What's the best Microsoft desktop OS? Which is the best Dell screen? Which is the best keyboard? Motorola phone? The current year's Apple lineup has always been better than the last year's, and that's what the "best ever" statements mean to me, and I believe that's what they mean to the target audience: "This is new, and it works at least as well as the old stuff."
Which other company, which other product line of comparable complexity, introduces features without compromising usability?
I like Apple products as much as the next guy, but cmon, this is some serious kool-aid drinking here.
Apple doesn't produce software that is any less issue prone than any other vendor. In fact the chorus complaining about software regressions has been getting louder and louder, even from Apple fans.
Yosemite was a particularly low point with regard to Apple software.
http://fieldguide.gizmodo.com/the-worst-bugs-in-os-x-yosemit...
http://www.tekrevue.com/yosemite-bugs-time-for-another-snow-...
Software is hard. Apple aren't special, their software has just as many issues as any other vendor's, which is actually kind of disappointing given they have full control of the hardware, MS actually does a lot better with regard to software quality given the varied HW landscape Windows is deployed to.
Edit: Software quality isn't just a Yosemite issue with Apple, it's a long running joke that you should never install a X.0 OSX release due to bugs.
I don't think it's remarkable at all. It would be remarkable if they weren't getting better year after year.
You understand that sales growth can't last forever right?
iPad for example has had that happening to it (later revision sold less well).
Virtually any device you put out that's not exactly, spec-by-spec the same, you can say 'never been a product like this before'. It's true and empty.
They do a lot of those, they're true, hyperbolic, and totally devoid of any significance.
For example they'll say 'the iPhone 6 was the most popular iPhone ... EVER'. As if it's significant. But that's completely unexpected and it's not news, either. I'll happily take a 10 trillion dollar bet that the iPhone 7 will sell even better. And that the new Galaxy S 6 sells better than the 5, and the 7 will sell better than the 6, too.
Or they'll say the iPhone 6S is the most advanced iPhone ... EVER. As if, again, that's news. As if we think they built a 6S that's worse than the 6.
It's a truthful, hyperbolic, totally insignificant statement. It's different from a falsehood.
Calling a 3 second video, a photo, in the sense that it's a bunch of photo frames, that's more of a direct falsehood to me. We use the word photo to denote a still image, and video for multiple frames of photos. But that's a marketing gimmick that's more ridiculous than it is disingenuous.
As for innovation, I mostly agree. The ability to execute extremely well and polish your work isn't innovation. It can be driven by innovations of course but it's not the kind of innovation we talk about when we refer to Apple's history. Since the iPhone 4 I've mostly felt a ton of polish but no real breakthroughs on the phone department for example, tablet wise... mostly just solid iterations like everyone else, nothing fundamentally innovative about the iPad 4 or Air or mini, really. Pro feels like more of the same, split screen we've seen before, styluses we've seen before. Again, executed well and polished.
I mean of course there's innovation, but it's not what sets them apart. Look at Force Touch for example, now 3D touch. People probably missed the fact Huawei demo'd force touch last week on their android phone. And that's a feature we'd think of as their innovation. Others, like a large tablet, split screen, type covers, wireless charging, a stylus, 3-second videos (called live photos) etc are all seen before.