Emerging Issues Paper #1: Apple and the role of improving versus innovating
Executive Summary:
On the verge of the announcement of a tablet device to the Apple product line, Apple looks to further grow their position in the personal computing/entertainment marketplace into the new decade. Over the past decade Apple has shown impressive growth, and one of the reasons for that growth is their signature design elements and ability to improve on existing technologies already introduced into the marketplace. How has this role of improvement allowed Apple to develop their unique brand of products over the past decade?
Managing Information for Innovation 
Paul,
A point of clarification: the way you’ve described your arguments, it sounds to me as though your assertion is “Apple succeeded by taking something common and adding value.” Certainly, this assertion holds water; the iPhone is certainly an enhanced telephone, and what’s an iPod but a Walkman with a thousand CDs inside? My main curiosity is, in your paper, how do you approach this issue as regards users and usability? “Improvement” is fairly subjective, after all, and we could point to hundreds — if not thousands — of products where somebody tried to “improve” a common object, and accomplished nothing good. Indeed, I might argue that Apple’s true magic has been its ability to innovate both effectively and in a corporate environment of intense secrecy.
So: where do you stand, sir?
Cheers,
Ross