Bear in mind that brand equity is often earned. I feel that Apple have genuinely earned over the years. However, they now risk losing a lot of it due to the fragmentation of their ecosystem.
Maybe. I can't help but feel that Apple would have been long dead if iPod had not gotten USB support, and thus was usable on Windows.
Before that i don't think most anyone outside of USA even knew Apple existed unless you were interested in media production in some sense.
And that in turn lead to a feedback loop because certain celebrities would show up with an iPod (mostly noticed because of those white wires) because they themselves walk the media circles.
Similarly Apple could get the labels and studios to agree to distribute via iTunes because of that inside track in the industry.
And that in turn was what bootstrapped iPhone beyond being a fancy screened featurephone (though whoever talked Jobs down from going "nuclear" on the gray market jailbreakers was perhaps the true genius there).
But that all this then produce the effect that if you slap a fruit logo on a object peoples interest and appreciation is still worrying. What comes to mind is the comedy caricature of an "art critic" that can deliver a spiel of big words that means crap all upon closer scrutiny.
To be fair you can't just call it a "fruit logo". If you try to slightly modify it people will instantly recognize that it's not the Apple logo and it goes back to being a stupid fruit logo. So (of course) the point is not the fruit but the symbol.
