A billionaire serial entrepreneur from China, whose company LeEco offers an ecosystem of streaming video services, electric vehicles, television sets and smartphones, has lambasted Apple for failing to innovate — and says it is failing in China as a result.
“As an industry leader, Apple should be developing more cutting-edge products,” he said. “The iPhone was still a leader five years ago after being launched in 2008 but now the concept has fallen behind.”
Kind of funny considering that LeEco recently rushed to beat Apple to release a smartphone without a 3.5mm headphone jack!
In his first international interview with CNBC, Jia Yueting said that Apple is losing momentum in China due to how “outdated” its products and ideas are.
“We believe the next generation of mobile internet will be more open, more ecosystem oriented instead of being a closed loop,” Yueting said. “Ironically, Apple’s over-dominance, lack of internet-thinking and the closed off nature of its systems, all hindered innovation in the internet mobile industry.”
Interestingly, despite blasting Apple for focusing on its ecosystem building, LeEco’s latest concept is trying to sell movies, TV shows and music to buyers of its self-driving, smart LeSEE supercar, which is supposed to rival Tesla’s Model S. Apple was recently forced to stop selling iTunes Movies and shutter the iBooks Store in China as a way of favoring local businesses.
Regardless, Yueting thinks any problems Apple is having is down to the fact that “Apple’s innovation has become extremely slow,” with the new iPhone SE (you know, that phone which is selling like gangbusters in China!) being one example. “We think this is something they just shouldn’t have done,” he said.
Source: CNBC
Luke Dormehl is a U.K.-based journalist and author, with a background working in documentary film for Channel 4 and the BBC. He is the author of The Apple Revolution and The Formula: How Algorithms Solve All Our Problems … and Create More, both published by Penguin/Random House. His tech writing has also appeared in Wired, Fast Company, Techmeme and other publications.
10 responses to “China’s Steve Jobs says Apple isn’t innovating enough”
I prefer 4″ phones to bigger ones so I’m all for iPhone SE, but at the same time I understand why the view on Apple products has changed. They haven’t really introduced anything “new” in a while and rely on improving already existing products. Even Apple Watch or iPad Pro with a stylus is just catching up to competition that’s already out there. Obviously, design and build quality of these products is as good as ever, but they should come up with something more substantial in terms of features and new ways to use these products.
There’s another side to this issue. What more can you do to let’s say an iPad? Better performance, better screen, camera etc. But we already reached a point where for most users the new 9,7″ iPad Pro is total overkill. An iPad from several years ago plays Netflix just as good.
I agree. I think we’ve reached a point where for most people that device they bought a couple of years ago is still good enough for what they need. I have the iPhone 6 and whilst I tried a 6S didn’t feel like it did anything substantially better than my iPhone 6 to warrant an upgrade. I’ll more than likely get this years iPhone just because, but I’d probably be quite happy to stick with my iPhone 6 for a third year. Same with the iPad Air 2, it’s fast enough and does everything the majority of people want. New products may have a tweaked design, but internally you get upgraded processors, cameras, etc. with every new upgrade but I think devices have gotten to the point where they’re fast enough and capable enough for what we use them for that it’s becoming harder to justify an upgrade.
On another note, most people don’t know what the word innovation means. You hear all these stories about people pulling the iPhone SE down and saying that it isn’t innovation to release a new 4 inch phone, so what it was never meant to be. Innovation isn’t something that can be achieved with every new product release/update, it takes time. The Touch ID sensor was innovative, now used for a variety of purposes and copied by other manufacturers. Whilst many will disagree I think 3D Touch is another one that will develop over time. You only really see true innovation every so often, not every 5 minutes. Sticking faster processor, better camera, larger screen into a phone cannot be classed as innovation as some people like to do with competing phones, things like that are just the natural evolution of products.
Until someone else brings out a safer better cleaner operating system, they won’t have to innovate. For some reason no one could figure this out yet.
This all comes off as obtuse and short-sided. They’re innovating, just at a slow steady pace where they will be able to continually milk profits and beat Wall St. estimates. They could release the equivalent of the iPhone 10 tomorrow if they wanted, but then they lose out on years of sales and revenue and face downward pressure on their share price which devalues the company which erases executive wealth and employee stock-options. They’re thinking long-time prosperity, much to our innovation-demanding chagrin.
“China’s Steve Jobs says Apple isn’t innovating enough”
“China’s Steve Jobs?” sounds more like China’s John Sculley. Irrelevant comments from someone with an axe to grind, or simply hungry for a little attention.
So funny. Competitors want Apple to “innovate” so that they have something to copy.
Bingo
Wait next year when Apple releases the Watch Pro, Watch mini and Watch SE. “Not innovating enough” – utter nonsense!
China is on the cutting edge of garbage.
To the author, I don’t think Steve job like to copy especially popular product