The problem with your iPod comparison is most likely you didnt use a good MP3 player. They existed before iPod, they just didnt get the marketing blitz Apple did. Cowon comes to mind, and had much better quality audio.
The iPhone was copying what MS had innovated with Windows Mobile 2005 (a fully usable mobile phone that didn't need physical buttons.) Issue was 3rd parties kept putting keyboards on the phones, so Microsoft created their Surface range to help stop these blunders.
As for your other comments, the iPad was Apple rushing to compete with Android tablets like the Android Vega.
Apple was always noted as having low res (1600x900 screens) while everyone was moving hi res like 1080p. You can thank the PC world for those, or you most likely still be using a 1600x900 screen.
TouchID? Fingerprint scanners have been on laptops for at least 15 years.
Face ID? You mean Windows Hello with MS's Kinect technology?
OSX was innovative... by dropping their own macOS coded OS in favor of using someone elses work? Ok... odd flex there...
OSX came out at the same time as WinXP, not 95.... Worst. Apple. History. Revisionist. Ever.
The first wireless earbuds were released in 2014, long before airpods. And companies like Sony already made them common and popular before airpods.
As for the Vision Pro, its literally Apple aping Microsoft (again). Its called the HoloLens, came out in 2016. Here is a TED talk about it.
Oh, man. I’m definitely not going to point by point. On a sub-argument that’s not even the topic of the thread? These are minutes in my life I don’t get back. But, seriously? My argument is invalid because I said Windows 95 instead of XP? And I must not have used any good MP3 players? By the way, they all sounded the same since they were playing 128 kbps MP3s… by the definition of how those work, they had to 😂
And just to consider this from another angle, if apple did get the goggles from hololens, where did Microsoft get their UI from in the 80s? How about Android?
Wow, I am so, so done seeking out a non-groupthink argument in this format ever. On any site. The memes are still better than Reddit though!
Hey man, pick one. Are we supposed to debunk your comment point by point, like you demanded of me. Or is it wasting minutes to destroy your corporate dribble. Make up your mind.
Here's a new fallacy for you baby, this one doesn't have big words so it is easier to remember: “moving the goalpost”.
Ok ok, I'll give you what you seem to need. Let's step back a moment and recall the context of this thread: Apple's being shady as hell about complying with the DMA and everyone's piling on. I've noted that Apple is pretty greedy, but probably not as objectively evil as some other big tech companies, so this is a circlejerk. But, it's verboten to say that Apple's not terrible. I've also said that at least they innovate, but that's also verboten. You can't say Apple innovates. So, that's why we're here.
Now, going from memory, I've listed some Apple products that I think were innovative for their time. You've made a few counterpoints. Btw, it did take some time for that reply. I hope you weren't... researching? If not, congratulations: you're fellow GenX and either you have an eidetic memory or you work in UI/UX. Either way, you did teach me a couple of things, so thanks for that.
Let's go point by point:
MS stole from Xerox and Apple did too, but Apple was sued - You didn't mention that Xerox lost the case, since you can't patent the concept of a UI. Also, Apple released their first Mac more than a year before Microsoft released Windows 1.0, which by all measure was utterly atrocious and looked slapped together. Are you sure Microsoft didn't borrow from Apple instead of Xerox? You're leaving out all the context here and I don't come away thinking the early Macs were not innovative.
Apple stole from LG when they noticed Google was building a mobile OS - You didn't mention that although LG sued Apple, Apple then produced design docs that proved they'd been working on that years earlier... and LG lost the case. I'm not even going to bother linking to Wikipedia. I didn't remember the Prada, though. You omitted things here too, so I'm not feeling like the iPhone wasn't innovative. It was the first commercially viable smartphone. You make a good point that Apple and Google were in an arms race on smartphones, though I'm not sure if you knew you were making that point. Of course, Google being Google, they bought the solution, still got beaten to the market, and then Android absolutely sucked ass for years anyway. Not to mention, early Android was basically iOS with a Google search box and moar telemetry.
192 kbps existed and so do hardware DACs - I didn't know what DACs were, so thanks for that. But, I wonder if anyone could hear the difference on the headphones of the time? I also hadn't heard of the Cowon and don't know anyone who had one. I wonder if they sold... eleven units? Maybe you meant Creative Zen? Creative sold a ton of MP3 players and I had a few, but the iPod was much better. This is a straw man argument anyway, though. You're saying that since one random MP3 player that nobody bought had a better DAC, and also that 192 kbps exists (this is literally just offered randomly), the iPod was not innovative. I'm not sure it's working out for you.
As for this:
The real issue for you isn’t your “done seeking out a non-group think argument”, the reality is you are desperately looking for a group-think group that only sees Apple as some all mighty and infallible company that can do no wrong and none can do better than them. I wish you the best of luck finding such a group, but as you’ve noticed, it won’t be here.
That sounds great. If I were 20, I'd be very intimidated and I'd feel cast out. I'd be sad. But actually, that's ... another straw man argument! Love those. I'm "desperately" looking for a group that thinks Apple is all-mighty, I won't find it here, good luck with that, etc. Well yes, but actually no. Congrats on proving that a thing I never said is unavailable to me 😂
That took 20 minutes and I could have done literally anything else with that time. I should bill you.
They existed before iPod, they just didnt get the marketing blitz Apple did. Cowon comes to mind, and had much better quality audio.
I did some research on this, because I was a big fan of MP3 players in the late 90s early 2000s and never heard of them. Turns out that the only Cowon Mp3 player I could find from around the iPod launch was the iAudio CW200, which had a capacity of 256MB.
This explains why I had never heard of it, as I was shopping for HDD-based players that could hold my entire library(I was looking at PJB, Nomad, Archos, etc).
Sorry but this illustrates OP's point. The iPod was the smallest HDD-based player on the market for years, all the other HDD players were chunky and could barely fit in a pocket. All the flash-based players had pitiful capacity. It wasn't that there were no MP3 players, it was that all the products had compromises that made them not ready for mass adoption.
While OP is overstating some things, your counter examples are rife with oversights like this.
As an example you are badmouthing Apple's "low resolution displays", while missing the fact that the MacBook Pro was the first ever mass market high dpi laptop. Ironically Samsung had produced a limited production laptop with a similar screen, but because Samsung lacks focus and had 1000 different laptop SKUs, they didn't make it a premiere feature of their brand, instead Apple simply bought out Samsung's entire manufacturing capacity for years and put them in their laptops.
This is the pattern. There are interesting technologies, but they are in products with mediocre design or appeal, and are not mass produced. Apple identifies these technologies, optimizes them, integrates them, ensures that there is a good user experience, makes a million of them, makes a billion on that, then changes the entire landscape of the market they entered by virtue of their success.