I hope so. Too bad Apple's sufficiently secretive that it's hard to tell without having enough highly-placed moles. It's easy to imagine that the company's structured in a way that it'll get soggy without Steve.
(For example, their lightweight notebooks cost less than their beefier ones. I think this is counter-intuitive from a computer industry standpoint, but intuitive otherwise. Such an idea could make it past the decisionmakers under Jobs, but would it post-Jobs? Jobs is supposedly known for his history of filtering out certain kinds of critical thinkers who could challenge him.)
But I think even if Apple starts sucking, the computers will at least continue to look as decent as a Braun appliance that just boils water. A lot better than what the rest of the computer industry can manage.
All the best,
Tj
On Thu, Oct 6, 2011 at 3:43 AM, <brandelune at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On Oct 6, 2011, at 9:57 AM, // ravi wrote:
>
>> Yes. But I have a problem with the word innovation/innovator (though my peeve is with how it is used within the tech industry and by management types, not the more direct/straightforward way you mean it). Here’s what I wrote a while ago: http://l.ravi.be/q42Vri (nothing particularly insightful; just timely).
>
> >From your text: "He is unabashedly common-sensical and bullshit-free."
>
> I think that's what Doug means when he wrote "he was like the last remaining innovator in the U.S. economy". Innovation is a huge lot about no BS common sense, about simply linking the dots. Cook said that yesterday about Apple, basically that the company is trying very hard to link all the dots in a "I just works" way. I pretty sure that's not going to go away from Apple before a long while.
>
> Jean-Christophe
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