I hear you. When they introduced the App store, I laughed heartily, and when I saw the icon, my jaw simply dropped. It's hard to say it was copied directly from Installer.app, but its even harder to say that it wasn't.
But this is what Apple does. Success in the consumer world is two fold: you need a solid idea, and you need to get it into people's lives. Many companies and proprietors succeed at the first task, but fail utterly at the latter.
Look at 3G data. The iPhone was a year late with 3G connectivity compared to most smartphones, but yet its release was many people's first 3G experience, and it now accounts for 50% of the cellular data usage in the world.
Good idea, medicore idea, stolen idea... makes no difference. Make people want it, and you WIN.
There is no denying that Apple has stellar marketing but I think you're missing the key element to Apple's success...
Have you ever heard the expression
the difference is in the details? This, IMO, is what has made Apple such a successful company. Since we're talking about phones, let's forget OS X and iLife and iMacs and iPods and other Apple hardware/software. Let's simply talk phones. When the iPhone was released, there were other touch based products and certainly there were other smartphones but *none* of them brought it all together in a *polished* product like the iPhone. The ability to access all of your apps. with the flick of a finger without having to navigate through archaic looking submenus. Brilliant! The detail given to each and every application. Incredible! Take for instance, the phone app. Having favorites, recents, contacts, keypad and voicemail *all* available right there without having to navigate to a different app. Fantastic! BTW...I could be wrong but I don't think any other phone places all of these elements directly within the phone app. Also, have you noticed that if you close out the phone app. and return to it, it will be at the last sub-function you left it at? Pretty sure this is true for every app. Once again,
the difference is in the details. Even syncing via iTunes and the App Store store experience was light years ahead of what other phones offered in terms of getting stuff *on* your phone and purchasing third-party apps. I could go on and on but I'm sure that most people will agree that in creating the iPhone, Apple married new technology and existing technology and created a product that was polished and approachable by the common man. *That*, my friend, is what Apple does so well.
Let me say that one more time - approachable by the common man. My g/f had a pre-iPhone smartphone which was very popular at the time. Let me get another cup of coffee in me and I might even remember the name of the damn thing.
Anyway, it was <allegedly> able to play music and retrieve her email but hell if we could figure out how to perform either of those functions. I mean, I'll be the first to admit that I'm no uber-geek but I'm a pretty bright guy and I gave up on it.
Those who think that marketing alone will drive consumer sales is kidding themselves. Take the Motorola Droid, for instance. They had some *awesome* adds running on TV and their pre-release website was very cool but have you had any personal hands-on experience with the thing? If not, and you plan to do so, be prepared to be very underwhelmed. I'm not 'gonna turn this into an iPhone vs. Droid thread but it brings me back to my point that
the difference is in the details.
To take this a step further, the reasons I have stated above lead me to believe that Apple will be equally successful with the iPad or iTablet or whatever you want to call it. The market has been established and there are already players including Kindle and Nook but they are all very, dare I say, boring! Nothing excites me less than to take existing print, format it into a PDF file or whatever and deliver it electronically to a device. -Yawn- Once again, Apple will marry existing technology and new technology and make said device approachable by the common man. Oh yeah...also, be prepared to be blown away.
Palm! That's what my g/f's device was. It was a Palm.
Rant over...
