The difference between Improvement and Innovation

[gremcint]

At work once my coworker was like check this cool new camera, I'm like ok what does it do that's new. He kept talking about how much better the pictures were and I kept stopping him. Asking why I should care that this camera takes marginally better pictures than the others? If it's just straight better that's not innovative that's an improvement. The cameras with built in wifi to upload your pictures, the cameras that have a built in projector those are innovative. Bring me something innovative and I'll care, but don't expect me to get excited over a minor improvement.

Stop telling me something is innovative just because it's faster or slightly better.



No this has nothing to do with either the new surface or ipad coming out

next time on people misusing terms for tech we will discuss the term "obsolete"

[HYHYBT]

What you're categorically excluding from "innovation" often involves quite a lot of it; it's not in the goal (necessarily) but in finding a way to get there. For example, that longer battery life, faster processing, smaller case, and less weight are all desirable but obvious improvements is one thing; figuring a way to get them when improving any in the obvious way detracts from the others is quite another.

Often times there *are* substantial new features, but they're within something you don't see. For example, the final result may be a few percentage points' lower power consumption and therefore longer battery life on existing hardware, but that doesn't mean that getting there (particularly, reworking how processing and memory are handled without breaking existing software) doesn't involve innovation.

Whether taking two existing things and tacking the one onto the other, like your camera with wifi, is innovative depends on how obvious the connection is and how cleverly it's done.

[Andara Bledin]

Like HYHYBT said, just because the output merely shows as an "improvement" doesn't mean that the means by which they derived that improvement are not innovative.

What you care about are new features, not innovation.

[gremcint]

I'm not sure I said this one right, what I mean is about trying something new instead of just improving the previous design.

[smileyeagle1021]

Trying something new is not always innovative... it can actually be downright stupid. There is a company in Nevada that has recently filed for a patent on a new way to rebuild engines, and I'll be the first to call it innovative. I don't understand all the specifics, but they have redesigned the combustion chamber to be more efficient, to the point that after they are done with a rebuild, the engine will burn nearly 25% less fuel (this apparently only works on heavy diesel equipment, their technique does not work on smaller gasoline engines). By the standards you've put forth, you'd call that merely an improvement because the engine still does the same thing, it burns diesel to move a really big truck... but it really is an innovation, it is a completely new way of building the engine.
eta- I realized I never got back to my original point... that's what I get for posting at work.
what that company is doing is truly innovative... trying something new would quite nearly mean reinventingthe wheel. Sometimes the proven wqyw ofa doing things is the best way. We have yet to find a better fuel to reliably power heavy equipment than diesel, but that doesn't mean we can't use it more efficiently.

[TheHuckster]

If you ask me, innovation is the means to the end. If someone improved a camera's picture quality simply by using the existing technology to do so, which often just makes for a more expensive and possibly heavier camera, then that's not as innovative as, say, finding a new way to achieve the same while keeping the cost down and maintaining its weight.

A laptop that has more battery life simply because they added more cells to the existing battery, that's an improvement. A laptop that has more battery life due to a new previously unused material or method for storing electrical power, that's innovative.

[wolfie]

This reminds me of a story I heard about an Israeli general being shown a new gunsight for tanks. When he expressed interest, the Americans asked "But can you afford to support it in the field?"

The Israeli general told them "You're asking the wrong question. The right question is 'Can it achieve reliable, first-round hits against small, hard targets?' If it can, we'll find a way to support it in the field. If it can't, we already have a simpler, cheaper, more reliable sight that can achieve reliable second-round hits".

As it turned out, the new sight merely reduced the correction needed for the second shot.

Doesn't matter if the change is (by technology) an incremental improvement or a genuine innovation. What the customer wants are features.

[HYHYBT]

If anything, that just makes it harder to define "feature" usefully: something new the product does, but which isn't particularly useful, would by that story be excluded, while an incremental improvement that crosses a line (which may well be different for each user) becomes a new feature by that standard.

A reduction in size and weight is going to make a new version cross some people's "don't want to haul that around all day" barrier, an increase in battery life will cross somebody's "have to carry the charger with me" line, an increase in screen size will remove some people's "small words are hard to read" objection, etc.

[smileyeagle1021]

an increase in battery life will cross somebody's "have to carry the charger with me" line

or alternatively the "I need to have more than one charger"
I keep a charger at home, a charger in my car, and a charger at work. I listen to audio books while I work and that drains batter like no other... if I make good on my promise to walk to work more often (yay 2 mile commutes for the win) and listen to audio books while I walk, then my battery won't last the entire work day even. If they made a phone that would actually last all day, I'd probably get it in a heart beat.

[HYHYBT]

Exactly. Or, I just recently got a new phone. It has slightly better reception than any I've had before, which effectively adds the brand new "don't have to go stand in the driveway to hold a conversation" feature.

(There are lots of more obvious "new" features moving to an iPhone from a flip, but that's a welcome one that actually affects its usefulness as a telephone.)

[s_stabeler]

actually, the way I define improvement Vs innovation is that an improvement is when something is changed to make the user experience better, while an innovation is a transformation in how something is done. So, for instance, a new battery design that allowed an iPhone to be used for 24hours even if you were watching videos would be an innovation in battery technology, but only an improvement in battery life.

Another example: Windows 8 has a innovative interface ( in that it is dramatically different to Windows 7) but it is debatable if it is an improvement or not.

[wolfie]

Another example: Windows 8 has a innovative interface ( in that it is dramatically different to Windows 7) but it is debatable if it is an improvement or not.

Don't get me started on that. From my viewpoint, there's only one valid reason to install Windows XP on a new system - the user needs peripherals and software that don't support 98SE.

[smileyeagle1021]

Don't get me started on that. From my viewpoint, there's only one valid reason to install Windows XP on a new system - the user needs peripherals and software that don't support 98SE.

Umm, I can think of a damned good reason to put 7 or 8 and skip XP all together and not even consider 98... and it has nothing to do with peripherals and software and everything to do with the fact that anti-virus definitions are no longer being updated for operating systems that old. Those who don't take digital security seriously will get exactly what they deserve because of it.

[wolfie]

and it has nothing to do with peripherals and software and everything to do with the fact that anti-virus definitions are no longer being updated for operating systems that old.

The way I see it, antivirus definitions fall under the category of "needing software not supported under 98SE".

[s_stabeler]

The way I see it, antivirus definitions fall under the category of "needing software not supported under 98SE".

XP is not going to be supported soon either.