Has Apple ‘jumped the shark?’

Interesting point of view in this article, that Apple has already passed it’s point of greatest achievement, and may be on the slow path to decline. We certainly haven’t seen anything earth-shatteringly new from Apple for a while. Without any completely new product announcements, they could slowly be on their way out.

iPhone5? Nothing to see here, move along.

I can’t help think that today’s iPhone 5 announcement was a major let down. Where’s the innovative new features, Apple? Where’s the must-have new cool stuff that’s prompting us to run out to the Apple store right this minute?

So it’s lighter, thinner, faster. Ok, so it’s an incremental improvement over the 4S. Isn’t this the same thing that people said about the 4S (I did anyway)? We were expecting the iPhone 5 at the last iPhone announcement and just got the 4S. They didn’t really add anything earth shatteringly new for the last update. And now for this latest announcement, this new iPhone is more like an iPhone 4.5 rather than an iPhone 5.

I’m sorry Apple, but I think you’re losing your edge. Rather than bringing revolutionary products to the market this is an incremental improvement over what we already have. Sure, there’s going to be the faithful who just have to upgrade because it’s the new iPhone, but for must people, I don’t see anything here that’s a significant draw. There was rumors that NFC support would be included, and I was curious if it was then how Apple was going to dust it with their magic pixie dust and put a spin on it to get the whole world to buy into the magic of NFC-based Google Wallet style cashless transactions – I was curious because Google have been dabbling in this area but it hasn’t exactly caught on yet. I was kind of hoping Apple would take this concept for a spin and tell us how we can no longer live our lives without this time saving new innovation… but sadly, no. Nothing new to see here, move along.

The thing that still mystifies me is how Apple uses Samsung to supply it’s iPhone processors (as it has done for most prior versions and iPads too). You’d think given Apple’s lawsuits against Samsung for infringing on Apple’s patents that they wouldn’t bite the hand that feeds it, so to speak, but surprise surprise… who manufacturers and supplies the magical new A6 processor in the iPhone 5? Samsung.

 

Sad day for manufacturers and consumers of ‘rectangular devices with round corners’

Samsung have said the final court ruling in the patent case with Apple is ‘a loss for the American consumer’, and I can’t help but agree.

In a statement after the ruling, Samsung continue:

“It is unfortunate that patent law can be manipulated to give one company a monopoly over rectangles with rounded corners, or technology that is being improved every day by Samsung and other companies”

That one statement for me sums up the ridiculous nature of his patent lawsuit. So what next, is Apple going to continue to sue every other phone manufacturer who manufacturers a device that is essentially a rectangle with rounded corners? To avoid infringing on Apple’s patents on rectangles, all other phones must be square, or circular, or any other shape but not a rectangle? This is the ridiculous part of this case. Imagine if someone was able to patent the shape of a car? A house? A table? A TV?