Apple has a lot of sayings. “It’s better to be a pirate than to join the navy.” “Think differently.” “Don’t hold it that way.” And, perhaps most grammatically controversial, “A thousand no’s for every yes.” Some of it is just marketing talk, but the latter is key to understanding the company’s approach to product development. And the areas where he risks going astray.
Now, I admit that Apple is good at the first part of the equation: it says no. plot. He said no to cars. He said no to televisions. He said no to overheating multi-device chargers (eventually). I guess he said no to foldable smartphones about 10 times a quarter. The only thing he says yes to is “another smartphone/smartwatch/tablet/laptop that looks like the last one, but with an extra button.” And Vision Pro, I guess. That was a pretty big yes.
Still, I worry that interesting product launches will get lost in the deluge of no’s. (Please note the absence of an apostrophe in the plural.) Earlier this month, it emerged that, according to Mark Gurman’s sources, Apple now has no plans to make the Smart Ring on which it was supposed to work earlier this year. Maybe it’s the right decision; after all, the smart ring market hasn’t yet taken off, and the classic Cupertino ploy is to wait for other companies to lead the way before jumping in and grabbing the revenue. But all the ingredients are there, and surely it would be worth a try?
I speak, as you may have guessed, as someone who wrote an opinion piece on this subject and it was completely ignored. I argued in February that a smart ring was a strangely natural fit for the Apple ecosystem. This could be an additional controller for Vision Pro, a biometric unlock key for Mac, or a dat a source for Health and Fitness+. And it could offer the same proposition as the Apple Watch – a miniature connection to your other Apple products – on an even smaller scale. This is the logical extrapolation of the Apple Watch concept: the smallest possible device with which to access notifications and collect data on health, fitness and sleep.
But now it looks like the Apple Ring won’t happen. Well, that’s fair enough. But what if – and this is starting to look a little more likely – the smart ring market do take off? As we’ve seen with AI, it’s not always easy to sit back and join the party later. And as we’ve seen with foldables, Apple sometimes lags behind for so long that it has to accept that it can no longer catch up. Better hope that foldable, smart rings don’t become the next big thing.
Concentration is good. Focus makes sense in the world of technology, where projects cost a fortune to develop and the price of failure is high. But it is possible to go too far in the other direction and exclude yourself from markets whose future value is not yet apparent. Not every project has to involve millions of dollars in ad spending and dedicated space in the Apple Store. You can always roll out a Smart Ring as an experimental beta product to a select user base and see how it goes. You can always try to leave your options open for the future.
So of course I can understand why Apple believes in saying no a thousand times for every time it says yes. But if you do that, you better be sure that when the right opportunity presents itself, you respond correctly. How confident are you, Tim Cook, that mixed reality is going to be a success, and smart rings are not? That people will buy premium tablets, not foldable smartphones? Because your dedication to focus means the stakes are horribly high. And if you get the question wrong, the cost will be Apple’s relevance in the technology landscape of the future.
Welcome to our weekly Apple Breakfast column, which includes all the Apple news you missed last week in one handy summary. We call it Apple Breakfast because we think it pairs really well with a Monday morning cup of coffee or tea, but it’s cool if you want to read it during lunch or dinner hours as well.
Trending: Featured News
Annual updates are killing the iPhone, believes Mahmoud Itani.
I upgraded to the iPhone 16 Plus– and I have thoughts.
A riddle of the Macalope: is it really a laptop if you shouldn’t wear it?
If iMessage is so great, Jason Snell wonders, why is it? The message experience is so terrible?
THE MacBook Pro M4 it may be the entry-level laptop that does everything right.
Apple iPad Pro problems return with demand for OLED panels craters.
Podcast of the week
We review the new Apple Watch Series 10 and AirPods 4. Are these new devices worth your money? We talk about our likes, dislikes and more!
You can watch every episode of the igamesnews Podcast on Spotify, Soundcloud, the Podcasts app, or our own site.
Reviews corner
The rumor mill
Prepare! THE The M4 Mac era starts November 1st.
Report: Apple Intelligence is finally coming October 28.
Apple would move away from annual launches.
Software updates, bugs and issues
MacOS Sequoia iPhone Mirroring Feature could expose personal data at work.
And with that, we’re done for this week’s apple breakfast. If you would like to receive regular summaries, subscribe to our newsletters. You can also follow us on Facebook, Threads or Twitter to discuss the latest Apple news. See you next Monday and stay Appley.
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