The reasoning is this: Apple often produces things that appeal a lot to ordinary people and also to the brightest people - but there is this group with a little knowledge (a little knowledge is often dangerous) where Apple's product innovation doesn't agree with their limited knowledge, so they are incapable of figuring out the advantages. Since Apple sells stuff without any - to these people - real advantage, the reason for sales must be something else, like marketing, customers being a religious cult, that kind of thing. And since to those people Apple sells stuff without a real advantage, if Apple introduced something that is _by everybody_ recognised as having no value, the marketing and their religion will make them buy it.
(As an example that it doesn't actually work, take the Apple HiFi. It wasn't appealing, and all the Apple marketing didn't sell it, and all the Apple cult followers didn't buy it. Because it wasn't an appealing product).
----------
I find it hillarious that there was a story on here not too long ago about how the whole "Netbook" industry was about to shut down, thanks to the proliferation of the iPad- And now you want Apple to create a netbook...
Most people didn't actually want netbooks, they wanted cheap laptops. And since cheap laptops are available and better than netbooks, that's what people buy. Apple showed that people indeed want light laptops with as little compromise as possible.
