Geez...
Everyone, go to engadget right now:
http://www.engadget.com/

Look at all the amazing things Apple is doing.  They are totally taking over the consumer markets.  Phones, games, computers, they have their hands in everything.  And their user interfaces and device designs are so brilliant that it's hard for people to resist, even if they lack certain "open" and flexible features we would want.  Beware, all companies, beware.  Better yet, watch and learn...try to do it better if you can.

But what other companies can't do is bitch about Apple taking over their markets.  Don't complain, show that you can beat them at their own game.  Which means start paying attention to the little things.  Don't tell people what they want.  Try to understand what normal people want and give it to them.  People want shiny.  People want easy.  People want no-brainers.  Yes, Sony...that means you.

Sony does some remarkably puzzling things.  For example, they make some fancy device and have 3 models of it: cheap, medium, and pro model.  But what they'll do is put some little feature on the medium that the pro doesn't have.  So the consumer may want to get the pro model, but is torn because he also wants that feature in the medium model.  Seriously, WTF?!  And of course, Sony will name the thing "NMZ-3609".  That's the name of the thing.  Not ipad, not iphone, not actual words.  Just NMZ-3609 or whatever else.  It's almost like they are sitting at a table and intentionally thinking of ways to confuse the user.

What's ridiculous is that so often Apple bides it's time and THEN releases a ______-killer piece of heardware that then A. becomes the market leader and the gold standard in that segment and B. (and FAR more annoyingly) almost immediately becomes generally "recognized" as the "first" such product in the segment! There WERE mp3 players before the iPod, there WERE tablets LONG before the iPad, there WERE smartphones (possibly even touchscreen smartphones?) before the iPhone, and there WERE computers before the Mac, etc.

...and the one that really takes the cake is the 30+ year old 1/8" stereo jack that suddenly got renamed to an iPhone plug.

It all boils down to brilliant marketing and beautiful presentation. I have a three year old Samsung mp3 player that is a joy to use, beautifully made and sounds great. What's it called? YP-T9QJBY! WTF? Apple picked a hip and sexy name and built a well thought out and well made mp3 player around it. Ten years or so later, their mp3 players carry the same name with nothing more than a descriptive secondary name and the models capacity appened to it - iPod Nano 4GB for example - and Samsung no longer even markets mp3 players in Canada, which kills me.

What kills me even more is the cost of an Apple product compared to its competition. An 8GB Sony Video mp3 player is $89 here vs $149 for a very similar iPod Nano 8GB - hell, you can go to a 16GB Sony for $129! The gap between Apple computers and non-Apple computers seems to have started to increase again, as well. Back to my point, though, why are people so willing to part with a significantly greater amount of money for far less well-spec'd equipment? Marketing.

EDIT: PS The Microsoft Zune, as far as I can tell, is no longer available here, either.

hey some has to initiate the innovative thinking so that is what apple has done..and that's y the charges are high because of monopoly...and rest other are the followers who just develop a thing to be in competition..i also really don't get that why all other big companies wait for an initiator???