Apple Inc. (Photo credit: marcopako)
The rumor mill around Apple's 2014 product slate is in overdrive, so what can we assume to be a near-truth? Do you second-guess by following the rumors or do you probe the underlying strategy? Earlier Peter Cohan posted on the possibility of an Apple Phablet, but in fact there are many more options being touted out there. I think they are mostly wrong and that
The rumors are: Apple will introduce a cheaper phone in September and they will come in a multitude of colors and plastic casings - to distinguish them from the iPhone. Apple will look at a $99.00 price tag. Apple will introduce an outsized 12 inch plus iPad. Apple will go in to Phablets. Apple is planning on tripling the pixel density on its displays.
The supplier intelligence that generates some of these rumors (reported by Reuters among others), also suggests that Apple typically throws down false scents for reporters and competitors by asking suppliers for all kinds of hardware before settling on a final product specification.
In other words, supplier rumors aren't worth a whole lot. Yet Tim Cook, in his recent D11 interview hinted that there is customer demand for a larger display size.
Cook has also been insistent though that a larger screen requires trade-offs like a larger battery, and that the same is true of a more vibrant display. Anyway, what Apple needs is to improve the Retina rather than, necessarily, make it bigger. The rumor mill suggests it could do that with quantum dot technology from 3M or through Sharp IGZO back panels. But I like Cook's insistence that these all involve trade-offs and Apple is wrestling with what makes most sense to its customers.
What Apple owns right now is a stable platform that it is about to disrupt with a new iOS design. It pays to be cautious around the iOS7 launch. It will be a cautious 12 months with one major disruptive innovation.
If you look at Apple's underlying strategy and its patenting record then those clear lines I mentioned earlier come into focus.
Why would Apple launch a much cheaper phone? That doesn't make any sense. Even a short journey down market is going to present Apple with a much bigger community to support, one that downloads more free apps and is unlikely to be looking for other Apple products. True they have had a good experience with the iPad Mini, so you can't rule out one more iProduct built around the 2007 paradigm. But the iOS 7 launch suggests Apple wants to move on.
A larger display? I think Apple is hamstrung on displays. Go for IGZO back panels - Samsung owns a part of Sharp and will know about it (there's already a rumor that Samsung is preparing to launch the first IGZO tablet, for no better reason than to be first). Go for PHOLEDs and they need to negotiate with Samsung, who dominate OLED production. Go for quantum dot and Samsung is an investor in one of the key players. Apple has to do some serious innovation in displays to avoid being hog-tied by its competitors.
Apple has been busy patenting flex-display technologies - you can pick up on that thread here at Patently Apple.
In their patent filings Apple suggest their next move might be a comformable screen - something that wraps around the wrist or that has other conforming features (perhaps a screen that is visible from many angles). Their patent filings also suggest that they are gearing up for a launch into monitoring and metrics in a big way possibly incorporating the iWatch.
Yesterday I referenced a patent filing that covers the tracking of all kinds of body motion. Apple looks like it is set to move into health in a bigger way, using body sensors, perhaps on the wrist but possibly even built into sports apparel. It wouldn't be the first time - Apple pioneered it in the sports shoe but has let the market get ahead of it so far.
Both of those developments suggest Apple might be more interested in deepening its relationship with its large customer base rather than extending it down into market categories that cannot afford to travel with it into new services.
The idea of a much more serious attempt to make wearables effective is tempting also because of
Google and Apple both pursue radical adjacencies, or moves into markets where they have no apparent or complete competitive expertise. Google's can be quite random (for example autos and Lending Club). But there is a unique consistency in what Apple does. Over the growth years it has consistently sought out new areas of application for computing (smartphone, tablet, Cloud).
Google, by way of contrast, has sought out the headlines, increasingly portraying itself as the champion of the grand challenge, the one company prepared to address humanity's big challenges, hence the driverless car.
However, Google Glass looks a pretty anaemic implementation of this principle. What challenge does it actually address? I find it hard to work that one out. It's a small leap into a wearable device built on established HUD principles. But it doesn't seem to be tied into a phalanx of monitoring sensors or services that could help you use its presence on your head to improve your life. It's an adjacency move for Google, a move deeper into devices, but it is disconnected from any feasible explanation of Google's strategic evolution. It's at best opportunistic - and Google is smart enough to capitalize on that.
But that's where the Apple paradigm is so different. Apple has applied the principles of miniaturization, in much the same way Sony used to, get to the iPhone and the iPad (and the iPad Mini is a logical route to go in that context). It also intent on extending the value of computing- the App Store journey has been about exactly that. Cloud helps take that paradigm further, and to reduce the workload of the basic computing device. New devices like an iWatch are further miniatures of the computer.
To go from here to body motion sensors and to distribute the computer around the body makes a whole lot of sense. It's all adjacency but it is coherent, and connected like the ripples in a pond. It's an adjacency that connects back and fore. It's a further extension of what computing can do for us.
That's my take on Apple's 2014 - extending the computing paradigm as they always have, with coherence rather than with a fetish for new products. Apple has written the rule book on radical adjacency strategies. It's not about to rip it up for Samsung or Google. It will move beyond the smartphone.
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