Apple, Xiaomi, Huawei and Microsoft have their own different definitions of innovation, which have created the present product and the present you...

If the smoke of 5G in the first half of 2019 is just a "virtual fire".

Then the innovation that 2019 hold different opinions in the second half of the year is a bit "innuendo.

There are 4 completely different versions in 20 days before and after. Is this lineage really a bit messy?

On September 11, Apple brought the double-shot iPhone 11, the triple-shot iPhone 11 Pro and Pro Max.

On September 24, Xiaomi detonated the scroll-type surround screen MIX Alpha, which was priced at 19999 yuan, and was covered in black technology.

On September 26, Huawei launched three mobile phones, three wearable products and a smart screen as promised.

On October 2, Microsoft late released seven hardware products and plans to return with Duo Surface a dual-screen mobile phone.

Of course, this is not the point. The point is that the four have very different definitions of innovation.

Cook said: "Innovation is not necessarily about change, but about doing better".

Lei Jun said: "Xiaomi is to make subversive products at all costs and without considering mass production".

Yu Chengdong said: "Huawei does not pay attention to market share, but is most concerned about user experience and product quality, as well as the huge value brought by technological innovation".

Banai said: "Surface Duo is not just a mobile phone, it is a dual-screen Surface device that can be put in a pocket to combine Microsoft office experience and Android applications".

No matter what they said, it was right, wrong, perfunctory or relatively one-sided; combined with the combat effectiveness of the main legions at their press conference, their attitude was obvious.

Cook's words have a little meaning of "round field", probably because Apple itself realized that the iPhone 11 had just passed the exam. After all, handing in a white roll in the first year of 5G is not an alternative camera.

Lei Jun estimates that MIX Alpha lacks practicality, but under the pressure of Huawei's raging and OV's wolf-like, Xiaomi urgently needs to come up with something subversive before it is possible to tear open a new tuyere.

Yu Chengdong naturally knows that Huawei's biggest obstacle at this stage lies in foreign troubles. As long as it keeps the pace step by step and provides an extraordinary experience of using pollen all the time, it can take a little initiative in this Sino-US battle.

As for Banai, he is not ashamed of abandoning his operating system and switching to Android. Microsoft just wants to find a "new life" for Surface with the only "legacy" after Windows Phone is declared dead ".

So far, Xiaomi with a market value of US $26.9 billion, Huawei with a market value of US $168.4 billion, Apple with a market value of US $1.03 trillion, and Microsoft with a market value of US $1.05 trillion have all handed over their answers at the end of the 2019.

They all have their own strategies and foresight, and therefore show a lazy, lazy, active, or radical temperament.

And these temperament feedback in the core competitiveness of the product itself, is for "innovation" has a different scale of domestic demand.

It is necessary to know that human beings are a species that likes the new and dislikes the old, and to some extent is nostalgic; they are chasing fashion and trend fans as a whole, but for some individuals, the same experience can bring a sense of security in the comfort zone; this requires a product or a brand that wants to impress consumers for a long time. It is necessary to bring some new stimulation from time to time in addition to "stable play", and this is.

Innovation, as a complete set of theories, was born 100 years ago.

In 1912, Schumpeter, a professor at Harvard University in the United States, proposed in "Introduction to Economic Development": Innovation refers to the introduction of a new "new combination" of production factors and production conditions into the production system.

In 1962, Enoth directly and explicitly defined technological innovation for the first time in his article "Invention and Innovation in the Petroleum Processing Industry". Technological innovation is the result of a combination of several behaviors, including the choice of invention, capital investment guarantee, Organization establishment, plan formulation, recruitment of workers and market opening, etc.

In 1969, Myers and Marquis defined innovation as a collection of technological changes in their research report on technological change and innovation, "Successful Industrial Innovation"; then they further broadened their definition of technological innovation, which is the introduction of new or improved products, processes or services to the market.

