Apple’s latest roll-out only proves the US no longer leads in innovation – East Asia does

Smartphones and drones were great inventions, but tech companies have yet to come up with the ones I’ve long wanted. On my shortlist are teleporters, time machines, an invisibility cloak, a device that shrinks and enlarges objects and, just for fun, an animal language translator. Given they’ve been part of science fiction lore since the genre began more than a century ago and developmental steps, if any, are minuscule, I’m not holding out much hope of ever trying them. But, if any do come to pass, I’ve a feeling it won’t be an American company behind them. 

My reasoning is simple enough: the greatest American tech company of them all, Apple, has run out of ideas. For a decade and a half, it ruled the tech roost, launching a series of innovative products that had us oohing and aahing.

Then, around 2014, three years after the death of co-founder Steve Jobs, the flow of cool gadgets seemed to dry up, with only incremental hardware and software tweaks and, increasingly, online services. The most recent press conference at the Cupertino, California, headquarters was surely the most uninspiring yet, with CEO Tim Cook making a dreary presentation announcing plenty of content, but no fun stuff.

With each, the company is playing catch-up with competitors, not innovating. It is as if the spark ignited by Jobs was snuffed out with him and that his famous quote, “Innovation distinguishes between a leader and a follower,” has come to pass. Apple is increasingly an entertainment company, not one devoted to cutting-edge tech.

The leader and follower analogy seems widespread across the US business landscape and arguably extends to all things American. Waymo, the Google subsidiary that in December launched a self-driving robotaxi service in the Phoenix area, has a host of global competitors with even grander visions in the autonomous vehicle industry.