> The move towards mobile, music, thinner seems an inevitable progression in this vein of technology - analogous to transistor miniaturization that occurs no matter who the players are.
iPhone was a first of it's kind. We had smart phones, we had touch screens, but Apple pushed the boundary. Everyone followed.
We had mp3 players, we had mp3 players that played video, (I had a Creative Zen), but Apple pushed the boundary with iPod's high capacity and ease of use. Everyone... Apple stole the market on this one.
We had laptops, decent looking ones, thin...ish... ones, etc, but Apple pushed the boundary with the Macbook Air. Everyone followed.
Apple is great at Marketing, Build Quality, and User Experience. (doesn't matter who disagrees with the last one, its a fact when a non-tech savvy person can pick up an iPhone and use it, but struggles with Android)
I don't think Apple is much of an 'inventor' company, but they do take existing things and make them better or push them in ways others can't or didn't think were possible.
----
In terms of the laptop market, I feel Lenovo is the /only/ company thats close to Right to Repair. Pretty much all of their laptops can be opened up and you can swap ram, memory, and ssd's. Their much older laptops back around like T440 you could replace the CPU.
But if any part of the laptop breaks, you can order any part.
I bought a Lenovo Legion 5 Pro for my wife, but in Singapore we can't get the keyboard with Traditional Chinese, can only get it in Taiwan or Hong Kong...
No worries
https://pcsupport.lenovo.com/sg/en/products/laptops-and-netb...
Navigate to Lenovo website, find the part number, contact the local distributor in Singapore, they have ordered the part for me and just waiting for it to arrive.
Bought a 4k screen and think damn I wish I had the 1080p screen instead...
https://pcsupport.lenovo.com/sg/en/products/laptops-and-netb...
Can find the 1080p screen for my thinkpad and replace it myself...
----
I do wish we lived in a more Woz world where more companies had parts you can buy and fix yourself etc.