Linked List: May 4, 2016

Wednesday, 4 May 2016

Farhad Manjoo, writing at the NYT, calls on Apple to take more “moonshots”, a la Google:

It is likely that Apple is already working on some bold plans in secret (a car and a pay TV service are among several that have long been reported). The shift I’m calling for would not be radical, just evolutionary. It should be more nimble and slightly more public with its experiments, and push more of them out sooner. When it releases stuff, it should move faster to fix and improve what is wrong. Above all, it should take more risks; it should say yes more often.

These changes will be difficult because they could upset Apple’s customer base and its brand. Experimenting more means failing more, usually in public. Failing means looking bad, and looking bad isn’t something Apple does well.

Whether you think this is a good idea or not, I don’t see how anyone could describe such a change at Apple as “just evolutionary”. Upsetting the Apple brand is just about the most radical thing Apple could do.

I know The New York Times can’t say that it’s certain that Apple is working on a car, but I can. They are. Of course they’re working on a pay TV service. It would be astonishing if they didn’t have teams hard at work on VR and AR. The difference between Apple and other companies is that Apple will spend tens (or in the case of the car, hundreds) of millions of dollars on a new product and never ship it. They don’t just say no to ideas — they say no to long-in-development projects.