Will Apple Finally Become the Innovator the Masses Want?

In the epic tale Beowolf, Grendel (the heavy) is beaten somewhat anticlimactically when Beowulf tears Grendel’s arm from his torso and the bully slinks home to die. The copious violence is mitigated by the fact that the story is a thousand years old and the narration is (unfortunately for ninth graders everywhere) bereft of modern technicolor depictions¹ of tearing sinews², spurting blood³, and flying bits of flesh⁴. Contemporary requirements of interesting fiction aside, the story is the classic bully beaten by underdog archetype and one with which Apple fans can fully sympathize.

Why can Apple fans so readily identify with Beowulf? In the world according to Apple sycophants, everything good is given by the beneficent geniuses living in Cupertino. The days until the good that is Apple triumphs over the evil that is every company that isn’t Apple or an Apple partner is unknowable, but the outcome isn’t in doubt; the question is “when will people wake up?” not “will people wake up?” The reason this sincere belief permeates Mac land is because of the undoubted truth that anything worthwhile was at a minimum refined in Apple labs if not invented by Apple. Which leaves us with a question: has Apple really brought innovation to the average technology user?

Let us start with the GUI. The Graphical User Interface is the thing that made computers usable for the masses. Joe Way Below Average (or as AppleMatters staff refer to him, “Chris Seibold”) couldn’t remember commands like POKE, ATTRIB, PRINT, PARK, and PLUNGE⁵, but he could click on pictures. Computing by clicking on pictures? That is the equivalent of hunting by pressing your palms flat against cave paintings! True, but it is all our example buffoon could pull off, so to him the GUI is the difference between using a computer for something and a very expensive doorstop. So, who took the GUI from cool concept to mass-market coolness?

The easy answer is that Apple did it and that they did it with the Mac. The easy answer is wrong. Microsoft was the company that pulled the GUI rabbit out of the proverbial hat. Here is where the disconnect comes in. Xerox PARC had developed the Alto, a point and click deal. The system was so great that Steve Jobs exclaimed something along the lines of “Why aren’t you doing anything with this?” upon seeing the technology. Apple then went on to develop two computers based on the concept. You could go and buy a Lisa or a Mac and taste the future. Microsoft, on the other hand, developed the tech for computers that already existed. Apple could have made a windows-based OS for the already popular Apple II but passed on the chance⁶.

Let that sink in for a moment: Microsoft didn’t ask that you buy a new computer, all Microsoft required of the user is that they buy some software. Yeah, the software was crappy, unbelievably crappy, so crappy that many preferred DOS, but all it required was a few hundred instead of a few thousand dollars. The notion that you could get a new user paradigm without an investment in hardware was an innovation.

Microsoft offered a flawed but usable product⁶ (some will argue that nothing has changed), but to run the perpetually compromised software you needed hardware. It was in the hardware world that Dell out-innovated every other company. Many are scratching their heads wondering where, exactly, Dell ever displayed a lick of innovation. Dell’s innovation didn’t concern ports, motherboards, or even clever case designs. Dell focused all the company’s energies where the biggest payoff was: price.

Dell decided that instead of a complex system of retailers where the computer changes hands (and incurs cost) at least once before getting to the consumer, Dell would sell the machine directly to the buyer. There was a ton of reasons the idea couldn’t work. Computers are expensive and buyers want service for a purchase that hefty, etc. But the idea did work: computer’s prices were driven down and computers went from boring plastic boxes sitting in offices across the land to boring plastic boxes sitting in homes all over the country.

Apple, of course, never considered selling the Mac direct to the consumer (Apple dealers were a source of massive profits) and even if the company had considered the option there is less than 0 chance Apple would have sold a machine with slim margins just to increase marketshare.

This leads us to one unavoidable conclusion. While Apple is rightly seen as the company responsible for the most interesting innovation in the industry, it is not the company responsible for bringing that innovation to the common computer user. That trophy of making things acceptable to the masses goes to Microsoft, Dell, and other companies that were every bit as innovative as Apple in more important areas.

Is Apple doomed to be the company that is always innovating and never gaining acceptance? The iPod story tells us that Apple has made note of past mistakes and isn’t relying solely on just a better product to sell gadgets anymore. The iPhone and AppleTV are attempts to leverage the already immensely popular iPod brand in an effort for the devices to become ubiquitous, with their own untrod upon formats and standards. Apple seems well poised to move from innovative niche player to electronic gadget behemoth with aplomb. As a major electronics company, will it be too much to hope that Apple keeps the user-focused innovation coming?

¹ A lot of readers love gore for the sake of gore. As a service to said readers, below are examples of the worst descriptions of gore possible and could have (almost) been found in a cheesy horror novel.
² a sound like a frozen, wet towel being prised from the ground
³ graceful crimson arcs…of death
⁴ bits of flesh and muscle flew around the room like aspirated feedings outside of a free beef jerky booth at an allergy sufferers’ convention
⁵ One of these commands is fictional.
⁶ GEOS did make the scene for the Apple II.