Quote Originally Posted by Lemur View Post
You're referring, of course, to how the iPod was the first MP3 player, and how the iPhone was the first smartphone? Except, of course, they weren't. I'd say your analysis is heavy on grump and light on fact.
Of course they weren't the first, but they were so far ahead of the competition in ergonomics and functionality that they single-handedly changed the market for those products. MP3 players had almost no market share in portable music players before the iPod, and afterward the industry exploded. People quickly started buying MP3 players in general, even other brands, because of the impact the iPod had. For the iPhone, there was almost no consumer market for smartphones before it was released. It was used a lot for business work, but the consumer market was practically non-existent. Now, consumer smartphones are huge money.

Netbooks and laptops are already gigantic product sectors. There's no market niche missing from that picture for Apple to exploit. So, instead they're going to be going up against the established products that everyone knows and everyone already uses. Which is exactly where Apple failed with Apple TV and the Macbook Air.