The Apple Product Cycle

The Apple Product Cycle takes you through the life of an Apple product, from inception:

“An obscure component manufacturer somewhere in the Pacific Rim announces a major order for some bleeding-edge piece of technology that could conceivably become part of an expensive, digital-lifestyle-enhancing nerd toy.”

…to the actual appearance of the product…

“The product has sleek, clean lines, a diminutive form factor, and less than half of the useful features that everyone was expecting. Jobs announces that the product is available “immediately”. … Five minutes later, the new product appears on the online Apple store. Orders have an estimated ship date that is four weeks away.”

…to the first hands-on “examinations” of the hardware…

“Nerd porn threads appear in the Mac forums. Some lunatic with too much time and money on his hands disassembles the new device down to the bare, soldered components and posts pictures.”

…all the way through to Microsoft’s response…

“Consumers discover that the Windows-based competitor to Apple’s device contains a proprietary digital rights management technology that prevents them from using the device to do anything expect except look at family photographs taken in the last 20 minutes.”

…and then, once more from the top.