How do they struggle to innovate? And innovate what? Are we talking design? Because I hadn't seen a phone quit like the iPhone when it was first released. Was Android second to Apple to release a product? By a year? And why do most Android phones now have touchscreens but no buttons, kinda like the iPhone did? I'm not saying Apple invented touch screens, but they certainly were the first popular mobile phone on the market that had a touchscreen, instead of hard keys like the Moto Q and all those other smartphones at that time.
Did you read that Jobs actually had the iPad designed before the iPod Touch/iPhone? He just thought no one would buy it at that time so he made it a phone?
What about when the iPad was released? Sure, we can even assume there was an Android tablet developed before that announcement was made by Jobs. But who stuck their ass out on the line and announced the "iPad," a tablet? Remember people laughed at Jobs and Apple, that it was just a "steam-rolled iPhone" and that it would not sell and it was a niche product? What about now?
I never anyone go "hey, I'm entering myself in this contest to win a brand new Motorola XOOM!!!!" No one says that. I don't think anyone that doesn't keep up with this shit even knows it exists. But they know the iPad. The commercials, the publicity from other Apple users, and widespread adoption by business (of iOS, in general, really) have made Apple such a big name in the tech world.
Don't try and detract from it and say "oh, the fanboys do this and that." It's a company. How else do they make money? Release everything "second" or after someone else has? That's what Android has been so far. Using Apple products as feelers for what the market wants and needs, Android comes up with something over a year later to compete. Then numbers like "a million bazillion percent growth for Android!!" get thrown around. Sure. If you have five users and all of a sudden a company decides to use Android and buys 2000 phones for its employees, of course there's going to be astronomical growth. Keep in mind, Apple and its iPhone reached this success in the US using just one carrier. Only recently did it switch to a second one, and that also was just the same phone, almost a year later. When the two year contracts of people on VZW and AT&T are up and the new iPhone comes out, use those numbers.
In terms of computing, wasn't Apple the first to mass-distribute the Sandy Bridge chipset in the MacBook Pros of this February or March? Sure, that same hardware will remain the same until next February or so when they refresh again, but at one point, it was the best hardware, even for the shortest time. So where is the selling of shitty hardware? It's a genuine question, I have no stance on (save or the Sandy ridge example) and would like to learn more.
One last thing I want to point out is while Apple may not invent or create the technology they are boasting about, they certainly spoon-feed the consumer on how they can use it in the real world, and that's what gets people on board. Simply releasing NFC technology into a phone and having others figure it out is not the way to do it. That's what the businesses need to do, employ the technology and be innovative with it and tell their customers "Hey! If your phone has this, you can do this!" Why do customers have to sit there, learn the technology, imagine how it can be used and then wait for the day, wishing companies would employ it?
Apple straight up says, "if you like this, you can use our product for this, and this. And when you want to do this, just simply press this button...and bam..this happens."
What's wrong with that? Some people don't have the time to set up a complex network to get something to work wirelessly. Or they don't know how to, or simply don't want to. So we just penalize them and say they're "stupid" and then generalize all Apple users as such? Seems a bit unfair.
I'm no Apple fanboy, but I love Apple products as well as other products. Some people here are fanboys, and what isn't "this" is simply not good. End of story. It doesn't work that way. Not everyone needs a dual-SLI computer to Minecraft on high settings. Some people pay for the looks and design of the product, and in most cases, Apple wins that category, hands down. That's a huge reason they sell. What happens in the background of stealing technologies and patents and this and that, is not important to us as consumers. Companies don't get to be this big without some shady, funny business.
