Apple can never do anything right. Not sure what I mean? Well, don’t you remember that silly little gadget known as iPod? When Apple first announced that you could put 1,000 songs in your pocket for a mere $399 in 2001, they weren’t taken seriously. But it didn’t take long for digital music players to be […]

This is an old story. In the mid-1990s, there were so many Mac product variations, even executives couldn’t tell them apart without a cheat sheet. I’m serious. So you had the consumer lineup, the Performa. There were minor model differences with various memory or processor configurations, and sometimes a model would be exclusive to a specific chain store. […]

One sure way to criticize Apple, even if it’s of questionable validity, is to complain when they aren’t first to market with a new product category. The theory goes that the originator of a market must be destined to succeed and dominate, but those who come later have no chance. They might as well give […]

In marketing, branding may be as important or more important than the product itself. Sometimes a brand name becomes a verb for an entire product category. For years I referred to a bandage as a “Band-Aid” until I realized I was giving Johnson & Johnson free publicity. My mother would always refer to a certain kitchen appliance […]