Apple's product strategy in a nutshell

1. Wait for other companies to release products and see what sells and what fails. (and wait...and wait...for years if necessary)

2. Take the best ideas and create something brand new using your brand as muscle since it is synomyous with ease-of-use.

3. Dumb down for masses, trickle out features to extend lifecycle, put exorbitant price tag on it.

4. PROFIT

MP3 Player. By 2001 there were 100+ MP3 player devices on the market when the iPod was introduced.

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The first portable MP3 player was launched in 1997 by Saehan Information Systems,[10] which sold its “MPMan” player in Asia in spring 1998.[11] In mid-1998, the South Korean company licensed the players for North American distribution to Eiger Labs, which rebranded them as the Eiger MPMan F10 and F20.[citation needed] The flash-based players were available in 32 MB (about 6 songs) storage capacity.

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Apple

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The first iPod was released on October 23, 2001, about 8½ months after iTunes (Macintosh version) was released

The stainless-steel unit costs $399, has a 5GB hard drive, connects to a Mac using FireWire,

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Mobile Phone - Nokia had dominated regular phone market, Blackberry the 'smartphone' market.

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In 1996, Nokia released the Nokia 9000 which became their best-selling phone of that time. It was a palmtop computer-style phone combined with a PDA from HP. In early prototypes, the two devices were fixed together via a hinge in what became known as a clamshell design. When opened, the display was on the inside top surface and with a physical QWERTY keyboard on the bottom. Email and text-based web browsing was provided by the GEOS V3.0 operating system.

In June 1999, Qualcomm released a "CDMA Digital PCS Smartphone" with integrated Palm PDA and Internet connectivity, known as the "pdQ Smartphone".[12]

In early 2000, the Ericsson R380 was released by Ericsson Mobile Communications,[13] and was the first device marketed as a "smartphone".[14] It combined the functions of a mobile phone and a personal digital assistant (PDA), supported limited web browsing with a resistive touchscreen utilizing a stylus.[15]

In early 2001, Palm, Inc. introduced the Kyocera 6035, which combined a PDA with a mobile phone and operated on Verizon. It also supported limited web browsing

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The original BlackBerry devices, the RIM 850 and 857, used the DataTAC network. In 2003, the more commonly known convergent smartphone BlackBerry was released, which supports push email, mobile telephone, text messaging, Internet faxing, Web browsing and other wireless information service

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Pocket PC 2002, originally codenamed "Merlin",[12] was released in October 2001. Like Pocket PC 2000, it was powered by Windows CE 3.0. Although targeted mainly for 240 × 320 (QVGA) Pocket PC devices, Pocket PC 2002 was also used for Pocket PC phones, and for the first time, Smartphones.[1

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The two initial iPhone models, a 4 GB model priced at US$ 499 and an 8 GB model at US$ 599, went on sale in the United States on June 29, 2007, at 6:00 pm local time,

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Over 10 years to watch the industry evolve!


But guess what happened? Google snuck up behind Apple and used their very same business tactics to 'one-up' iOS with the same freedom to build something ALL NEW and used Apple's very game against them..stealing lots of Apple's iPhone ideas along the way.



Yet Google gets the hate for beating apple at its own game?

The strength of android shows simply what happens when a better company comes along.

I remember all the eye rolling initially when Google announced plans to enter the smartphone market.

People were like LOL @ google..apple's already won the market.

..course Yahoo thought the same thing back in the late 1990s...