You Have to Feel It

The corporate machine does not feel it.

It can't be bargained with. It can't be reasoned with. It doesn't feel pity, or remorse, or fear. And it absolutely will not stop... ever, until you are dead.

Perhaps that was just the magic of Jobs, who definitely felt things. But he didn't make the iPhone single handedly.

Apple also made the Newton. But folks don't call back to it or praise its makers very often.

I agree, but I don't think it would have been as polished as the iPhone out of the gate.

> Apple also made the Newton. But folks don't call back to it or praise its makers very often.

As a sibling comment mentioned, I think the Newton was perhaps better than you're giving it credit for, but my point isn't that Apple makes great products, it's that it's possible at certain times for certain teams within large companies to "feel it".

Perhaps entertainment could be another example. Do you think the team that made Wall-E didn't "feel it"? What about Zelda Breath of the Wild?

I think people are forgetting how extremely unpolished the iPhone was out of the gate. No app store. Even something as fundamental as copy/paste took until years later.