"We have also learned to be very critical of ourselves and learned to not be afraid to say when a projects sucks" I think this is one of the key elements missi

"We have also learned to be very critical of ourselves and learned to not be afraid to say when a projects sucks" I think this is one of the key elements missing in other places. Look at Microsoft's copy of the iPod (poo flavour Zune), or RIM's copy of the iPhone (the atrocious Storm). But here's the thing, what we never know is how many iterations went on at Apple behind closed doors and over how many years. Everybody else does their beta testing (alpha in some cases) in public, as well as subsequent iterations. You don't see those failed products from Apple, you don't see it till it has the rough corners knocked off. On the other hand, just because it is highly polished doesn't mean it isn't a turd. The Cube was a thing of enormous, tremendous beauty, but still a colossal failure in the market-place. It's 'spiritual successor', the Mac mini is uglier in every way (except total size perhaps), but was a much greater commercial success. Apple's willingness to throw out or challenge everything can be a weakness too, on numerous occasions they've changed the UI of some software and made it tangibly worse, made it harder to use. or just outright removed some useful functionality.