Two approaches to products

There are, or at least seem to be, two distinct approaches to developing products. The first is to develop products that people need, whether they know it or not. These products may not be pretty or particularly fun, but they are the things that you absolutely need, whether you know it or not. People almost never love the products produced by companies who follow this path, but they'd be lost without them. This is what Google does, and it's why some of their products change everything and others flop completely.

The other approach is to build beautiful products. The kind of things that people love and feel they absolutely HAVE to have. These products may be "game changers", but they rarely make any really major impact on the world (not counting the obvious commercial impact). Apple falls firmly into this category. They can produce a product that's laughably inferior, but it's so blasted pretty that people will rush and line up to spend massive amounts of money to buy it. It's as rare for products in this category to not be huge commercial successes as it is for the products to meaningfully change the world or anyone's life.