Regarding the "competition is good" mantra, I think this bears repeating:
Competitive pressures are not the engine of Apple's quality.
Well, that's your OPINION, but the fact is that consumer 'whining' as it were clearly does affect Apple's decisions, especially when it's loud and widespread. Consumers got Apple Store credits when they dropped their iPhone price so soon after launch. Various features people have complained loudly about in both the Mac and iPhone markets have magically appeared shortly after certain news sites have made stinks about it (keyboard bug on laptops, crashes on iPhone, backup times on iPhone, etc.) Certain security risks and bugs get addressed rather suddenly after a stink is raised. Apple may not acknowledge its shortcomings or its imperfections, but it certainly does hear the noise of the crowd when it gets loud enough and that is all the better for its products. Frankly, I think it's pretty naive to believe Apple would strive to fix bugs and correct defects in a timely manner if competitive pressures did not exist. Apple does not want to lose customers, especially given it has far less customers to begin with than say Microsoft so it has less it can afford to lose. Thus, I would say it's correct to assume that Google's products will be a kick in the pants for Apple to try harder and not soon enough.
The replaceable battery issue alone might be enough for some to go Google instead. It's pretty obvious that Apple doesn't want it consumer replaceable because they make a steady profit charging $80 to replace a $20 battery. Frankly, Apple has many practices of trying to squeeze more money out of a consumer by withholding features until MUCH MUCH higher price levels (e.g. expandable hardware and replaceable GPU only at the $2300+ level, when $400 PCs normally all have that capability). It would do good to force Apple back down to Earth on these kinds of issues. I'm afraid that losing sales is the only language companies like Apple understand when it comes to addressing such issues.
A good example is AppleTV. It wasn't selling very well at all and consumers were demanding more functionality and things like movie rentals and voila, Steve admitted that's what consumers were asking for and so AppleTV 2.0 suddenly had HD movie rentals. If consumers demanded loudly enough for a web browser for AppleTV, I think you'd suddenly find SafariTV in 3.0. If consumers don't demand it, Apple isn't likely to provide it.
Eh?
Why would Apple sue T-Mobile?
Why would Nintendo sue Apple?
Really, please, tell me...
I believe the person I was replying to suggested Apple might sue them for using an accelerometer in their phone. I was simply saying the US Patent system is goofy enough to allow people to patent 'ideas' even if they're not inventions yet and even if there is no technical data provided. Take a look at some patents some time, even Apple's. So even though accelerometers have been around for ages and while I don't think it's likely, it wouldn't shock me either if Apple tried to claim a patent 'use' of one in their products that makes it 'unique'. Look at some of their recent patents and you can plainly see ideas of combining technologies together. They already exist, but they want to patent how they connect them together. Personally, I think that's ridiculous to allow that sort of thing but then Apple themselves got sued and agreed to license thereafter a patent regarding visual voice mail. I think it's ridiculous from both ends. Just because you think of something, that doesn't mean you can implement it or that someone else can't implement it another way. Imagine if someone patented a computer laptop in the early '80s. They'd be richer than Bill Gates by now. Yes, I imagine connecting a monitor to a keyboard and a battery and then no one else can do it without paying me. Ridiculous. That's a far cry from inventing a SPECIFIC process to convert solar energy into electricity, for example. And even then, it had better WORK before a patent is granted, in my opinion, but it doesn't seem to work that way, which is why I say it's ridiculous and someone might as well patent a warp drive.