Of course, there are also the insights of Rostow, Lynn, Utebuck, Muirsay, Freeman and other bigwigs on different levels of innovation.

However, no matter what kind of "dissent" this group of western scholars have for innovation, this kind of innovation generally corresponds to a linear view of time pointing to the future, emphasizing breaking the routine and making something out of nothing.

However, the research on technological innovation was not launched in China until the 1980s.

As for earlier, what we can understand is the "contingency" in social ideology, which is also a change in the traditional Chinese sense.

Although this kind of "contingency" is pursuing change like "innovation and change", the fundamental purpose of the former is not "innovation" itself, it is only a stopgap measure; and the latter is due to the civilization of the Renaissance and the industrial revolution. Boosted, the "performance art" of innovation was linked to capital earlier, and it also focused on the excess profits brought by innovation earlier.

Although China missed the dividends of the first and second industrial revolutions, we quickly digested the first and second industrial technological innovations and caught up with the last train of the third industrial revolution within 40 years of the reform; and this time In the fourth industrial revolution, we are even more vaguely leading the trend on 5G.

This seems to explain why Huawei and Xiaomi can catch up in the mobile phone field.

Back to Apple, Microsoft, Xiaomi and Huawei themselves, they speak for precisely four different quadrants of innovation:

Microsoft: Retro-style innovation

Apple: Grayscale Innovation

Huawei: Progressive Innovation

Xiaomi: Disruptive Innovation

What is more interesting is that Apple and Microsoft, which have a market value of more than one trillion US dollars, are relatively stable, while Xiaomi and Huawei, which have a lower market value, have more adventurous spirit.

(1)
Retro innovation
○

Someone has analyzed 480 major innovations in the 1900 and found that the nature and methods of technological innovation have undergone major changes in the 1950 s. The proportion of breakthrough innovations in principle has begun to decrease significantly, and combined innovation has become the main method.

Of course, this has something to do with the bottleneck of theoretical physics in the past 60 years and the entry of human beings into utopian ism.

When human beings do not have more advanced "physical theories" to support us to a more far-reaching future, what we can do is to add bricks and tiles on the basis of existing theories; but with the failure of Moore's Law, the chip manufacturing process is impossible to advance. The so-called innovation, whether it is the level of consciousness or the change of material form, is quite limited.

But even with this limited innovation, our imagination is mostly exhausted.

As a trillion-dollar company with the highest market capitalization and relatively stable market capitalization, Microsoft's re-emergence is obvious to all.

Although Microsoft has always stressed that innovation is their eternal topic, it corresponds to its high market value, but it is a series of products that are not so amazing or even a little mediocre. Even the Surface new products that claim to be the most disruptive: the tablet computer Surface Pro X with ARM processor, the computer Surface Neo with dual screen foldable, and the Android mobile phone Surface Duo with dual screen foldable, still have some gaps when the dream comes into reality.

The bold launch of the ARM processor tablet Surface Pro X is certainly a breakthrough for Microsoft, and it is also an interruption to the ban on Intel and AMD for the entire industry. But for users, this hidden innovation is not so amazing.

Although Neo, a double-screen foldable computer Surface, has brought a second secondary screen to users, its design logic seems to have some problems. When the keyboard is attached to the screen, although the screen will automatically adapt, the second screen cannot be blocked by more than half. In this way, is the only difference between hitting a physical keyboard and a virtual keyboard, and knowing that there is a screen under the keyboard will not be a little scared.

Of course, Surface the efforts of Pro X and Surface Neo, we have seen that if the choice of ARM for Surface Pro X is the normal performance of tablet computer lightweight, then Surface Neo's design of using dual screens as one and a half screens is a bit confusing.

As for the double-screen folding of Surface Duo, what is the difference between this and the reduced version of the Surface?

If Microsoft does not define Surface Duo as a mobile phone, with ARM processor and recreating a noun, handhelds and letters are not very suitable. Since mobile computers can be called notebooks, why can't Surface Duo be called "manuscripts?

