Yes, Apple has often competed with better design and superior miniaturization. But how is this different from other firms? For instance, Sony has often tried to

Yes, Apple has often competed with better design and superior miniaturization. But how is this different from other firms? For instance, Sony has often tried to make things smaller and cooler-looking than competing products, from the WalkMan to the Vaio to the modern day. Few companies enter a market resolving "I'm going to just try to make exactly what other guys are making." (Well, okay, maybe Samsung does that.) No, the big difference is that Apple often succeeds when they try ambitious new designs, whereas Sony and HP and Microsoft usually fail when they try to do the same thing. I've always thought there was a large amount of self-fulfilling prophesy involved in this. Apple, like Tinkerbell, works primarily because we believe in it. If we stopped expecting it to succeed, it would stop succeeding. Suppose HP releases a product that seems really cool and potentially useful but has a few annoying flaws - the software doesn't work quite right. Few buy it, HP never fixes any of the flaws, HP discontinues production, and you find the abandoned product on the discount shelf at Fry's. Now suppose Apple does the same thing. Because it's Apple we know they're committed to fixing the initial obvious flaws. Developers and users see the potential in the new product, not just what it is but what it could be. People buy it. A rash of "early adopters" buy it practically sight unseen and then whine in blogs/newspapers/magazines about what Apple needs to do next to make it perfect. Apple takes the revenue they get from those early sales, considers the suggestions, and fixes the problems. The original buyers get a software patch; new buyers get version 2.0 that fixes the original problems and more. The first iPhone didn't have copy-paste and didn't allow third-party apps and didn't have an "app store". People bought it, and within a year or so it did have those features. Apple has a track record of sticking with it and improving their crazy stuff, so we trust them to fix problems, so they find it worthwhile to take bigger risks. [Minor nit: The first iMac only came in Bondi Blue. The choice of colors period came later, when it was already a hit.]