> The point is, they aren't doing anything special.
Yes, they are. They're the only company that's realized that if you want a stable, integrated experience, you need to control the entire product, top to bottom. They're the only (major) computer company that does this, which kind of makes them special by definition, right?
> The difference is that Apple does it in the only area that end users really see: The end user experience.
But ultimately, that's the only thing that really matters. I hate to be utilitarian about it, but the value a product brings to the end user is the only thing that matters.
> The iPod was, and still is, incredibly backwards in how it needs to load and unload media.
From a technical standpoint, yes. From a user's standpoint, it's _awesome_. I just click a button, and wait a few seconds? Great.
> The iPhone was a natural progression everyone saw from the iPod. Nor were they phones prior to the iPhone that weren't good.
It's true that the details of the phone weren't important, but it doesn't mean it wasn't a truly great phone. Remember the ROKR? That's what happens when non-Apple companies design a phone. That's what pretty much any non-iPhone non-Andriod phones are like. Maybe I'm just too hard on cell phones, but until I bought my Nexus One, I still had a really old 'feature phone' because I couldn't bring myself to buy any of the shitty, shitty phones that are out there.
> iTunes is nothing that hasn't existed in the open source world for a long time.
Same thing. It's not about the tech, it's about ease of use for the end consumer.
> I don't imagine anything I said is new, but it doesn't mean it's not relevant, or incorrect.
I mean, I agree. I'm not saying you should be downvoted, I'm just trying to guess why others were. Hearing the same arguments gets really old, especially in a series of articles like these, which are basically just shouting matches of the same opinions, over and over.
> Maybe I'm just not as easily impressed?
Nope, I think that you're just impressed by things that aren't Apple's core competencies. That's okay, I don't think, for instance, Exxon-Mobil is impressive, and they're one of the few companies bigger than Apple. Different people value different things.
I used to be obsessed with technical details, until I came to the startup world, where I realized it's all about value creation, not about the tech. It's disappointing, and we programmers tend to be an exceptionally meritocratic bunch, but really, even in the tech industry, tech is kind of irrelevant.