That time, there might have been some competitors , who felt good.

Steve Jobs recreated history in the corporate world, by coming back to Apple.

I want to share some of my experiences on Mac systems which are expensive as felt by commonman in comparison to a PC .e.g. Let's take a Macbook, which rules the same price as initial Wipro and HCL desktops used to be sold as Rs 50K ++( 1985-86). When you bought a  the PC - which is based on Windows platform, you still have to invest into add-ons speakers, sound card ( creative ) and other stuff such as nVidia cards to run graphics and games.

During 1990's the Mac systems were predesigned to store dates in 8 digit date format such as 20/12/1992 hence these were the systems which had no Y2K problems, where billions were spent on backend IBM and other systems applications to change the 'date year' from 2 digits (80) to 4 digits(1980). I call this as basic common sense of design. Mac's have used the Motorola Real time Clock chip as against the National Semiconductor chip used by all other PC makers.

Now, let's look at vision which Steve carried further - last 2 decades of changes in a Laptop design.

Earlier Design limitations:

1. Battery lasts only 2-3 hours.

2. Heavier laptops > 2.5-3.o kg weight on shoulder making it bulky.

3. Display Hinge to break after few months.

4. Screen size is not large enough.

5. Music or Speakers are not hi- fidelity.

6. Not good looking - Black was prominent color.

7. Unable to run plethora of applications available in Windows world.

8. High cost of manufacturing for suppliers - since the parts are used only for Apple. ( His Mac OS licensing - BeOS and others failed )

Now, look at changes -

If you buy a Macbook, you can run the Windows XP in one partition. ( This was one of the biggest consumer issue, why they did not buy Mac's. Steve Jobs had to take a decision to change his key processor supplier from Motorola ( 10-12 years partnership ) to Intel based processors to make this happen. Now, you get best of both worlds.

The iMac's switchover was also planned in a subtle way to make the partnership switchover to  minimum. Apple has both the products in the field with overalap for more than 2-3 years. This kind of decision can not be left to technical team, which over the period gets obsessed with particular vendors.

Product interim was built in cube shape ( taking the design effort of NeXT ) which could use any PC monitor, keyboard and mouse. This was a transition effort , but still very popular box. It comes in two flavours - Intel and Motorola processor ( recently discontinued in 2011 ).

Today's Macbooks are preloaded with i-movie, nVidia processors ( faster graphics ), unix based operating systems ( virtually virus free - though there are viruses in Macworld also .), itunes, iCloud connection, file formats portability.

One of the best browsers as Safari . Supports java. It comes prebuilt and preshipped to run as open and use. (OOBE- Out of the box experiences ).

Macbooks run minimum 7-8 hours and have magnetic catch to connect power adapter ( no tripping over the cable and dropping it from table ).

Apple, even invested in battery life R&D and chose battery vendors in a way to make sure the fake batteries would not get into products ( making it difficult to remove ).

Macbook Air for CEO's and frequent travellers , who need light weight option.

Provides crystal clear music and has all RFC related approvals to even handle HDD noise levels to minimum.

Specially designed cabinets to handle rugged use, round corners to avoid damage during accidental free fall. White color cabinets ( first one to take this challenge to launch and be liked by consumers. )

Have you heard of a laptop with 20 inch screen ?. Yes, only Macbook came with a 20" screen to shock the world. Lots of developers used this, since the OS could have multi tasking handled well.

Let's take i-phone product decisions:

Taking decisions like Battery can not be replaced by anyone and everyone , which is i-Phone feature.

Flash technology - has to go though end of life.Multi touch to conflict with flash and also a very tough decision, since Adobe has been their biggest partners in success due to Publishing products.

Memory hog flash was rewritten and re launched by Adobe. HTML5, new streaming media standards playing key role.

Proximity sensor in i-Phone to avoid burning ears while you talk with phone close to ears ( the display will automatically shut off , thereby also saving power ).

Accelerometer/GPS and many other features.

Those who use Music to play over iPad, IPod or any other Apple device, will swear by the quality of Music being played.

Have you come across the music composer of repute using non Mac system for his creative work.

Apple machine owners , only use the gadgets and do not spend their life in installing drivers and adding new features, reformatting hard disks.

All these implied needs of customers such as students, professors, media users, musicians and others created a cult like community.

Here are few quick reasons for what I wrote above-

a. Created products - less number of models .

b. Each product would go through senior members using these during beta phase.

c. Created new way of doing things ( patent on multitouch, multiswipe ).

Did anyone notice the packing used for Macbook or i-Phone per say ?

d. Invested into R&D and kept innovation budget over the years .e. Built upon inner strengh- e.g. reliability. ( App store will have to approve each application for i-phone - before the audience , to avoid virus or mulfunction type of mis use and affecting Apple's product image ). Every developer in the community is bind by Digitally signed certificate and known. In contrast Google Android phones can have applications which can behave erratic with operating system resources. These are self approved type and there is no moderation as well as testing performed to know their impact on other system resources. 

f. Changed their own design models- by permitting use of open source in their products. While you carefully read legal section in i-phone, settings, about, legal - you will see more than 20-30 open source components being used which made this as a great product. Lot of corporates will shy away even with the mention of open source in their corridors.

Without even understanding that - NO office in this world can run without atleast one open source component in their computer.e.g. browser in the internet, 'java' which has been the key to all financial and other systems in current days.

Apple products are designed for dedicated use for specific purpose or audience. Creativity - has been key to their product evolution. Google and Apple have similar workplace practices. 

Apple guards the product technology- they do not over focus on attire of the employees. The challenge is bigger than meet the eyes in the campus there.

Whatever Apple and Steve Jobs provided as inspiration to developers across the world, can not be covered by this single article.

The products do carry a premium and longer shelf life when bought.This premium is worth investing into.

Life expectancy of Apple systems is on average higher than the normal PC system as per my experience.