Can anyone please tell me what exactly Apple does or has done other than make things that look nice?

The best desktop operating system out there, for starters.

They created technology that helped basically define millennials. It wasn't even about the product, it was about fitting in and being "cool". Appeal to the lowest common denominator and then suddenly everyone is able to act the same.

Their buyers legitimately think that they're looking to the future when they get an Apple product.

This is largely due to their marketing campaigns though. Picturing Einstein and Gandhi as influential others to justify their design choices reeled a ton of people in. That and personification of their system versus the common PC made people actually want to see their commericals because they thought they were either funny, or validated their choice of switching to Mac.

They played their consumers into liking their products because other people, real or not, dead or alive, supposedly did. Because Apple said so.

They've helped create a more competitive consumer electronics industry. Competition lead to innovation. You can send them a thank you letter any time.

>They've helped create a more competitive consumer electronics industry.

No

It was a division of Lucasfilm until Jobs bought it.
He kept Pixar alive during the 80s when they were bleeding cash trying to be a hardware company.

This. If it wasn't for them, you would be still using these shitty netbooks instead of the God-tier ultrabooks you have available today. And mobile phones would be pretty different.

There was a time when the keywords were "iphone killer" so.....yes

they created a new religion

Their products are overrated, but what makes them attractive is that they focus on the people behind the products.The Designer, Software Design, Engineering, Hardware Engineering

An Indian, Chinese or Android type company cares about nothing but a textbook MBA faggots who do nothing within the company

They have an enormous, unprecedented influence on the market, far more than any competitor and I actually think they use this influence responsibly. Even rumours about Apple doing something triggers the whole industry to get off their asses and push something out. I like the effect this has on the electronics industry, it's way faster and creative now than it was ten or even twenty years ago.

>Year after the phone's release, if not 2 years if really is a 6 and not mistakenly reported 6S model.

Meanwhile in the first month of Galaxy Exploder 7 sales...

An iSheep sees their products as a fashion statement, a religious icon and some sort of warped symbol for identifying the "superior and enlightened" beings among mankind. And to fulfill their cause, they must act and behave according to the gospel of Steve Jobs in lock step.

I don't know a single person who thinks that about their Apple shit and I know a lot of people who own a lot of Apple shit. You should get out a little m8

get rekt OP

Apple designs its products and software. Everyone else farms out one or the other.

smartphones in their modern form
started the trend of little GUI personal computers
started the trend of GPU accelerated desktops

But iPhone revolutionized the smartphone industry

...

LLVM