[ltamake]

It'll get a lot of users because a lot of people own iDevices. The product can completely suck and people will still use it because it's Apple and unlike MobileMe, it's free. Microsoft doesn't understand the cult following that Apple has.

[sjs]

Apple is far bigger than their cult following. If you attribute their success to the cult you are only fooling yourself. A cult alone doesn't buy 200,000,000+ iOS devices.

People generally do not use Apple products that suck, not everything they do takes off. They are just vocal about things that take off and very quiet on the rest, e.g. dismissing AppleTV as a "hobby" even though they clearly want it to take off.

You can attribute Apple's success to marketing, cult, whatever you want but at the end of the day Apple makes good products and puts a lot of care into them, and that's why they sell.

[buyx]

They do put a lot of care into their products, but their cult following does seem to play an important part in protecting their image. There's another thread on the front page of HN where people are describing how their Apple laptop power adapters burst into flames.

I am typing this on an iPad that periodically loses its wifi connection. Googling the problem yields dozens of complaints about this issue. Apple supporters on these forums blame wifi routers, even though the iPad is the only device with these issues.

I like the App Store, but, by default, I can't buy games on my iPad - why? Because I live in South Africa, and unlike every other device manufacturer with an app store here Apple hasn't applied for self rating games, which, according to most sources, is a straightforward process. Again, Apple and its supporters don't bother mentioning this little detail.

Apple does put a lot of care into their devices, but I also think there is a tendency to deny issues, to brush them over and to rely on the cult to impart an aura of invincibility.

[sjs]

Apple is not invincible, look at the iPhone 4 antenna fiasco.

I agree that it's bad that they deny most problems instead of being transparent about them. It can be extremely frustrating, you file a Radar ticket and then it goes into a black hole and the only feedback you might get is that someone else had the problem too. They are by no means perfect and neither are their products, I didn't mean to imply anything like that.