Skip to content
2 min read

Zuckerberg believes Apple “[hasn’t] really invented anything great in a while…”

Appearing on Joe Rogan’s podcast, this week, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg said that Apple “[hasn’t] really invented anything great in a while. Steve Jobs invented the iPhone and now they’re just kind of sitting on it 20 years later.”

Let’s take a look at some hard metrics, shall we?

I did a search of the USPTO site for patents filed by Apple and Meta since 2007. In that time period, Apple filed for 44,699 patents. Meta, nee Facebook, filed for 4,839, or about 10% of Apple’s inventions.

Side-by-side screenshots of patent searches from the USPTO database showing results for Apple Inc. and Meta Platforms. The Apple search (left) returned 44,699 results since 2007, while the Meta search (right) returned 4,839 results.

You can argue that not all companies file for patents for everything, or that Zuck said Apple hasn’t “really invented anything great in a while.” Great being the keyword here.

He left out the following “great” Apple inventions since 2007:

  • App Store (2008)
  • iPad (2010)
  • Apple Pay (2014)
  • Swift (2014)
  • Apple Watch (2015)
  • AirPods (2016)
  • Face ID (2017)
  • Neural engine SoC (2017)
  • SwiftUI (2019)
  • Apple silicon (2020)
  • Vision Pro (2023) [arguable, since it wasn’t a commercial success, but definitely a technical feat]

The App Store, I’d argue, is on the same level as the iPhone because it opened up an entire new economy for developers, resulting in an astounding $935 billion market in 2025. Apple Watch might be a close second, kicking off a $38 billion market for smartwatches.

Let’s think about Meta’s since 2007, excluding acquisitions*:

  • Facebook Messenger (2011)
  • React (2013)
  • React Native (2015)
  • GraphQL (2015)
  • PyTorch (2016)
  • Ray-Ban Stories (2021)
  • Llama (2023)

*Yes, excluding acquisitions, as Zuckerberg is talking about inventions. That’s why WhatsApp, Instagram, and Quest are not included. Anything I’m missing on this list?

As you can see, other than Messenger and the Ray-Ban glasses, the rest of Meta’s inventions are aimed at developers, not consumers. I’m being a little generous.

Update 1/12/2025

I’ve added some products to the lists above based on some replies to my Threads post. I also added a sentence to clarify excluding acquisitions.

Subscribe for updates

Get design insights in your inbox. Sent weekly (or so).