The short answer is the iPod, iPhone and iPad. Starting in 2004, Apple started releasing hardware products so popular they made its previous unit sales look like a rounding error, and then they kept doing that in new product categories while continuing to sell the old ones, every three years like clockwork. In each case they made huge bets to control the supply chain, keeping margins amazingly high and keeping competitors technologically behind for crucial months. Apple is now twice Microsoft's market cap because investors are betting they can keep pulling off this trick. (We're due for another one in 2013 -- the Apple TV?)
The really interesting question is, how did that happen? Personally I'm inclined to buy into the Cult of Steve Jobs. Because the other company reliably churning out blockbusters in the same time period, using surprisingly similar organizational methods, was ... Pixar. But there were probably some other people who contributed too.
The really interesting question is, how did that happen?
A lot of Apple's enormous and well-deserved success could be attributed to iTunes, I think. The iPod was a huge success, pulling people to use and start to get locked into the iTunes universe. Around the time of the release of the iPhone, iTunes was the benchmark and it was the massive differentiator of what made the iPhone the device to have (it's all very curious now. I keep no music on my device, using online sources like Rdio). The iPhone begat the iPad, etc.
Apparently there's a single-serving site for that: http://barefigur.es/
The short answer is the iPod, iPhone and iPad. Starting in 2004, Apple started releasing hardware products so popular they made its previous unit sales look like a rounding error, and then they kept doing that in new product categories while continuing to sell the old ones, every three years like clockwork. In each case they made huge bets to control the supply chain, keeping margins amazingly high and keeping competitors technologically behind for crucial months. Apple is now twice Microsoft's market cap because investors are betting they can keep pulling off this trick. (We're due for another one in 2013 -- the Apple TV?)
The really interesting question is, how did that happen? Personally I'm inclined to buy into the Cult of Steve Jobs. Because the other company reliably churning out blockbusters in the same time period, using surprisingly similar organizational methods, was ... Pixar. But there were probably some other people who contributed too.