But that is precisely my point … they are saying to the public here, they are the leaders in innovation, not that they are the back-room boys creating what the front room boys have thought up.
For instance, take the screen in the iPhone 4. Perhaps that’s made by Toshiba too, I don’t know … but where did the drive to make it come from? If they really produced that innovation, why isn’t it already in their products and splashed round the world as such.
It’s really a question of how the word “leader” is understood in this context, and the implication of their slogan is not that they have the best backroom technology and R&D, but that they produce the most innovative technology for the consumer.
And of course lots of Chinese buy that latter interpretation. And they really don’t want to get away from the spider’s web of Microsoft … or rather, the availability of pirated versions of Windows software. I have a colleague here who spent a year at the University of San Diego … she has come back the proud owner of a MacBook Pro. And I was immediately told she runs Windows on it, 'cos the applications she needs don’t run under OS-X. In other words she can’t run pirated versions of Windows Office under OS-X! Soon she’ll be complaining about instability and viruses, I have no doubt!
Mark
PS The older I get, the more cynical I get. Who was it who said, “If you’re not a socialist when you’re young, a conservative when you’re middle-aged, and a cynic when you get old, there’s something wrong with you”?
Not quite, Jaysen, because to go from bottom to top, surely the innovation … in the sense that the public sees it and their ad implies … is in the concepts not the devices. An Apple engineer has an idea, “What about a phone with a screen with a pitch of 326 pixels to the inch? 4 pixels where now there is one?” and so the company goes to Toshiba and says “Can you make such a screen for us?” And they sign an NDA and an NCA and their back-room boys work out how to make it, and so it ends up in iPhone 4. Now which of the two is innovating as far as the public who sees the ads is concerned? The company that created the concept, or the company that works out how to make it?
I’ll go along with you that Toshiba is inventive in the back-room, but those who are not savvy in the ins-and-outs of hardware production — including me — in other words the general computer or CE-device buying public, sees the concepts, not the manufacturing technology development. And in CE-concepts, Tosh is no longer a leader; it was while ago, just as Sony was in various fields but seems to be no more.
So you’re talking technology, I’m talking language and public perception. Two different cultures, perhaps.
Funny thing is, apple isn’t really doing anything new. The multi-touch interface was dreamed up and designed over at MIT and Berkley. MP3 playing phones predated the iPhone by quite a bit. OSX is actually a BSD knock off. Microsoft? Used Xerox’s windowing system. Sony? Betamax was a more portable version of the JVC broadcast format used in TV.
Innovation from the corporate, and I would suggest, the consumer perspective is really only a marketing term.
That is the point I have been trying to get out. I really need to get back to practicing my cognitive skills. Too much management these days.
Substitute arp with od - coding instead of carping.
I appear to have been staring at computer manuals all week, otherwise I wouldn’t have got it either. Need to get some jobs completed before spending the rest of June with Scrivener and the World Cup.
And my Omnigraffle ‘football tactics’ stencil, obviously.
Very important, that. For Not Getting Things Done.
Hmm, some more depressing developments I somehow missed:
• Apple dropped all Mac categories from their prestigious Apple Design Awards this year - only iPad an iPhone applications could enter. In other words, only the work of iPad and iPhone developers have been recognised this year by Apple - even though Snow Leopard was only released last August.
• Apple have remove the prominent link to the Mac downloads page on their site. The downloads page is still there, but it is harder to find - sad, because it is a really useful way for users to find third-party applications. Moreover, Apple have, at least for the time being, stopped updating the Downloads page - it hasn’t been updated in three months.
On the plus side, there are rumours that Apple are thinking about splitting WWDC into two - having one for Mac developers and another for iOS developers. If this is true, then I suppose it’s conceivable that the Apple Design Awards are being split in two as well. So, I’ll just cross my fingers that this is a secret they are waiting to announce, and that this is the reason behind dropping all Mac categories from the awards. (One wag on MacRumors said he was prepared to place money on Jobs not presenting the Mac keynote if this happened, though.)
Who was it who said, “If you’re not a socialist when you’re young, a conservative when you’re middle-aged, and a cynic when you get old, there’s something wrong with you”? 
