Every time Apple has entered a new market segment, the wailing sirens of punditry have scrambled to scream out their logic of how impossible it will be for the company to ever get established, to meaningfully change the rules, and to succeed commercially. And at the same time, those same critics frequently throw out the idea that Apple doesn't even have to try to succeed in hardware, because its audience of raving fans will blindly buy any overpriced, underperforming thing the company releases. In both cases, they're wrong, here's why.