And sadly, 40 years later...it feels like they're repeating themselves and have stalled. Let's go through the parts bin, reuse most of it, make it smaller, and call it groundbreaking. While we're at it, let's grandstand about everything and not return to our core beliefs of thinking different for the crazy ones. I guess that's what happens when their visionary is replaced by bean-counters.
What about releasing the iPod mini in a set of colours (inspired by the G3 iMac, mind you), then the black/white & chrome nano (a small version of the 1G iPod), then multi-coloured nanos, then the black/white & chrome Touch, then the multi-coloured Touch? All of these during Steve Jobs' tenure…
And the 4GS, released just a day before his passing, which was considered an underwhelming release back in the day? I, for one, find this “tick-tock” release scheme to be a very smart use of resources, at least when compared with the ADD-ridden strategies of companies like Samsung (I mean, are curved edges a sufficiently differentiating factor to justify a separate product line??)… Also, if you think of it, Apple hasn't strayed from their two-axis matrix of “prosumer-pro” and “desktop-laptop”, they only added a few more products to the latter spectrum (the Macbook Air being a temporary anomaly, as is the non-Retina 13'' Pro, and Apple TV being a stranger hybrid beast), or from their “good/better/best” SKU matrix. For all intents and purposes, choosing an Apple product these days is almost as easy as it has ever been since Steve killed all those confusing product lines…
I can't help noticing that most of the software products that are (or were) crapping out are those developed during Steve's tenure: iPhoto was fittingly replaced by the much better Photos, and I surely hope that iTunes goes the same way. And though I will admit that my Apple Watch has some software glitches (namely sync issues with photo albums and contacts, which I managed to solve anyway), it is indeed very stable and has awesome battery life… And though my old Retina iPad 3 is slow as hell, it still works and has awesome battery life as well… And though it doesn't get as much battery life as those two *and doesn't sync properly with my probably corrupt iTunes library*, I still love my iPhone 5S; it is the best phone and Apple device (or any device from any company, really) I've ever owned in my entire life, bar none.
I got all of these after Steve's passing, and some of them (namely, the Watch, iOS 7-9 and OS X 10.10-11) wouldn't have been introduced at all or wouldn't look the same (especially the OSes) if Steve was still around. He was known to be extremely conservative (there's even this anecdote that all the Apple execs had to band together to convince him that iTunes on Windows was not only a good idea, but an essential piece of the puzzle), had this baffling love for all things skeumorphic (I know, I know, because of usability issues, to ease the transition to digital interfaces… but why doubling down on it on iOS *SIX*, then?!) and a waaaaay overrated “love” for calligraphy and typography (an appreciation for it? Sure, but he didn't really *get it* in the sense that he would delegate on someone as knowledgable as Ive is on industrial design; commissioning the San Francisco font design, even internally – I would probably have preferred to see them asking someone like Matthew Carter, the Norman Foster of type designers, for advice, but maybe that's just me –, is a textbook case of respect for typography that would have never happened under Steve Jobs, and actually shows some humility probably from Ive himself). So, no, as much as it may bother you, Steve wasn't this perfect, infallible being…
Also, what we're seeing today is Apple competing on a market that is fairly new to them: online services (and no, the online Apple Store and iTunes [Music] Store don't count). MobileMe sucked, as did Maps, and their current implementations are decent (iCloud) and half-decent (Maps). As for the MAS and the Apple Store, well… they could use some polishing and improvement (especially the former) when it comes to curation and developer relations, but they are a great and extremely successful starting point. People keep attacking Apple on the quality (or lack thereof) of their online services, but I actually think they are already very good for such a hardware-focused company, really.
