Peter Thiel 'Confirms' the 'Age of Apple is Over,' But Says It's Not Tim Cook's Fault

In a "Confirm or Deny" feature by The New York Times this week, PayPal co-founder and venture capitalist Peter Thiel "confirmed" that "the age of Apple is over" based on his belief that smartphones will lack further innovation.

The age of Apple is over.

Confirm. We know what a smartphone looks like and does. It’s not the fault of Tim Cook, but it’s not an area where there will be any more innovation.

While the iPhone has become a familiar product as it turns ten, which perhaps makes it less exciting to some, to say smartphones are not an area where there will be any more innovation will certainly fuel a debate. And, of course, while the iPhone is Apple's most profitable product, it's not its only.

Thiel's comment can be argued one way or the other, but it does raise the question of what Apple's next "one more thing" will be after annual iPhone sales declined for the first time amid an uncharacteristically down year for Apple—perhaps something in the augmented reality or electric vehicle spaces? Will this be the year Apple pushes deeper into artificial intelligence with Siri and an Echo-like device?

Apple chief executive Tim Cook has routinely teased about what's around the corner. Last year, he said Apple has "great innovation in the pipeline," including "things you can't live without that you just don't know you need today." Likewise, he told employees last month that Apple has "great desktops in our roadmap," and earlier this week he said "the best is yet to come" for iPhone.

Tag: Tim Cook

Top Rated Comments

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spiderman0616

27 months ago

Here's the thing though:

a) You could have made this statement about any of Apple's products throughout history. "We know what a computer looks like and does." See what I did there?

b) Peter Thiel is a complete bozo.

Rating: 69 Votes

William Gates

27 months ago

>It's not the fault of Tim Cook, but it's not an area where there will be any more innovation.

You'll never need more than 640 kB of RAM.

Rating: 41 Votes

bstv69

27 months ago

Yea it's Jon Ive's fault. His unchecked hardon for thinness has destroyed the company. Maybe if they got a couple engineers to actually keep him in check and remind him no one gives a **** about thickness at this point they wouldn't be having these issues. Phone and computer thickness hit its plateau a long time ago people would rather their devices be more powerful and last longer than 1mm thinner. When the rest of the company's exec and shareholders realize this, then maybe apple can rebound

Rating: 24 Votes

adamjackson

27 months ago

Yes, we know what a modern smartphone looks like and how it works.

Saying there is no more innovation in the space is ludicrous. Here are a few areas where there is a ton of innovation.

* Battery Technology (weeks on a charge, organic cells)
* Camera Tech (DoF, Color, resolution, white noise)
* VR / AR
* Digital Assistants (We're not even close to samantha from her yet)
* iPhone as the only computer you need. just keep a keyboard, mouse & monitor at your office & home and move the iPhone between them
* CPU speeds
* RAM miniaturization
* 1 terabytes on a smart phone
* Multi-users on phones or tablets
* integrated fingerprint sensors on the LCD scree itself
* Completely eliminating the wallet
* Eliminating the need for house & car keys
* embedding a lot of the functions in our own bodies (the watch is step 1 to having computer abilities connected to our skin)
* Wireless charging or the complete elimination of needing a lightning port at all
* Wireless cell data that is just as fast as your home cable connection

Over the next 15 years, a lot of this will come true and Apple is spending billions to make sure the iPhone is that. Apple may fail but to say the age of smartphone is behind us from a supposed technology person is laughable.

Rating: 14 Votes

NufSaid

27 months ago

Jobs said it when he said that you are fortunate to work on one ground breaking product in your lifetime. The issue becomes what is the next revolution for Apple. It likely isn't going to be a revolution...they can try.

But WHY do they have to change an industry with a new product every year?
Can't they just make great products that tech blogs can gripe about (but secretly love) so that they can get clicks?

Apple makes all the profits in the smartphone industry (who cares if you sell phones if you don't make money at it). They dominate in customer satisfaction and the quality is second to none. Let them make products with incremental improvements that work and enjoy life...have fun creating and using these products and stop demanding a ground breaking revolution every year.

Rating: 14 Votes

Mad Mac Maniac

27 months ago

Oh boy, I'm glad someone was able to "confirm" for us what has been true for the past 8 years.... APPLE IS DOOMED!

Rating: 12 Votes

Kebabselector

27 months ago

'PayPal co-founder' - didn't really need to carry on to know it was BS

Rating: 11 Votes

err404

27 months ago

Nobody knows what the next big thing will be, but there is no reason to believe that Apple won't be a major player in whatever it is.
At a minimum they have their hands in the next three obvious areas; Home automation, Voice controlled personal assistant and Self driving cars.

Rating: 11 Votes

andy.ringwood

27 months ago

Some people talk outta their **** sometimes.

And yet this year we'll see the biggest change to iPhone...

Rating: 10 Votes

Dave245

27 months ago

This guy doesn't know what he's talking about, how do any of us know that there is no more innovation in the smartphone area, just because we know what smartphones look like doesn't mean there isn't any more innovation, innovation itself isn't just tied to what something looks like. Before Apple released the iPhone, mobiles had keyboards and were terrible to use but the form factor was more or less the same, Apple came along and gave us the iPhone. The same with the iPad really.

Rating: 7 Votes

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