
It was irritating to a specific brand of nerd who valued "doing it first" over "doing it right". They were a fascinating sideshow back then, if not a little irritating themselves. To see someone write this in 2025 is like learning about the Japanese holdouts after World War II.
I still think they are not doing things right. (Their UI continues to look and feel crazy. Hardware is amazing, software is made for a circus show. Just give some simple task that involves Finder, or any settings on any of their device.)
But it was way more snappier than the median Android device, and usually looked more consistent too.
Yes of course Apple, a fantastically capital-strong enterprise did spend a lot on tech R&D, but they usually did their own non-standard thing. (Vertical integration, the consequence of narrow focus, later the advantage of product/brand differentiation.) Of course, again, all possible due to the wildly successful Mac/MacBooks.