ceejer :
...they sure do have a way of shaping and defining entire product segments, and even creating new ones from scratch.
When have they ever created a new segment from scratch?
All of their products are derivatives of other products. The CrunchPad was far more influential in starting this market than the iPad, Apple just took that idea and marketed it, which is all they ever do, market other people's good ideas, most notably most of the good ideas from Xerox PARC.
Perhaps some apads or this 'blackpad' will in fact be superior to the iPad in some ways, but remember that they owe their very existence to the iPad,
Nope they all owe their existance to other products before them, including the Crunchpad, Kindle and everything else that broke ground before them, and that's only the recent 4 or 5th iteration, with the Fujitsu Stylistic I owned before that, the Newton before that, and then the Xerox and IBM tablet products before that.
you have to see that they are an incredibly powerful driving force, and they sure spur innovation and competition.
They don't spur innovation and have alot less patents to show for it than people like IBM, Xerox, intel, Samsung, etc.
But they are a powerful driving force for, and a testament to... PR and marketing, which is why their fanbois and other ignorant people think they are innovative. Even their 'cutting-edge designs' are re-adaptation of things like Braun's designs from the 60s;
http
/gizmodo.com/343641/1960s-braun-products-hold-the-secrets-to-apples-future
I'd wager that today, even the apple haters own at least one device that would not exist without Apple.
I'd take that wager, but you'd still think you'd won it despite being totally wrong! [:thegreatgrapeape:5]