Is Apple starting to lose its ‘cool’?

I just don’t know about this one.  Well, actually I do know about it, and I think Apple has gone off the deep end.

If you are unaware of what’s going on, here’s a quick recap:

Apple has decided to attempt to enforce patents that have allegedly been infringed upon by competitor HTC.  A little more in depth background available here:

Apple sues HTC over iPhone patents (cnet)

Unfortunately, what’s really going on here is that Apple is just trying to obliterate the competition by suing them out of the smartphone business.  Apple has always been an innovative company.  More accurately, Apple has been a company that knows how to perfect a maturing technology.  They take a few disparate technologies (cell phone, MP3 player, GPS, e-mail, mobile web browser, etc.), throw them in one sleek box (iPhone), seal it tightly so that no one can jeopardize their OOBE, and charge a huge amount of money for the whole experience.  But the upshot of all this is that Apple moves the consumer market forward,  They make everyone else play catch-up.

And others are starting to catch up.  Windows Mobile should have had this market wrapped up several years ago.  They’ve been pushing smartphones for years but have always been just short of mass appeal.  In fact, my last two phones were both Windows Mobile based phones, one of which was the HTC S620.  Again, as a perfect example, the “HTC S620” did a lot of things quite well, but “HTC S620” just doesn’t sound nearly as sexy as the “iPhone.”  No fun = no sales.

Anyway, one article (and there are several) that shares my opinion of the lawsuits is available here:

Why Apple’s Really Suing HTC (PC World)

One nice way to try and get a grasp of how Steve Jobs’ mind works is to listen to what he has said over the years.  After listening to this quote from an old YouTube video, it sounds as if Steve has had expertise in this area before, but maybe on the other side of the fence: