[nkurz]

To the contrary, I found myself shaking my head. Why is it in Apple's interest to be forced to constantly innovate simply to maintain market share?

To say that 'a monoculture is not in the consumer's interest' make perfect sense, but why wouldn't Apple prefer a case where it has no strong competition? Their goal is profit via market share, not innovation for the sake of innovation.

[Calamitous]

Which is precisely why competition is so important. With no drive to innovate, they could saturate the market and park the technology where it is for decades (think Microsoft).

By being forced to innovate, they (or a competitor) can drive consumption up by obsoleting the current wave of technology.

[unalone]

Their goal is profit via market share, not innovation for the sake of innovation.

Apple's goal is making good products. If they wanted shitloads of cash, they could have sold out at any time in the last decade. Instead, they try to make things that people will love.

If Apple has no competitor, they'll continue to innovate, have no doubts. However, they might not innovate in all ways at once, meaning they might not focus on annihilating all their weaknesses. If they've got a competitor, suddenly there's incentive to beat their rivals in every way possible, and the resulting products are even better.

[AndrewO]

> If Apple has no competitor, they'll continue to innovate...

I immediately thought of MS Word when this sub-topic came up. Since establishing its dominance in, let's say 1997 or so, few features have come along that have truly changed the way that users word process (the last one for me was JIT spell checking). But MS has been adding more and more features in an attempt to continue innovating.

There's a Word monoculture and there's innovation of a sort. I think the interesting point that you make is that it's unfocused innovation that seems to be either incremental or aimed at preempting possible minor complaints, rather than exploring new ways for users to create documents. Not that I'm critiquing MS specifically of this—I think this may be a general symptom of monopoly (and I wonder if the same would hold for Apple).

[three14]

Because companies that get complacent seem to lose the ability to innovate, so you get ten years of steady profits, and then finally someone eats your lunch.

Anyway, I have an ethical problem with companies maximizing profits at the expense of doing anything useful. Why not innovate even when not necessary? You can call it R&D and not be blamed for wasting shareholders' money.

[AndrewO]

I disagree with the parent, but don't think he should be downmodded (at least not below 1 as it is now). He's making a point which goes against what most people here probably have, but it's prompted more discussion and was made civilly.

[nkurz]

I appreciate your attitude. But which part do you disagree with?

I'm guessing that most people are reacting against my implication that Apple is primarily profit-driven rather than design-driven. I suppose this might be true (and probably is true of some pieces of the company), but I have trouble believing that their financial success is just a happy accident that follows naturally from their focus on design.

Or is there a different part you disagree with?

[AndrewO]

Well, I hope that didn't come across as being diametrically opposed to you or anything. I actually quite agree that Apple is profit-driven. Its success has mainly stemmed from learning how to profit on its design.

Apple's most successful products have been those where its best to market, rather than first to market, which by means competition is good for it by definition (most especially at the beginning). Creative Nomad and (soon at least) WinMo are evidence of that (on the other hand, there's Newton, which was way too early to market).

It remains to be seen whether or not their more successful products fall into a MS Word-like malaise (see my other comment) now that they're entrenched in the media player and smart phone spaces. My guess is that the design that has driven them to success in the past will continue to be able to head off competition, but I don't want to sound like a fan boy.

So mainly, I was disagreeing that a monoculture could be in their best interest. It may in certain cases (or other companies), but I don't think it does on average.