Here's the problem, if you look at this logically and compare the world Steve was in when he mentioned 3.5" screens in 2008, Styluses in 2007 and video on iPods not being a good idea (2003/2004), these were concepts that were
- Already in the marketplace from other makers and were piss-poor
- the tech to do what Steve & Co. wanted out of these were not acceptable or the price would be too high
- The idea to him simply wasn't a good one based on what he saw in the market and in the R&D labs at Apple.
Steve sometimes made statements to redirect media who asked questions about unannounced products.
Unfortunately, it's really easy to say Apple copied other people OR Apple went back on their word after making fun of _____ for many years.
There's 3 ways to look at this
- Apple didn't invent PC UIs, the mouse, printers, touch operating systems, WiFi, Video editing or tablets or even webcams for that matter but they dove in head first when the tech was at a cost they could sell as a part of their ecosystem at a premium with a nice UI, display and overall desirably well thought out package
- "Steve never would have done this" That's not fair. Steve has been passed away for nearly 4 years. He often changed his mind when he was here and the teams at Apple shouldn't be making decisions on what would steve do. They should do what's best for the company
- Apple has done revolutionary things with everything I listed in bullet one. They didn't just put a stylus on a phone, they made this pencil that basically has the power of a Wacom tablet that costs $1000 USD and put it on an iPad that does a ton of stuff and works perfectly fine without a stylus as an optional accessory for artists and note-takers. (you can apply this argument to pretty much everything they've been late to the game one)
I believe the only exception of late would be a larger iPhone screen. The team didn't think big screens were going to remain a thing and that probably thought it was a fad. Then the market basically for 2 years said "nope, 5.5+" is really a thing and people are buying them in droves" and Apple shifted by releasing a larger screen.
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My point is, don't bring steve into anything that Apple does today unless you're a professor at a business school and are using various steve missteps in a lecture along with other CEO mistakes over the last 100 years. Also, don't **** on Apple for doing something another hardware or software maker has done. I've used a lot of these things on other device makers like front facing cameras, fingerprint readers and NFC and the experience is simply not polished along with dozens of other things that were out on other devices first. I'd prefer Apple wait and get something right.