Apple and the auto industry

Honda, huh? What revolutionary products have been pioneered by Honda? I can't really think of any. To me, Honda is a huge mass producer of boring and practical cars that makes only well calculated moves in the marketplace.
 
Take SAAB for comparison. Over its 50 year history SAAB pioneered many automotive firsts: turbocharged family car, headlight wipers, heated seats, night panel, cabin air filter, 4 valves/cylinder combined with turbocharging, CFC-free A/C, active headrests, alcohol lockout key. Can you make a similar list of Honda innovations to show how it has been "offering revolutionary products?"

rlyon
 
MAC or Mac? I know people who use either spelling. Does it really matter?

vvk
"What revolutionary products have been pioneered by Honda?"
Element and Ridgeline, just to name two recent models.
Yeah, Saab is another brand. Too bad Saab, for whatever reasons, hasn't been the success that Honda has been in the marketplace. It's one thing to come up with great ideas, and quite another to make them so compelling that they succeed brilliantly. That Honda (and Apple) have done that—and Saab hasn't. Honda, like Saab, started out as a marginal automaker, but of the two, Saab is still a marginal automaker whereas Honda—because of innovation and clever marketing, is a real force to be reckoned with. You could argue that Apple is still a marginal player, but in the market areas they focus on, they absolutely dominate.

Element and Ridgeline?
Please stop.
If you had said Ridgeline, that would have been at least arguable, but the issue is "revolutionary" here--and the Ridgeline was conceived out of necessity since Honda does not have a truck platform.
The essential idea is not revolutionary--having appeared in the Chevrolet Avalanche.
 
Even the Subaru Baja and Ford Ranchero/Chevy El Camino and the Utes of Holden and Ford in Australia are variations on the theme.
So seeing as how they have a singular market now--albeit as a fluke of history--what do you mean by "ground-shattering" innovation?
 
I think Mac fans and Honda devotees share a little bit of hubris in common.
It can be a church rather than a proper evaluation of the market offerings sometimes.
For all their superiority, for example, Macs have a very small market share and are quite expensive.
 
Honda as a whole is a very innovative company, but they are not immune to "sameness", neither is every "innovation" of theirs the Second Coming, so to speak.
 
That aside, the iPhone looks good (although it may not be called that after the lawsuits are over).

So Apple does zero market research. That explains a lot. I always wondered why if their engineering is as good as some people claim then why do PC's outnumber Mac's by 100 to 1.
 
The Ipod was a home run that likely even surprised Apple. Other then that, Apple is a niche player that compares very well to Saab. Both have some clever ideas and both sell to a loyal niche market only.
 
By coming out with an phone, Apple is going to try to play with the big boys of the cell phone market.
 
I predict that it will sell well at first (the cool new toy to have) and then disappear after a year or so.

Honda has always been very innovative. That's why they dominate the motorcycle industry now. Honda also introduced the Japanese luxury car back in the 80's. They also created the NSX which revolutionized the exotic sports car market. They've also introduced the only natural gas vehicle on the market (Civic GX). The future carries with it other Honda innovations. Honda has developed a low emissions diesel exhaust system, they lead the way in hydrogen technology, and they have their own independent hybrid system. I'm sure I missed some things, but I would call that innovative.
 
I don't regard market research as highly as most people do. Common sense and innovative thinking are the foundations of true progress.

"I don't regard market research as highly as most people do. Common sense and innovative thinking are the foundations of true progress."
BINGO! We have a winner!

Apple's low marketshare has nothing to do with their lack of research. The real issue was just that Windows was what was used on a wide scale in the corporate world, and so people brought home what they were used to. It's called mindshare, and Microsoft has made the most of it... people keep using it because it's what they're used to. Not to mention the open hardware platform that Apple refuses to allow.
 
Apple's strategy has always been as a hardware company as much as an OS company, and that's closed them off to a lot of the market, as the hardware has always been pretty expensive. But what we saw with the iPod, and what we're going to see with the iPhone, is that in markets where hardware is expected to be closed, it pays off to have the best, most robust, most intuitive interface... which is arguably what Apple has. Now that they can run Windows apps seamlessly, there'll be even less reason to stick with Windows. All that needs to happen now is for OSX to move outwards, and be ported to run on third-party hardware, and we'll see how "niche" the appeal really is.

I love the annual "Apple is going to take over the world talk." Let's see, Microsoft's share of computer market 10 years ago...90+% (probably way more), today? 90+%. Reason? $ and $ and $ and $. For most people who don't care if their computer looks "cute" or "revolutionary," PC's are cheaper, have cheaper programs, and have longer warranties. Also, since there's brutal competition in the PC/PC laptop market - there are excellent standard feature sets that Apple almost never matches (unless you pay up). And calling Honda revolutionary is like saying Toyota is today's Pininfarina. This company is ruthlessly EFFICIENT - they make nearly all of their cookie-cutter cars literally out of FOUR platforms with nearly all the SAME engines. The result? Honda cars are reliable as mud and Honda market researches the bejesus out of 'em so that they have every conceivable feature that is wanted (see later generations of the Odyssey and Pilot/Passport vs the 1st terrible ones). Oh, and Acura is also eminently more affordable than Lexus and perhaps even Infiniti. Motorbikes? Who cares about that other than future transplant donors? If there's anything you can say about Apple and Honda, it's that they have guts and balls - you want MP3s? Here's your iPod. You want reliable personal jets? Here's your Hondajet. But let's not get ahead of ourselves and annoint them with oil just yet ok?

sddoc07 "love the annual "Apple is going to take over the world talk."Where did that come from? I never said anything of the sort, nor was I trying to imply that.What I did say was in the markets in which they have focused, they dominate; those being: Advertising, graphic design, web design, animation, music—virtually anything that deals with the creative arts and creative industries, MACs are the industry standard. I also know they are often used in high-tech. There's a guy over on the Edmunds Subie forums who works for NASA (yes, a rocket scientist), and he and his peers use MACs. So they're out there, in specialized industries perhaps, but that's always been the case.So, bringing this discussion back to cars, I see MACs as being the "Porsche" of computers: Expensive, yes. Small market share, yes. Rewarding to use, yes. Eminently capable, yes.Oh, any comments about the link I provided with this blog entry? That being that automakers could learn something from Apple?

Apple doesn't do market research? Apparently a new assistant professor at OSU would disagree, as he lists experience in customer research at Apple...
http://www.osu.edu/diversity/bulletin_03_2003.php
...unless "customer research" and "market research" are completely different...
 
It's always nice to say you're smart to enough to just use your gut, but it rarely works in practice...

Maybe Time magazine is wrong, or maybe the assistant professor is wrong...

I didn't mean to sound insulting. But I also think that it is one thing to try and revolutionize a personal entertainment market, and quite another to revolutionize an industrial segment considering how long it can take to successfully engineer new products and bring them to market.However, it does seem that other people agree with your points - http://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/?p=2966

No problem, and thanks for the link. :)