If it is a new category, Surface Duo equipped with Android system is naturally an innovation. However, as the successor of Windows Mobile and Windows Phone, this model is a bit difficult to say.

Regardless of ZTE's dual-screen foldable mobile phone Axon7s, front and rear dual-screen mobile phone Nubian X, Sofa foldable mobile phone FlexPai, Samsung Galaxy Fold, Huawei Mate X, even Apple's concept waist folding machine and Lenovo's many foldable patents have come out.

What is the selling point of Surface Duo as a folding mobile phone?

Android system.

Or a screen hinge.

Microsoft's mobile phone is not without its own highlight moment. In 2007, Windows Mobile's global market share was 12% and that of the United States was 50%. However, by 2017, Windows Phone had only 0.1% of the global market, in which Microsoft even acquired Nokia's mobile phone business, but in the end it could only switch to Android.

This may also be Surface Duo has repeatedly weighed but still cannot jump out of Surface shackles and choose "retro.



②
Gray scale innovation
○

As the first Internet listed company with a market value exceeding one trillion US dollars and unmatched profitability, Apple's commercial success is beyond doubt.

His innovative ability is also obvious to all under Jobs' strong personality charm, from the blockbuster iPod to the unbeatable iPhone, as well as the stable iMac and the highly anticipated iPad. Innovation originated from the blue box of Jobs and Woz, permeated the image of subversive in Apple's "1984" Macintosh, and flowed into the return of Jobs in "Think Different". Jobs has passed away for 8 years, but the brand he left for the apple is still glowing.

But in the Cook era, Apple's innovation ability has been questioned again and again, its consistent forward-looking has become blind, and even the highlight One more thing has become dispensable.

We do not deny that Cook has brought commercial success to Apple, but this is at the expense of Apple's industrial design. In only eight years, Cook misinterpreted the proportion of industrial design that Jobs spent 23 years improving and denied the Apple aesthetics created by Jonathan in 27 years.

Although Apple's market value has soared over the years: in 2010, Apple was close to Nokia, ranking second in smartphones in the world; In 2011, Apple and Samsung overtook Nokia and eliminated Nokia. From 2012 to 2017, Apple's revenue and valuation continued to rise, becoming Dow Jones's largest listed company in the world by market value at the end of the year. However, during this period, the price of its new models has been continuously increasing, the problem of lack of innovation in appearance design and system of new models is also increasingly serious.

So there was Apple's "By innovation only" at the 2019 press conference ".

Compared with previous years, the casual and loose "Gather round" in 2018, "Let's meet at our place" in 2017, and "See you on the 7th" in 2016, apple finally became "serious" this time.

However, unfortunately, this press conference did not give us much surprise.

The first generation of iPhone can still tease Samsung in seconds, and this is the first time Apple has taken a heart for Huawei.

Apart from the serious A13U1, the biggest highlight of this iPhone 11 is the "gas stove" three shots. The Android camp has been tossing about for a year on the three shots.

Please forgive Apple's innovation in recent years has become more and more capricious. The capriciousness has begun to make people suspicious. It requires professional interpretation to see the true meaning.

There is no denying that it is still exquisite, although it is a bit "ugly" compared with bath bully and washing machine. Fruit powder is still popular.

This is not, Tmall sales on the night of the sale broke 100 million in one minute.

As for the iPhone 11's suspension of 5G switching to Wi-Fi 6, the poor communication foundation in the United States can certainly explain some problems, but Apple's internal "soft" lack of attention to hardware innovation cannot be ignored.

However, because the iPhone 11 suspends 5G, it is very unwise to clamor that 5G is useless and forcibly bind the two.

You know, over the years, Apple cameras have missed the first rounds of large screen, large battery, fast charging, double camera, triple camera, NPU, double card double standby, full screen, etc. Although it is a fact that Apple is increasingly lacking the voice of mobile phone trend.

It is obviously not to say that it has no innovation. However, it is difficult to explain how innovative it is.

