When it came to phones and tablets, Apple was great. Steve Jobs, like or loathe, was central to the vision of Apple. He would say no to releasing a product if it didn't meet his standards. Sometimes, that was in conflict with traditional business imperatives. There must have been executives, marketers, salespeople urging Jobs to do anything from releasing more versions of products in a year to squeezing more out of the equity consumers had built in Apple. Steve kept the wolves at bay, so to speak.
Then he died.
Now, to me, it seems like the wolves are chewing the fat off the bones. iDevices are coming thick and fast, with substandard updates, rubbish software and unexciting advances. I remember when we'd read the list of updates to an iPhone and marvel at the changes, salivate for the differences, be pleased with the innovation. The gap each successive iPhone or iPad jumps gets narrower and narrower. It's clear to me that those in charge of Apple are taking advantage of the fact that when a person thinks of a smart phone, they think of an iPhone. They got such market share and recognition for long enough, that early adopters turned into my parents. They went from fighting for the top, to cruising the sky.
The resulting auto-pilot lead me and my girlfriend to pull our heads out of the clouds and look around.
Everyone else caught up, and they have features that either should always have been in iProducts, or far surpass them in terms of innovation and usefulness. Now, my fiancee is going to buy a Samsung Galaxy S III, and when we look around, we notice the same early adopters that got the original iPhone - the dev nerd, the media geek, the gadget aficionado - already has one. I just booted up my Sony Xperia S Tab for the first time today.
Apple was great. I'm not going to be an oversimplifying idiot and talk about cults or zombies. Instead, I'll say that when Apple was innovating, I loved the iPhones and iPads I bought, and any shortfalls were worth it because of the highlights...until they weren't.
