A sure sign that competitors are afraid of you is when they start trash-talking you in the media. If you follow the tech sites, you’ll quickly observe that there’s about a 5 to 1 ratio of trash-talk about Apple from Samsung and other competitor biased writers. Think Justin Trudeau and the relentless Conservative attack ads.
I’m no techie…just a simple consumer of technology following the philosophy of “Let your needs guide your learning”, i.e., not into technology for its own sake but for what it can do for me.
I am now on my third iPad3 warranty replacement. It seemed to have trouble holding on to network connections. A simple phone call to Apple Support and I was speaking with a live person in 30 seconds. No transfer up the food chain. No need for purchase receipts, warranty claims, etc. They took my word for the problem, set up a Genius Bar appointment for me at the Apple Store same day, and sent the store a message to exchange the iPad yet again.
The “genius” and I decided that three units with the same problem was highly improbable, but he replaced it anyway. Just in case the problem was with the WiFi router, I bit the bullet and bought myself a 2T Apple Time Capsule with the built-in WiFi.
My previous WiFi router was about a year old. It took hours to set up, with lots of complexity….having to go into its software “guts” and read myriad indecipherable tech jargon and set equally mysterious settings. My wife’s iPad and netbook PC never could detect the printer on the network, so she would just email me her stuff and I would print it for her!
The Apple WiFi? Plug in the cord. Enter name and select password desired. Done. Everything works first shot….including my wife’s iPad, netbook, and all our other network-based equipment.
It has often been said that what Apple got right was the user experience. I would have to agree. From unwrapping the product, which comes packaged like fine jewellery and has the feel and “heft” of quality, to the interaction with Apple associates, to the seamlessness of the human/technology interface, Apple understood that we buy technology to use it, not be abused by it.