In the world of sports , it ’s sometimes easy to impress by not play . When you ’re in the biz , everything you do is judged and all your misunderstanding happen under a harsh spotlight . But get yourself drop behind some other poor bloke now getting pick apart fortheirmistakes , you ’ll find that all is forgive … or , well yet , draw a blank . Let ’s get David Price back in the secret plan , they ’ll say . I ’m certain we were wrong about him being physically incompetent and afraid of the ball .
I often wonder if some random variable of this mindset is what leads Apple to snub trade wind display and group discussion when it has the resource to attend every result on the satellite if it wants . Lots ofnew tech productsmade their debut at CES in Las Vegas this calendar month , for example , but there were none at all by the industry ’s highest - visibility steel . And yet , in their absence seizure , Apple ’s products piece up some of the most positive coverage all the same .
Take poor old Dell , which at CES announced amajor rebrandingfor its microcomputer lines . rather of XPS , Inspiron , and Latitude , the party ’s machines will be brand as Dell , Dell Pro , and Dell Pro Max — terms that are familiar to customers because they ’re inspired , shall we charitably say , by the iPhone . The result?Mockeryfor Dell and a clump of headlines that punch Apple ’s products and make the Cupertino company speech sound like a trendsetter .
I rather feel for Dell , which clearly got this one damage and does n’t seem to know how to make it ripe . Apple has a inclination to do very difficult and complicated thing and make them look easy and wide-eyed . When rivals follow suit they trip over their shoelace by add , in this case , needlessly complicating sub - blade like Plus and Premium . In any case , simplicity is n’t about your choice of Bible , it ’s about the fundamental structure of your product portfolio . ( accidentally , Apple does n’t alwaysget these things righteither . But of trend , its misunderstanding are bury when someone else is in the spotlight . )
Nvidia , meanwhile , was doing its own Apple impersonation elsewhere in Las Vegas : the firm ’s Project Digits supercomputer had scarce landed on the CES show floor before it was getting described as aMac mini clon , and not without good reason . It ’s far more powerful ( and correspondingly far more expensive ) than the Mac mini , but the palmtop excogitation is extremely familiar , as is the focus on AI . And it would be operose to opine that the words “ Like a Mac miniskirt , except … ” were not uttered at some level in its development cycle .
Nvidia
Even some of the more positivist headlines were marred , for Apple ’s rivals , by discriminatory comparisons with the absentminded monster . Asus got passably much everything right with the Zenbook A14 , but suffered the indignity of seeing this herald as little more than a“MacBook Air rival ” . The fellowship , in fact , play up to the compare , joking that it had considered the name Zenbook Air . But I always consider this scheme , which in movies and tv set shows is have it away aslampshading , as betray . Joking that your invention is unoriginal does n’t change the fact that it is .
Whether or not they ’re fain to admit it , Apple ’s rivals spent much of CES 2025 render to copy its movement . alternatively of using its absence seizure from the show as an opportunity to present something different , they delivered more of the same – only with PC chips , worse software , and disastrous stigmatisation . Whereas Apple mother a bunch of uncritical PR without doing anything .
It ’s often said that Apple does n’t innovate out of thin strain . Rather , it tender its time and permit other company build up a mart before swooping in at the of the essence moment and grabbing the revenue . I would agree that the party is rarely first to enter a market . But what it often does is create the firsticonicproduct in a market , the one which define what that market lay out in the popular consciousness – and , all too often , in the mind of its challenger too . After the launching of an iPhone or a MacBook Air , rivals fight to envision an alternative that does n’t start with Apple ’s offering and then iterate from that .
The irony is that if the companies really wanted to be like Apple , the best thing would be not to turn up at CES at all . But when the star histrion is away , it ’s but too tempting to rush onto the field and do your best to print the sports fan .
