Although Apple has become increasingly recognized in today’s electronics sector, I hold a different perspective to the overall views stated in Ann Wong’s blog. Most of the demand for the company’s products is not from its “innovative” concepts, but rather from exceptional marketing and advertising.
The majority of the world still utilizes PCs and not the Macintosh. Admittedly, there are a rising number of Mac users, as demonstrated by students at UBC; yet, many programs are still only operational on Windows.

Picture credits to timsaudiocorner.wordpress.com.

Apple’s iPhone has also become a widely purchased and used phone; however, CBC reported last week that Samsung had actually outsold them in the smartphone war with 28 million sales in the third quarter. In addition, only a few weeks ago, Apple did not make analyst expectations for its fourth quarterly profit, causing the company’s stocks to temporarily drop. This may be because of the iPhone 4S, whose sales may have surpassed its predecessor, but nevertheless received ample disappointment from consumers in the market for a product that had few new features.
Picture credits to CBC.

From what I have observed, Apple’s brand value has significantly improved over these few years, but it has yet to fully surpass competitors like Microsoft and Google.