Apple: a company of the past

Apple’s sense of innovation has never been questioned since it began releasing products that not only dominated electronic platforms but also trail-blazed new product lines that would reinvent mobile and desktop computing.

Unfortunately, its streak of producing jaw-dropping products has come to an end. Apple’s lack of innovation is especially apparent in its questionable software and hardware decisions.

The root of Apple’s failure started with its bland and boringly consistent hardware design that originated with its concept of the iPhone. The original iPhone had a 3.5” screen display with a rectangular body that boasted simplicity and beauty; the product was a crowd-pleaser that influenced tech-heavyweights such as Samsung and Motorola to produce their own smartphones.

The great design seen in Apple’s first iPhone stemmed from their talented design team and the stewardship of late CEO Steve Jobs.

With Jobs at the helm of the Cupertino-based company, its success and its thirst for innovation was never questioned. Apple continued to reaffirm the iPhone’s success with their release of the iPhone 4: an iteration of the iPhone that hosted the retina display, which is a liquid crystal display that produces the sharpest images.

The iPhone 5s, however, is not much more different than the iPhone 4. Yes, there is a longer screen and a faster processor, but the phone still seems small compared to equally priced Samsung Galaxy S4s and Google Nexus 5s.

The iPhone’s screen size has been one of its major setbacks. Users would like to have a larger screen real-estate because the dramatically larger screens offer far more functionalities than the narrow and long iPhone screen dimension.

Apart from its hardware, Apple’s iOS 7, the company’s latest mobile operating system, is purely an Android copy-cat with disarrayed colors and design languages.

The default icons in iOS 7 are atrocious and look like cheap copies of the flat-styled icons one would find on Windows 7. In addition, Apple has added various toggle buttons that allow users to easily turn off WiFi, change screen-brightness or play different music, which are almost identical to these features in Android.

Apple has undoubtedly lost its footing as the leading pioneer in the mobile and computing market. Without an influence similar to Steve Jobs, Apple will find it hard to dig themselves out of this hole, but customers hope to see another day when Apple once again regains its identity as the champion of technological innovation.