Whoosh!

The sound of Apple's design philosophy passing you (the article writer) by at speed.

"That's right - the new iPhone has a forward-facing camera and VIDEO CHAT."

Yes. And the iPhone 3G introduced *3G* technology! And the original iPhone DIDN'T HAVE MMS! We get it already! Grow the f*ck up.

Apple are all about the *user experience*; they do not—and never have—given much of a shit about the technology itself, except as a means of enabling some new user experience concept. (Hence their work with multitouch.)

The first question they ask isn't "What new features can we throw into the box, regardless of their usability?"

Their first question is: "How can we INTEGRATE these new features in a seamless experience?" In short: they're *design-led*, not *technology-led*. It's why Apple only ever make one damned phone model every year, instead of dozens. It's why people *still* by iPhones in droves.

Just one, single, solitary phone model has a *quarter* of the "smartphone" market? That's f*cking *amazing*, no matter how you try and pretend otherwise! How many Android phones are there utterly failing to dent that product's market share? Right. And how much profit do you think all those phone make, compared to the margins on the iPhone?

Apple have almost a diametrically opposing philosophy compared to those of most IT companies, including Microsoft and Google. Apple don't even *care* if Google mops up the low-end, low-margin market—Apple aren't competing there, and probably never will. (How many cheap-and-nasty Rolls-Royce or Mercedes-Benz cars are you aware of? Exactly!)

Get it now? Understand the difference?

Apple haven't been keeping any of this a secret over the past 13 years. If *I* can work it out, why the hell can't you? (I won't comment on your readership. Many of them genuinely believe Perl to be a human-readable language.)