Like it or Not, Apple is Usually Right (Premium)

Apple is a divisive company, but it makes some of the best hardware in the industry. Why? Because it almost always makes the right decisions.

I poke fun at Apple---as I do with Google and Microsoft, a point the more thin-skinned Apple fans neatly ignore---because of its hubris, pretentiousness, and hyperbole. The company's live product announcements have turned into quasi-religious love-fests, hours of self-promotion and self-congratulation and video highlight reels, all wrapped up in a mock humbleness that would make a TV preacher blush.

How does the thinking person deal with such a monster?

My own coping mechanism is to mock that which deserves to be mocked. And Apple is certainly a target-rich environment for that kind of thing. I find great comedy in all of the tech giants' various product announcements, but Apple often makes it too easy.

But there is another side to my relationship with Apple. And while I don't recommend the mocking thing to everyone, I do recommend that we collectively acknowledge the reality of what Apple is doing. That Apple usually makes the right bets. The right decisions.

No, not always. There are mistakes, both big and small, that anyone could point to. There is, likewise, some element of chance and timing to Apple's rise in the industry, a combination of circumstance and skill. But as with the New England Patriot's stunning and historic comeback in the most recent Super Bowl, one doesn't simply get that chance. You have to put yourself in that position in the first place. You have to have the pieces in place, and the confidence in your own ability to pull it off. You have to be nearly perfect.

Yes, I just compared Apple to the Patriots. Equally divisive, I know.

But as we chart our way forward, we will individually and collectively be making bets of our own. Your choice of a smartphone, for example, says as much about you as it does about the company that makes it.

I recently discussed my decision to switch to Android after having used an iPhone, primarily, for the previous few years. This decision was greeted with the usual and expected range of responses, which ran from outright contempt to abject agreement.

Truth is, this decision wasn't particularly momentous. I'm surrounded by gadgets of all kinds every single day, and I routinely switch back and forth between different phones and platforms. When I was using the iPhone, I still used some Android phone, and other non-Apple devices, very regularly. Today, I still use an iPad every day, mostly for reading, and my iPhone is still here for testing, and for the odd job. (For example, when I need to take a picture of the phone I'm normally using.)

So why even write about it? Well for you, of course. This was really a discussion about the decision-making process. And we all have different needs. We all approach things from our own angles, and even if you aren't even remotely considering, in this case, Android, I feel like it's still ...