Before Steve Jobs got sick and started the war with Android, it was always that Apple could innovate their way out of any problem. Somehow Apple decided to stop innovating their way out or problems and file patent lawsuits like any other top dog billions of dollar corporations. It is not the way to do things and will turn around to bite Apple in the long run.
The iPod, the iPhone and the iPad in 11 years. That's a record of innovation that stands up to pretty much any company in the last dacade and a bit. The iPad itself came out less than three years ago and they've put out four versions of it plus the iPad mini taking it from a product that no-one had made work to a product that is now tearing a major chunk out of the laptop market.
Maybe it's just me but I think that's quite a rate of progress. The iPad is less than three years old and people are saying "what have they done lately?"
Put it in context, who is doing more? Who else has introduced just one product on that scale in the last five years? In the last ten?
People talk about the new innovative Microsoft but do the Surface, Windows Phone (both massively reactive plays) and Kinnect really stack up that well against what Apple are doing and have done in the same period (and I didn't mention the MacBook Air or Apple TV in there). Don't get me wrong, these are good products and it's great to see Microsoft upping their game (my background is as an MS developer and I always thought they got more criticism than they deserved so it's good to see them getting some credit).
Google have got Glasses which are interesting but still basically a prototype, ditto the car and Google TV which is going nowhere fast as far as I can tell. Android is a great OS but I'm not seeing the Android devices that your typical unbiased observer would sit next to an iPhone and think "that's just in a different class". Great phones (and now tablets) and there are certainly things that they can do that iOS can't but is it innovation on the scale of the original iPad or iPhone? It's always easier to make improvements when you're catching up as Android has been - now it's achieved parity I think we'll get to see what Android is really about. Other than that Plus is nice but hardly innovative, Hangouts likewise and from a business perspective Google remains at it's heart an advertising company.
I love what all these companies are doing - I love Google for Gmail, search and Reader, I love Apple hardware, I love that MS is raising it's game, I love that Samsung are making great phones that are pushing the form factor and keep Apple improving things which in turn will keep Samsung improving things (and I love my Samsung TV and the fact my iPhone is basically half Samsung components), I love what Amazon are doing with content and I love my Kindle.
What I don't understand is some of the lazy narratives that people want to put around these things, as if the lawsuits mean that Jonny Ive is no longer designing because he's training as a paralegal. The law suits were a dick move (almost entirely let's not forget driven by the Apple-isn't-the-same-without-him Steve Jobs - Tim Cook seems to have a far more pragmatic view on them) but I don't think they've changed a single thing Apple have been doing on the product side and I'd be really interested to see any evidence that says they have.
