If everyone designed products with this sort of discipline...

Q: What are your goals when setting out to build a new product?

A: Our goals are very simple — to design and make better products. If we can’t make something that is better, we won’t do it.

Q: Why has Apple’s competition struggled to do that?

A: Most of our competitors are interested in doing something different, or want to appear new — I think those are completely the wrong goals. A product has to be genuinely better. This requires real discipline, and that’s what drives us — a sincere, genuine appetite to do something that is better.

… then maybe, FINALLY, I could drop the label of fanboy. It’s easy to tell when someone’s pushing and asking what the device is about, and when someone’s running off with a successful form factor and adding some marketing taglines.

The unbeatable iPad.

The other potential scenario, though, is far less optimistic for Apple’s competitors. It’s the iPod model. In this story, Apple begins by releasing a novel, category-defining product. Then, as rivals scramble for some way to respond, Apple relentlessly puts out slightly better versions every year, each time remaining just out of reach of the competition. Meanwhile it lowers its prices and expands its product lineup, making its devices more accessible to a wider audience. Then, to finish the game, it finds a way to boost its position through network effects and customer lock-in. (In the iPod’s case, it accomplished this through the iTunes software and built-in music store.) Put it all together and you have a device that’s unbeatable.

It’s becoming harder and harder to see how this isn’t the most likely outcome. The only other tablets to move at any volume are being sold AT A LOSS. That’s not going to fly, not with the margins Amazon and the like hold in the content world.

Wake me up when someone can move units AND make some money while they’re at it.