[snowwrestler]

I thought the interesting bit about the light bulb was that Edison recognized the reality that it was a systems problem (electric lighting), not a product problem (light bulb).

Finding a long-lasting bulb filament was, to Edison, basically an implementation detail. But he knew it wouldn't catch on without a full system to power it that was mechanically and economically sustainable.

It's analogous to Apple's approach to a smartphone. The iPhone succeeded not just because it was a good piece of hardware running a good OS, but because of the systems that supported it. When it launched, iTunes was running on a ton of computers already thanks to the iPod, so that's how Apple synced personal data and updated the OS.

And then when they released the SDK, they again took a systems approach--not just a collection of APIs to build apps, but a whole networked and managed online store for qualifying, distributing, and updating the apps.