Fom Merriam-Webster Dictionary.

The key word is introduction, as opposed to creation. Creating something new is invention. Introducing it is innovation. As all guitar companies are businesses, introducing means selling, ie commercially exploiting.

And you’re oh so wrong about Apple. Its reputation was dirt a decade ago. The iMac and iPod, and now the iPhone have changed that. Apple doesn’t invent, it innovates. It takes existing technologies and puts them together in a way that no one else has. As a result its products are easier and more pleasurable to use than competing products.

You’re right about offering little choice. But that’s the point. There’s the Apple way, which tends to be easier, more fun, and more productive than the alternative which is usually cheaper, more versatile, more infuriating, and less secure.

But to say that Apple gets by on its reputation is, frankly, nonsense.

Oh, and I’m very anti-apple, for the same reasons I’m anti gibson. They offer very very little choice and there are many ways to do the same things far better. They get by almost solely on their reputation.

Look at Apple. Most people would describe it as the most innovative computer company there is and one of the most innovative companies in the world. Yet it has invented very little and uses other company’s parts in its kit. Saying Gibson isn’t innovative cos it uses bought in parts is like saying Apple isn’t innovative because it uses Intel processors and ATI graphics cards.

That said, it does appear more concerned with re-issuing signature versions and classics than moving forward in the innovation stakes.

In short, everything gibson do NOT do. Gibson have yet to embrace the locking trem, nor the tonepros bridge which improves on their much loved TOM design. They made a reactionary statement to Kahler bridges by making a shoddy copy that many gibson aficionados have never even seen due the their erasing of it from history. And their attempts at incorporating a FR onto a TOM mount were laughable at best.

And please don’t bring up that horrible ‘Magic’ midi guitar monstrosity they were promoting prior to this robot baloney. Even fender are more innovative, at least they know of the existence of modelling technology!

The quality of the product aside, those are not changes conducive to keeping epiphone in the high end or innovation race. This ensure epiphone will only continue to innovate after other companies. And when you’re tied to a company who wouldn’t know real innovation if it slapped them in the face, thats not a good thing.