However, this time the new system macOS pushed by Apple Catalina the most eye-catching function "accompanying" does not seem so magical.

Apple, what's going on here?

There is a lack of "new" meaning in both hardware and software.

Does such gray-scale innovation really require users to "run around and tell each other".

We know that the world's first 3G mobile phone is Panasonic and the first 4G mobile phone is HTC, but Apple still comes from behind to become the most popular smartphone. So this time, we can only expect Apple to create the same miracle on 5G.



(3)
Progressive innovation
○

For the rise of Huawei, an atypical Chinese enterprise, it really smells like the wind sneaking into the night.

Huawei, which was once very low-key, was not noticeable. When it began to enter the public eye with words such as wolf culture, 34-year-old, patriotic thief, P moon gate, 5G, Hongmeng OS, Kirin 990, it had become a behemoth. It was even able to carry the banner of scientific and technological innovation in China's communications field and share the pressure of the US trade war.

No matter how everyone feels about Huawei, whether it is China's promising or talking about China's discoloration. From China Cool Union to Huami OV, he has experienced two eras of functional machines and intelligent machines, and he has also started from the fall and entered the house.

Among them, the most courageous is Huawei's fearless spirit, focusing on the great value brought by technological innovation: it dared to put all its eggs in the research and development of switches in 1992, it dared to spend 2 billion to learn from IBM in 1997, and it dared to develop chips independently in 2004. So far, Huawei's R & D investment accounts for more than 10% of its revenue. How can such an enterprise not be awed by people.

However, Huawei's success is not achieved overnight. It is precisely because of the long accumulation in the past that it has now accumulated a lot.

In February 2019, China released the first 5G mobile phone Mate X. On July 26, the first dual-mode 5G mobile phone Mate20 X(5G) was released, supporting both SA and NSA. The first flagship 5G chip Kirin 990 was released on September 6. On September 19, the first built-in full-standard 5G baseband chip Kirin 990 Mate 30 series was released.

On September 26, Huawei launched three mobile phones, three wearable products and a smart screen.

The Mate 30 series released as scheduled makes people shine at the moment in terms of side screen control and air gestures. And it dares to gamble on 5G and AI and compete head-on with Apple A13.

Although overseas markets are facing many pressures, Huawei's rhythm is not chaotic.

This time the Mate 30 three cameras on the line were nicknamed washing machine and Oreo.

However, once Huawei's design logic is entered, isn't it a proper lightweight camera when taking photos sideways?

But in fact, such a circular lens first appeared on the Nokia 808 PureView in 2012, and it was not until the Lumia 1020 became more mature a year later.

Microsoft is referring to ZTE's Axon7s, and Huawei's Lumia 1020 is a Windows Phone. Strictly speaking, it is "scripted". Why is Microsoft's foldable dual-screen mobile phone Surface Duo a retro innovation, and Huawei's Mate 30 is a gradual innovation?

This is because when the full screen dominates the Jianghu, various forms of "double-sided screens" have sprung up one after another. However, although the Lumia 1020 is superior to the others in modeling, it is somewhat partial, and it is difficult to popularize if the best camera at that time cannot exert sufficient strength. However, the latter does not have this problem.

Judging from Nokia's situation at that time and Huawei's current situation, innovation needs brand endorsement to be converted into sufficient commercial value before it can be widely recognized.

And whether it is concave or overall design, the update of Mate 30 is obvious.

Yu Chengdong even made a bold statement: Huawei's hardware technology is more than two generations ahead of Youshang.

It is no wonder that Huawei Mall's sales exceeded 0.5 billion one minute after the Mate 30 series was released.

In recent years, Huawei's Mate series and P series have made obvious progress in photographing, and now they have become a new benchmark in the mobile phone industry. Moreover, this kind of progress is not high and low, and it is friendly enough for Xiao Bai. Although the P-month incident is controversial, for the general public, as long as they can take a beautiful picture of themselves, the moon is not fake.

