Beating the first Android phone to the market by a more than a year (Parrish, May 3, 2012), the phone took us from phones that looked ND functioned strictly like phones, to multi-touch devices that combined phones, cameras, games and Imps Into one device.

Another big success for Apple was the Pod. Even though It wasn't the first IMP player out there, according to The Telegraph, "Apple's pod arguably kick-started the digital music revolution. " due in part to the ability to create playbills and shuffle songs. It also integrates seamlessly with tunes, another major success for Apple. Tunes allows you to purchase, categorize, store and update your music and pod all from your own personal computer. Using tunes enables consumers to obtain all of their music, app, elevation, movie and reading needs in one place-?and is functional across technology platforms, allowing for more portability of a customer's media.

There are entire industries that base their product launches on the needs of tunes, phone and pod users-?entertainment markets being only one of many. In fact, you can include almost any Apple offering in their "l" naming convention series as a success in one way or another!Apple has many other successes-?the graphical user interface (GAL.) that they pioneered for their first successful home computer, the Macintosh, changed the way we Interact with computers. The Imax was a successful meshing of affordability (something not often associated with Apple products), functionality and design-?another trait that consumers worldwide associate with Apple. Mac SOX is considered one of the most stable and effective operating systems on the market by many users and pundits alike. Even some of Apple's failures changed the nature of that market.

For example, the Newton, Apple's contribution to the PDA market was not a fantastic success. While cumbersome and clunky, the Newton had a feature that pioneered PDA technology-?handwriting recognition software. The next big PDA that came out, the Palm Pilot, included this feature as one of its key selling points. Two other failures-?the round USB mouse for the Imax and the Mac Power 64 Cube suffered mainly from a priority of form over function.

The USB mouse was soundly panned for being difficult to hold because of its lack of ergonomic presence.The Mac Power GO Cube was attractive, for sure, but having a lack of a fan caused It to overheat and users soundly disliked the lack of expandability. The attention to design above and beyond considerations of usability is what ultimately caused these products to fail. I remember the Rook cell phone-? Apple's collaboration with Motorola designed to combine an IMP player with a cell phone, never quite hit the mark. Even though destined to become one of Apple's legendary failures, due to failures in ease of use, this early combined product clearly BUT make a phone call! ) How much of Apple's success can be linked directly back to its culture? Why? David Caldwell, a professor of Management at Santa Clara University was quoted in Businesslike as defining company culture as "a shared understanding of assumptions and expectations among an organization's members, ND it is reflected in the policies, vision, and goals of that organization.

" (Merchant, 2010, paragraph 4) It would be difficult to describe a way in which Apple's company culture does NOT link directly to their success.With an internal focus on continually performing with excellence, all in the name of forward progression of the company, it's inevitable that the company would continue to demonstrate success in the majority of its endeavors. As Merchant noted in the same Businesslike article, "culture informs success" and he quotes Stephen Saddle, Chairman of the Board and Chief Executive of Asks as saying says "Culture drives innovation and whatever else you are trying to accomplish within a company-?innovation, execution, whatever it's going to be.And that then drives results," later on the page.

(Merchant, 2010, paragraph 5). 3) How do the actions of Apple apply to the Tacos? I think Apple is an excellent company to study in relation to our Tacos. They're not just at the forefront of technological innovation, they ARE the forefront. A close look at their company can easily lend a clear view of innovation for their industry-?they have multiple technologies that have changed the dynamics of many industries.

They've altered consumer interaction with cell technology, media offerings and personal computing levels.They provide a clear picture of how to best protect their innovation (through secrecy) and through their company's pioneering offerings, I think they clearly demonstrate their core technological competencies are an ability to anticipate desires consumers don't even know they have and bring them into reality. Apple's continual ability to innovate on their own products, create new solutions to problems we never knew we had and persistent ability to reinvent themselves wrought changes in leadership makes them a company to research when investigating innovation and strategic management of technology.