[kayoone]

Apple has extreme market influence and has been able to accelerate some developments (smartphones, retina displays, tablets, really small form factors etc) but those things would have been there anyway, maybe a couple of years later. They won't risk a flop product like Google Glass which is ahead of its time and dont really have a research program.

[millstone]

Product flops have real consequences. They scare investors off of similar projects, and set the industry back.