With the lawsuits, I think too much is made of this. I don't believe it really much affects their ability to make products one way or the other.
I don't know if it is still the case but a few years ago they were the most sued company in the world and prior to the iPhone they were getting hit with a ton of patent suits and trolls.
So, it seems that starting with the iPhone there was a shift in strategy when Apple realized they needed to patent everything possible as a defensive measure.
Perhaps it's lamentable that became a more offensive strategy, but it seems to be swinging back the other way under Tim Cook.
I also agree that it would be nice if they would step up their software game, but don't hold your breath. Apple makes decent OSes but their apps have never been known for their high quality.
There are some hopeful signs though. Although it gets plenty of hate, I think the the slow convergence of OS X and iOS is a good direction. Of course, with Ive now in charge of software design we can at least expect some more aesthetic polish in their software within the next year.
I think their biggest strength is providing a good platform (hardware and OS) for third party developers to shine. However, they seem to have a hard enough time just doing that (more on the OS side), so I wouldn't mind if they dumped more of their app development to focus even more of the quality of their OSes.
>With the lawsuits, I think too much is made of this. I don't believe it really much affects their ability to make products one way or the other.
It may not affect their ability to design their products but it most certainly affects their marketing, image and business relationships. This goes double when it comes to lawsuits against major business partners (like Samsung).
> with Ive now in charge of software design we can at least expect some more aesthetic polish
I hope he delivers something more than polish - if he can make the human-machine interface more intuitive/seamless while toning down the visual cruft that would be great.
> their biggest strength is providing a good platform (hardware and OS) for third party developers to shine
Definitely. That seems to be their angle with the iPad mini vs the better spec'd & competitively-priced competition.
I don't know if it is still the case but a few years ago they were the most sued company in the world and prior to the iPhone they were getting hit with a ton of patent suits and trolls.
So, it seems that starting with the iPhone there was a shift in strategy when Apple realized they needed to patent everything possible as a defensive measure.
Perhaps it's lamentable that became a more offensive strategy, but it seems to be swinging back the other way under Tim Cook.
I also agree that it would be nice if they would step up their software game, but don't hold your breath. Apple makes decent OSes but their apps have never been known for their high quality.
There are some hopeful signs though. Although it gets plenty of hate, I think the the slow convergence of OS X and iOS is a good direction. Of course, with Ive now in charge of software design we can at least expect some more aesthetic polish in their software within the next year.
I think their biggest strength is providing a good platform (hardware and OS) for third party developers to shine. However, they seem to have a hard enough time just doing that (more on the OS side), so I wouldn't mind if they dumped more of their app development to focus even more of the quality of their OSes.