It's what happens when you control 95% of the market: it
is anti-competitive in that situation. I'm confident that for that very reason Apple would be ultimately very happy with, say, 40% of the smartphone market and 40% of the tablet market, especially if they are generally leading the way, with other companies mostly catching up to whatever they came up with last year. A greater percentage puts them in similar danger, and a smaller percentage makes less money. (FWIW Apple currently has about 26% of the smartphone market and 75% of the tablet market.)
On the Kinect, I agree, that's a truly innovative technology from Microsoft. The Xbox department seems to have the most permission and impetus to innovate. They get credit for it, though, and if Apple came out with similar technology next week at their developer's conference, Microsoft would still get credit for the tech, I'm certain. (Now, if they managed to do something truly amazing with it in the
mobile space it might overshadow Microsoft's achievement).
I'm just saying that Apple really did repeatedly change the face of computing, stuff that literally redefined how computers were used for years to follow:
- Personal Computing: the Apple II, the first non-kit personal computer, almost a year before the TRS-80 and the Commodore PET;
- Graphic User Interface: the Macintosh, the first personal computer with a graphical user interface and a mouse, a full year before Windows 1 (which was spectacularly lame, even compared to the very lame early Mac);
- Multitouch All-Screen Smartphone: it's hard to believe despite the fact that it's only been four years, but prior to the iPhone these devices didn't exist (though the LG Prada and the HTC Touch were announced at about the same time, they weren't multitouch). The biggest innovation, perhaps, is the way the device transforms into the app running on it, something that earlier smartphones and PDAs failed to accomplish.
I'm not at all deifying Apple: they've made plenty of mistakes and even outright crap, and sometimes their innovations were
just the right amount of refinement of an existing idea that they later got credit for (e.g. there were tons of mp3 players before the iPod, and many better ones, especially in the early years; iTunes, however, changed things in just the right way).
Nonetheless, they actually redefined the way the world used computers at least three times, and the same may be true of the iPad. I agree that Microsoft doesn't get credit for much innovation and Apple does, but that's mostly because that's the reality of what happened.
(I'm no Apple fanboy, to be clear: I use Windows, Linux, and a Mac daily; though I enjoy using the Mac the most, they all have their strengths and places. I loved my Palm III and V and VII; I programmed Windows CE, Pocket PC, and Windows Mobile devices throughout the last decade and really loved them, too. I gave my Droid several months to grow on me and even survived my month with a BlackBerry, but my iPhone is by far my favorite. I even used to use a Windows Tablet PC and generally hailed it, but it didn't change my daily life the way the iPad did. I still give Apple and, to a large extent, Steve Jobs credit for changing personal computing in ways that no other company has managed, though.)
