[philwelch]

When Jobs returned, they already made Macs by default. The iPod was Tony Fadell's idea, but that was for a market that didn't really even exist yet, so it's hard to see how market research would help. They just tapped into the universal human need for music with that one. The iPhone was likely based on a deep understanding of how much cell phones generally suck and a vague recognition that cell phones are a huge enough market to accept a new niche player.

I'm not sure how product research would even help. It's great if you're refining an existing product or entering into a well-understood market, but Apple's game is to reshape the market around itself, rather than reshaping itself around the market.