It's both, as a matter of fact, and judging from the struggling competition neither is particularly easy. When discussing Cook's qualities and Apple's refined processes, there isn't much fanboy-ism involved.
And yet if you ask a hundred Apple fans why their competition is struggling you'll get a hundred different reasons. You seem to be claiming that planning ahead and buying in bulk to produce a cheap, boring looking, plastic tablet with a half-finished, linux-based phone OS and stylus interface would be enough to destroy the competition. Others would disagree.
And not only do you credit this one factor with decisive victory, you're attributing it not to Apple as a corporation, but to one individual. In other words, this is all about fanboy-ism. Indeed, like the face of Jesus appearing in a grilled cheese sandwich, the only interesting aspect of this story is the way the believers react to it. The underlying reality is suspect, but no-one seems to care as long as it fits their narrative.
> And yet if you ask a hundred Apple fans why their
> competition is struggling you'll get a hundred different
> reasons.
I'm not an Apple "fan." Also, given that success is usually a fairly complex phenomenon, varied opinions are hardly surprising. Ask a hundred so-called "Apple haters" why the company "sucks" and you'll get even more incongruent answers.
> You seem to be claiming that planning ahead and buying
> in bulk to produce a cheap, boring looking, plastic
> tablet with a half-finished, linux-based phone OS and
> stylus interface would be enough to destroy the
> competition. Others would disagree.
I'm not claiming that, and I strongly doubt that I seem to. In fact, I'm simply defending the proposition that Apple's impeccable management of supply chains and inventory allows them to produce quality products at scale and reasonable price points. Yes, producing quality products (not cheap, boring plastic tablets) for 500$ is something that the competition can't do at this point. The stuff that is on par is more expensive (Xoom, Galaxy Tablet and so on); the stuff that is similarly priced or way cheaper (Notion Ink Adam, Archos) is very flimsy and immature.
The combination might destroy competition, including Apple, yes, but would definitely require sophisticated supply chain management. Right now, all relevant components are limited resources. What's so controversial about that?
> And not only do you credit this one factor with decisive victory
I don't (cf. difference between necessary and sufficient conditions).
> you're attributing it not to Apple as a corporation, but to one individual.
I don't. It's a fairly wide-spread habit to identify the work of a full department (operations) with its VP/head (COO Cook). Nothing wrong with that; reading it as "ZOMG TIM COOK IS DOING EVERYTHING WITHOUT HELP!!!!11" is naive at best. Of course, he relies on hundreds of engineers and administrators, but he's been successful in several companies so far and from what I've heard he is indeed a "hands-on" manager and workaholic.
Nothing fanboy-ish about that.
> Indeed, like the face of Jesus appearing in a grilled
> cheese sandwich, the only interesting aspect of this
> story is the way the believers react to it. The
> underlying reality is suspect, but no-one seems to care
> as long as it fits their narrative.
Oh, now you're just venting anger. Fair enough. Continue.
I'm not angry. I'm genuinely interested in myth-making, whether it's conspiracy theories or religion. The Tim Cook thing is too nebulous to argue about, but the A4 thing is the exact same from this perspective.
It's a chip designed and built and sold by Samsung, Apple's chief rival in smartphones (and soon, tablets) and yet the storyline around it is that Apple's competitors can't compete with it because it is Apple's special sauce. That's bonkers. Even more so when you realise that even the Samsung built chip is just a commodity. Samsung's own Galaxy S II phone will replace the next generation A4 with Nvidia's Tegra2 in some territories, that's how interchangeable a commodity it is. (Some speculation why they don't have enough of their own chip, either manufacturing teething troubles, or Apple's already put in a big order).
Yet Apple can put a logo on it, give it a cool codename and stand up and sell a commodity and have people believe it is something special. I'd love to know if this is something Apple marketing understands and intentionally manipulates, or if Apple just reflexively takes credit for the work of others (which by the way is the original meaning of the Reality Distortion Field if you look it up on folklore.org).
Given that the A4 story can thrive in the face of objective reality, you can understand why I'm amused and intrigued that the average time between people finding out what a COO does and deciding that Tim Cook is the best at it in the world is about 2 seconds. After all, even commodities are better when Apple uses them.
They're simply really, really good at it.