[ForHackernews]

Are you kidding me? Almost Apple's entire product line has been very polished, stylish imitations (Xerox Alto -> Apple PC, Diamond Rio -> iPod, Blackberry -> iPhone, Microsoft Tablet PC -> iPad) with some incremental improvements, and they've been extremely popular.

I think history has shown that most people will choose the imitator, if the imitation is a good one.

[dougabug]

The Mac was not an imitation Alto. Xerox tried and failed subsequently to commercialize the Alto. The iPod was not an imitation Diamond Rio; the iPod could fit in your pocket and hold most people's entire music collection, rather than a few dozen songs. IPhones are not Blackberries; the latter were black & white email centric keyboard centric non-touch business centric devices with modest compute and consumer media features and no comparable app & music ecosystem. iPads are not Microsoft Tablet PC's. Microsoft has launched generations of tablets going back to the late 80's/early 90's, none of which were very successful.

[Steko]

Ah, the old "incremental improvements" canard.

http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2011/05/16/creation-myth