Could Apple be what it is today without it's superb product designs? Early versions of the iPod actually had fewer features than many other MP3 players already on the market. When the iPod came out MP3 players were old news, yet they took over the market.

I have noticed lately that designers and user experience pros are talking more about Experience design and less about Usability design. Apple was the first to master the MP3 "experience". Then they did the same thing with the iPhone and took the smartphone to a new level.

The man behind-the-scenes at Apple is Jonathn Ive. He recently got accolades from the DailyMail article How did a British polytechnic graduate become the design genius behind £200billion Apple? He created all the great designs we have seen out of Apple over the past decade.  I also found this nice article (from 2007) which shows some of his designs... DesignMuseum - Jonathan Ive.

A great quote from the Design Museum article...

"So many companies are competing against each other with similar agendas. Being superficially different is the goal of so many of the products we see. A preoccupation with differentiation is the concern of many corporations rather than trying to innovate and genuinely taking the time, investing the resources and caring enough to try and make something better." - Jonathan Ive

It's not enough to simply "be different".  Innovation takes time, resources and caring.  It's made a difference for Apple.  What about you and your company?