Intrepid Mac

Every recent consumer electronics product from Apple—definitely the iPad, but all iterations of the iPhone including the initial one—has been greeted with rounds of articles crowing about what an arrogant, foolhardy mistake it is and how this will finally, finally, be the moment the emperor is revealed to have no clothes. And ultimately this is what’s so infuriating about Apple: that’s not what happens. Ever. The critics are eternally playing the part of Charlie Brown trying to kick the football, and Steve Jobs always yanks it away at the last second. Nobody talks about making a “Nexus One killer” or an “HP Slate killer” or a “Zune killer”; Apple’s consumer electronics products become the reference points for their fields. The Mac isn’t an exception here, either. While it’s by no means a market leader, Windows became far more Mac-like over the years than the Mac became Windows-like.

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