Apple also acts as if they had invented the graphical user interface, the mouse, the mp3 player and now even the tablet computer while, in fact, none of those things were their invention. However, they're good at taking an idea, making it their own, wrapping a nice (graphics) design around it and making it work for non-technical people.
No. They never claimed to invent any of those things. What they ARE good at, is taking a technology that seems a little bit "out there" or "too expensive" or "too techie" and making it easy to use and accessible to everyone, and marketing the heck out of it, until everyone associates it with Apple and everyone begins using it across the industry.
The GUI and mouse, for example. Did they invent it? No. Was it popular before Apple? No, people thought it was a silly idea. Apple goes and puts it into a computer, and now every computer uses a mouse and a GUI.
The USB interface. Not popular at all before Apple basically forced their users to use it by cutting out other ports. I distinctly remember reading tech magazines in those early years, and it was a chicken and egg game. Nobody wanted to upgrade their PCs with USB expansion cards until there was a compelling reason to do so. But very few devices like mice, keyboards, joysticks, scanners, were available because very few people had USB, so the market was so small! Apple pretty much jump started that one.
The mp3 player. A toy for nerds, until the iPod came along and now everyone's got one. Most people at the time had a Rio 64 megabyte player, or something like a Creative Labs Nomad Jukebox. I had one of those. 6 gigs of hard drive space in a unit the size of a fat discman, and a battery life of
four hours.
Smart phones. They were strictly for business consumers, or business minded people. What average Joe owned a Blackberry or Nokia smartphone? Or a geeky smartphone like a Palm Treo? Very few people did, until the iPhone. Now everyone's got either an iPhone, or a Blackberry, or an Android phone.
Tablet PCs. Hardly anyone used them, now everyone wants in on the game.
Video calling? Sure, it was possible, but how many people did you see ever doing it? (Maybe in the European countries, it's more prevalent, I don't know, but in all my life living in Canada, I have NEVER seen anyone do a video phone call.)
Apple doesn't invent the stuff (not always, anyway) but they always do their best to really drive it forward.