Apple seems to have brought nearly zero innovation to the technology industry in the past years,
iPod? It's click wheel and natural navigation? iPods were a reinvention of devices known as MP3 players. Here's a screenshot of Amazon's top-selling MP3 players before the iPod was released. After the iPod was released they were naturally the thing to have. They reinvented the navigation.
iPhone? It's beautiful touch screen and effortless navigation? You could literally touch your photos. Plus, it's a phone, camera, web browser and GPS all packed into one device. In 2007 when it was released, it was an "oh wow" moment. Here's a screenshot of "trendy" smartphone before iPhone was released
iPad? It's incredibly useful in business/medicine/etc. Apple even has a whole page on the applications. Before it was released, tablets weren't nearly as natural and relied on a stylus for input (here's some screenshots).
Sure, on the straight technology side that relies on transistors, RAM, CPUs and GPUs Apple has played a role in innovation but not an "oh wow great!" role. But in reinventing and reimagining input devices? Apple has played a primary role if not the primary role.
the little it has done has been hidden so as to benefit only a few.
How many own iPhones? How many own iPads? How many will own the iPad Watch? Those are devices Apple has played a primary role in defining the input mechanism and that will be used by many.
customers as children
As a power user, I disagree. Sure, all their applications have an element of user friendliness but you can tap it the settings for all they're worth.
By user-friendliness, I mean that if a user wants to do something, it's there and clearly displayed. If they want to adjust the display, it's all right there (resolutions/brightness and color). If I want to do something fancier like optimize my display color for photography purposes, it's right there in calibrate, but it's hidden away.
That's the secret behind user-friendliness -- showing enough to let the user get what they want done easily. There's even a whole field for this: user-experience design. Apple has user experience down.
The reason I use a Mac? I want a powerful device (rooted in *nix) that has an attractive device and well put together hardware (keyboard/etc). I'll easily pay for the well designed hardware and the quality internal components (CPU etc).
