[WrkInProgress]

Except half your list is not accurate.

High resolution displays were around long before the iPhone 4 moved from their standard resolution. "Retina" is a branded term for a high resolution display from Apple. And in the current phone space, the iPhone 6S Plus lags quite a bit behind in terms of PPI and actual native resolution.

Similar arguments can be made for fingerprint scanning, personal assistant, 5 Ghz wifi and the waterproofing.

[ceejayoz]

"Around" isn't the same as "widely available and popular".

Microsoft had tablets in the 1990s, but it took the iPad to really have them catch on. Same with high-resolution screens on cellphones.

[andrewla]

> "Around" isn't the same as "widely available and popular"

Agreed. That is, in fact, the entire point of my post at the top of this thread. Apple is not some magical pixie creating new innovative features out of thin air. They're imitating the best features from the competition (which is a wide landscape) and bringing them together in a single device.

This may sound critical of Apple, but I don't intend it as such. This sort of "trail and steal" attitude is genius, and Apple will only be beaten when they start to believe their own propaganda of being "innovative" and start introducing useless features that they will nonetheless have to keep supporting in new phones until the end of time.

My personal belief is that Siri and Force Touch are both instances of this phenomenon, although at least they have not made it easy for apps to integrate with Siri, so they could effectively remove (or significantly change) that features in future OS upgrades. Force Touch they're probably stuck with forever so users will keep trying to break their screens while they figure out that pressing on this particular thing doesn't do anything.

Out of the gate, I think Apple did many things very, very right, and that's put them in a position where they can afford to let their competition try out new features and only appropriate them if the feature is actually useful. Notably, I think, the "App" model, with the container-based isolation and installation, the curated selection, and the limited access to things outside of the app. And of course, finally making a touch screen that actually worked by being responsive enough that you rarely have to wonder "did it register that I pressed it, and now it's waiting, or did I miss the target?" which was the downfall of all previous touchscreens.

[CaptSpify]

Apple has been this way for a while. They are not innovators, despite what they claim. They do excel at "polish" though. Whenever they take someone else's idea, they usually do a really good job of making it smooth, simple, and usable. I don't think that's a bad thing, but it's not "innovation".

[matwood]

> I don't think that's a bad thing, but it's not "innovation".

Making something useable is not innovation?

[CaptSpify]

Nope. They just slapped a pretty UI on everything. That's nothing new

[matwood]

So taking something no one either heard about or uses and making it useable is not innovation? Got it.

[WrkInProgress]

Your tablet analogy doesn't hold true for the high resolution screens in phones.

Android's most popular devices (Samsung and Motorola/Droid) prior to Apple's first "retina" display had higher resolution displays than the standard 320 x 480 that Apple had for the first few iPhones.