At a time when Microsoft is still considering how to fold and Apple is still hesitating whether to follow up with 5G, Huawei focuses on optimizing the photographing function, bringing consumers functions such as double photographing blurring, optical anti-shake, backlighting photographing, Leica hue, super night scene, super macro, ultra wide angle, periscope optical zoom, dark light video photographing, double image recording, TOF progressive background blurring, etc; such a multi-point attack towards a single goal is precisely the most mature paradigm for progressive innovation.



④
Disruptive innovation
○

When it comes to innovation, we usually think of subversion; we think that only innovations with completely different theoretical cores and different material forms are considered innovations.

The theoretical core is often recessive and difficult to be repaired by amateurs; therefore, what we usually call innovation is often an earth-shaking distortion in material form.

But according to this logic, from IBM to iMac, from Walkman to iPod, from Blackberry to iPhone, the latter has made limited changes. But if they are not disruptive innovations, most people will not be happy.

So, the so-called subversion here is largely ideological.

So what is disruptive innovation?

Just like apples once and millet now.

Apple's gesture interaction, application ecology, millet's full screen and surround screen.

Although some people evaluate Xiaomi MIX Alpha as a "PPT" mobile phone, it is not very practical. But who said that the future 5G mobile phone will only have two forms: tablet and folding?

Moreover, even if this breakthrough in conceptual consciousness is "wasteful" for surround-screen mobile phones, who says it has no practical value in watches, VR, home TV and giant screen cinemas?

What's interesting is that innovative apples with different intensities begin to test the bottom line of prices, while Xiaomi is doing the opposite and starts to peek into high-premium depressions.

We can foresee that Apple will sell "more and more easily" on the road of cost-effectiveness, but Xiaomi needs to go through "nine bends and eighteen bends".

And is this the inevitable result of Apple and Xiaomi's different attitudes towards innovation?

No, it's just that the two companies have chosen different development strategies.

Apple pays attention to maintaining stability at this stage, while Xiaomi must go radical.

But disruptive innovation is not as simple as imagined.

It is a powerful medicine, which may save a life or die.

Therefore, before we choose it, we need to integrate our own resources, talents and energy to evaluate whether we can bear the consequences of innovation failure and reach the other side of innovation success. Only in this way can we devote ourselves to innovation without hesitation.

But in reality, we often misunderstand it, and its basic principles are also misused by most people.

Subversive innovation theory has been regarded as the standard by countless people since it came out in 1995, but unfortunately, many people who talk about "subversion" have not deeply understood the original intention of this concept and are bound by themselves.

Many people see that this concept is full of subversion in their minds. From the very beginning, they want to create something out of nothing and want to create miracles. However, the main character of subversive innovation has always been innovation. Subversion is only an adverb. In the final analysis, it is still a kind of innovation.

Once we confuse this, so-called disruptive innovations are often just castles in the air.

It is precisely because of the side effects of subversive innovation that almost all "performance art" in the market that claims to be subversive innovation bears a certain mission.

IPod is Jobs' work to turn the tide, iPhone is Apple's second growth curve, Surface Duo is Microsoft's compromise and unwillingness, and MIX Alpha is Xiaomi's challenge to the future terminal ideology.



⑤
The Nature of Innovation
○

What exactly is innovation?

Can't see what they say.

It is also a bit one-sided to see what they do.

We should look at the problem from a higher dimension.

If we temporarily lack such vision, stand in their point of view and then jump out, so that no matter what the conclusion you get, at least it will not be used as a gun.

Before we understand innovation, we also need to be clear about one problem: not all innovations are innovations, and not all innovations have a clear purpose.

Given that consumerism gives rise to people's dependence on symbols and makes people tired of them more quickly, this level of newness is too superficial; but it has to be mentioned that they are the "new" majority on the market.

