Sorry, but that's just wrong. Most other computer or consumer electronics companies have high-end lines with prices comparable to Apples products. Companies lik

Sorry, but that's just wrong. Most other computer or consumer electronics companies have high-end lines with prices comparable to Apples products. Companies like RIM and Nokia had pretty nice margins on their high-end phones. The main problem was simply that they had no incentive to innovate in that direction until competition showed up in the form of the iPhone. (And I'm not saying Apple is special here, I think they would probably have been in the same position if they had continued selling the Newton and tried making an iNewtonPhone out of it). AFAIK, Apple claims various touch-related inventions through their patents (some of which are quite stupid, which is another story). I've never heard them saying "we invented touchscreen phones". Apple never claimed to have invented subnotebooks either. But you would be right if you looked at many of the new "ultrabooks" and claimed that they have borrowed many design details from the Air (as opposed to, say, copying the form factor of the X-series or netbooks).