Also of course with the launch of the iPhone, it was plain better than the rest, even though Steve Ballmer joked about it, the press was impressed and many people bought it. A big enough iPhone user base for many media outlets to cover a lot of Apple’s news and rumors.

Yet they manage to get the press, not just tech but ordinary news media, to write about the smallest of rumor about a future product.

But, IMHO, they don’t actually DO any marketing to catalyse or inspire such behaviour by the press. Sure, they don’t talk about their products before they are a few weeks away from being ready to ship (at least to developers), but then neither does a, say, toothpaste company or a maker of luxury watches, or whatever else. In any case, I don’t really see how it can be argued that saying little (i.e. not marketing a lot) is great marketing.

I suppose evolving keynote speeches at conferences/conventions into periodic, standalone, ‘hero product’-focused media events is a marketing mechanism that was popularised (pioneered? – I have no idea…) by Apple, but it is now something that is widely practiced.

This lack of tech-centric largesse has been added to the list of ways my parents failed me.

I seriously grew up in the wrong household if cutting edge tech gadgets are intended for kids.