In the face of a huge market, innovation is definitely a minority. It is a small group of people who go against the trend, grasp the truth, and can see through the future trend; and once innovation goes deep into the bone marrow and enters thousands of households, this new will gradually disappear. In the invisible.

Real innovation is often like this. People are just immersed in it and want to make it; but it is unknown what this new thing is like and what it will be useful after it is made.

At this time, human beings need to participate creatively in setting and guiding, and put their own brand on innovation.

But it is not to say that all innovations are nowhere to be found. Through empathy and cross-border on a certain scale, we can indeed quickly transplant the experience of other people and other industries to new fields. This is also an innovation; but this innovation Because of the lack of technical and resource barriers, the innovation dividend obtained is limited, and it will not become the mainstream.

At first, the mainstream innovation may seem a little out of business. At first, the train did not run as fast as the carriage. The earliest phone call only made people say a few more words of nonsense, while the current 5G is only a little faster.

But what their future looks like, and to what extent we can iterate and try on their basis, are all full of imagination.

Although innovation in the public sense can also be produced in the laboratory, it is more inadvertently emerging; such as microwave ovens, non-stick pans, pacemakers, etc., are all unexpected products, even "mixed reputation" Viagra is only because Pfizer originally developed a heart disease drug accident.

However, modern innovation has long been unable to rely on personal interests to be self-sufficient, especially major breakthroughs, which often require intensive capital investment and teamwork; this determines that innovation cannot be boundless, but it is difficult to limit too much innovation.

However, one thing is clear: just like "raising children", innovation needs "care", but it also needs considerable autonomy, even a certain degree of "out of control".

Today, as a social activity, innovation is no longer a probability problem and requires the subjective initiative of enterprises.

This requires a certain social system and market environment as a guarantee to gather innovative talents and gather mobile capital to reach a critical point in a stable ecological organization to produce a "chemical reaction".

If we say that for enterprises, innovation is the spillover of organizational competitiveness, it either has the courage or spare capacity to do something different.

So for products, innovation is the overflow of the core competitiveness of products. It must be better than other products of the same type in some aspects, even if it is partial.

Innovation is the lifeline of the technology industry.

Because science and technology is originally a theoretical concept, it can only produce social benefits after it is "realized.

However, the scientific knowledge acquired by most people is often the same, and the scientific and technological theories we master based on the scale of microphysics are the same. At this time, we need to "package" them with a more popular, effective and eye-catching attitude, so as to have the opportunity to accelerate their popularization and popularization.

In the popularization of innovation, it stems from the pursuit of profits in the enterprise's own culture, and this kind of "packaging" will show a different attitude.

At this moment, how do you define innovation, innovation will use what kind of attitude to treat you.

However, it is not to say that disruptive innovation has risks. Shanzhai, gray scale and gradual innovation can be all-out.

Rough retro is an overdraft of its own brand. When you don't see all the friends Cosplay Apple, you have a black history and once held others to the altar.

Delicate gray scale is the consumption of its own brand. You can't see Apple's "passive slack" in signal, endurance and heat, but it is always happy in rainbow games.

Bold and gradual help to the brand is not as great as imagined. You can't see that Huawei constantly subverts itself from double photography, three photography to four photography, but it can't accumulate the stock of fans.

Enterprise-level disruptive innovation is more like using an imperfect work to gamble on a future full of uncertainty; if you succeed, you are good, I am good, everyone is good, but what if you don't succeed?

In the mobile phone industry, consumers are not so much more sensitive to price as consumers pay more and more attention to the cost performance of innovation. Apple without 5G has once again made a compromise on pricing, and Xiaomi, which has a surround screen, dares to shout out 20,000 high prices.

This trend has received vivid feedback in the Indian market: Apple is blocked, OV is slowing down, and Xiaomi is king.

Although you can't get the exquisite experience of Apple on Xiaomi, there will be no shortage of some functions and innovative Xiaomi that should be added.



PS: The header is from the Behance author @ Leo Natsume

Part of the material comes from @ Tiger Smell