Lack of innovation: Will Apple become the next Sony?

Apple may be the most valuable company in the world, but two and a half years into the Tim Cook era, it's not the same. While Cook has led to a 58% increase in revenue and a 40% year-over-year increase in profits, the enthusiasm for innovation under Steve Jobs seems to be fading. Apple is in an industry that requires constant innovation and breakthroughs, and Cook, who is known for his blandness, doesn't seem to be able to achieve such bold breakthroughs and innovations. In the last fiscal year, total revenue grew by only 9.6%, the slowest growth in a decade, and it was also the first decline in profits since 2001.

Cook called the book "Empire Hunting: Apple in the Post-Steve Jobs Era" by former Wall Street Journal reporter Eucalyptus Ivatani Kane "nonsense." Cook had good reason to be angry, because in the book, he was considered an Apple administrator rather than a creative genius. Sony was once a leader in the industry. Here are some warning signs that Apple is stagnating or even declining.

1. Return to the ordinary. Apple launched the iPod in 2001, the iPhone in 2007, and the iPad in 2010. Each time, it not only created a blockbuster new product, but also opened up a whole new category. Harvard management professor Gautam Mukunda said in his book: "Apple has basically violated the laws of business physics for a very long time." Today, portable music players are an aging product category, and competitors are stealing market share from mobile phones and tablets. Can Apple create new tricks again?

2. Tim Cook is bland. Cook may be Jobs's chosen successor, but "thinking alike" seems to be his way of doing things. Remember those Mac/PC ads? Cook seems a lot like the computer guy in them. In fact, he started his career at IBM and then got his MBA at Duke University before starting Apple in 1998. Like other journalists, Kane sees Cook as a positive, non-disruptive force, a worldly logistics master who doesn't call himself an innovator or a visionary. Kane says his management style is to delegate responsibility and then beat down those who don't like him. "The danger of that management style is that it makes employees risk-averse and lazy to innovate," she writes. In contrast, Jobs was perhaps the most detail-oriented and hands-on CEO of his time, and his products bore his own mark. If Cook has his own mark, no one has seen it.

3. Apple began making unforced errors. An Apple manager was 30 minutes late for a meeting because the Apple Maps device gave the wrong directions. Greenland was confused with the Indian Ocean. Travelers in Ireland were referred to an airport that didn’t exist. It’s hard to imagine Steve Jobs presiding over the 2012 Apple Maps fiasco, which led to the departure of Vice President Scott Forstall and landed the product on a list of the “Top 20 Dumbest People, Events, and Things of 2012” by Humor Magazine. Under pressure, Cook issued a public apology two days after the launch of the spectacularly failed app and even recommended his users to use a competitor’s product. The problems with Apple Maps and Siri’s voice recognition software appear to be the result of poor initial testing. Looking back now, Jobs’s ability to bring products to market was not a trick at all. It was just an indicator of Jobs’s obsessive pursuit of perfection.

4. Apple is starting to react and defend. Apple's patent lawsuit against Samsung over smartphones (which was counter-sued by Samsung) looks like a meaningless victory. Worse, in Kane's view, is the symbolism behind the brutal legal tactics. "Why waste so much time, money and energy protecting an outdated technology when the company can launch a game-changing product?" she wrote. She quoted UBS analyst Steve Milunovich as saying, "The real threat is not that competitors beat Apple at its own game, but that they change the game. If they jump out of the inherent framework, the possibility of surpassing Apple in one fell swoop or creating an entirely new category will be greater." Once forward-looking companies are now becoming conservative and constantly defending their past positions.

5. Apple reinvents, not innovates. Over the past few years, the plethora of improvements to the iPhone and iPad have failed to excite the tech enthusiasts whose enthusiasm has led to long lines outside Apple stores, generating valuable publicity. (When was the last time you saw that?) Ars Technica wrote, "In 2013, nearly every new piece of hardware and software Apple released was a reinvention of a previous product." Apple's latest buzz is set-top boxes, but Apple's potential tie-up with Comcast to help sell boxes for its TVs with special broadband access may be an exciting new breakthrough, but the deal risks regulatory scrutiny, and Apple will find the gadget market crowded. It's unlikely the product will make it into Jobs's "extremely great" hall of fame.

As a winner of Toutiao's Qingyun Plan and Baijiahao's Bai+ Plan, the 2019 Baidu Digital Author of the Year, the Baijiahao's Most Popular Author in the Technology Field, the 2019 Sogou Technology and Culture Author, and the 2021 Baijiahao Quarterly Influential Creator, he has won many awards, including the 2013 Sohu Best Industry Media Person, the 2015 China New Media Entrepreneurship Competition Beijing Third Place, the 2015 Guangmang Experience Award, the 2015 China New Media Entrepreneurship Competition Finals Third Place, and the 2018 Baidu Dynamic Annual Powerful Celebrity.