[DannyBee]

"Has Apple's research focus changed?"

If it has, honestly, it's because they don't know where to put their money or they've put it all in one thing.

You more or less say the same thing.

"hey've loosened their research focus and now have a lot of people doing whatever the hell they want, much like MS, just because something useful might someday emerge." (This is we have no idea what to spend our money on).

"Perhaps we're not seeing some monumental project in the works, although an autonomous car would be pretty big." (This is we are betting big on this one thing we think has huge potential).

The other option apple has not been fond of is large investments in a small set of things, each of which may be a potential big future.

The first would be quite concerning. If you have companies with large research budgets, and they have no idea what they should spend money on in order to make the next big thing happen, that does not bode well.

[ori_b]

> The first would be quite concerning. If you have companies with large research budgets, and they have no idea what they should spend money on in order to make the next big thing happen, that does not bode well.

Why doesn't it bode well? The transistor, the laser, Unix, information theory, and a giant number of other things which form the underpinnings of modern technology came out of Bell Labs, which is the epitome of a place with a large research budget and no specific "next thing to monetize" that the spending was directed towards.

From what I understand of Apple's culture, it's unlikely that it will ever transform towards this, but that's a separate point.

[DannyBee]

"Why doesn't it bode well?"

For investors, i meant.

" The transistor, the laser, Unix, information theory, and a giant number of other things which form the underpinnings of modern technology came out of Bell Labs, which is the epitome of a place with a large research budget and no specific "next thing to monetize" that the spending was directed towards."

That was research for research's sake. It was, explicitly, not directed at ever making money, but instead, advancing the state of the art. I don't think any of the companies mentioned, or Apple, are doing it for that reason, and for them it does not bode well, because they are hoping to make money.

I could also point out that Bell Labs made any money at all through licensing those inventions. That is also not Apple's business model :)

[ZenoArrow]

> "That was research for research's sake. It was, explicitly, not directed at ever making money, but instead, advancing the state of the art."

Advancing the state of the art can lead to making more money, the research results can be monetised, whether they are or not all depends on the intent of those leading the particular institution.

[neo2006]

This is a naive way to see things. Creating products and advancing technology are two different things and very often the one do not lead to the other. To create that business model based on technologies breakthroughs you need to have "the dare to fail" mindset and be willing to launch multiple fails before succeeding with one product, that's not Apple way of doing things there business model and reputation is based on creating "perfect" products well integrated which oppose to the technology edge and try and fail way of doing things

[neuromancer2701]

If the Apple pattern holds then they will be 3rd or 4th to the mainstream electric car market but it will be marketed as "above and beyond" all products that we have seen to that point.

[ZenoArrow]

It's not naive, you just can't predict the ROI.

[neo2006]

What I was calling naive is the fact of seeing innovation and creating products as the same thing, it's not.