You don't think Apple "drove hype" for the iPad? Seriously?
Also, I'd be willing to bet that Microsoft ships more new products each year than Apple (meaning a larger number of different products, not just more total).
What Apple doesn’t do – at least not anymore since Jobs is back – is show concepts or prototypes (save those lost in bars :). They just don’t ever talk about future products. Or if they do, you will get what they announce no more than a few months later.
I’m pretty sure Apple had their own Courier, their own Origami. They could have produced the most beautiful and eye-popping concept videos you can imagine. Only they didn’t.
Concept videos are just a bad idea. Companies shouldn’t make them public. Only show me products you committed to producing. If you don’t do that you run the risk of looking like someone who can‘t keep promises.
This isn't just a policy on projects. Last year I was talking to an engineer on the compilers team about some of the work they were doing on LLVM/Clang, and even he wouldn't talk about unreleased features. This is a compiler! Not the latest iPod or MacBook, and yet I just kept hearing the same mantra, "We don't discuss unannounced products.
And why do you think this is? Because they don't release concept videos, and they deliver really polished products on their own time. People say Apple is all about marketing, but that's a joke. The press does all of Apple's marketing for them, all Apple needs to do is keep generating hits.
There is a fundamental difference between a shipping product that doesn't meet its sales targets and gets canned and a leaked video of a non-existent product that gets canned before production.
Apple's failed products are more notable because of two facts:
* they release very small number of products
* there have only had a small number of failed products
Also, I'd be willing to bet that Microsoft ships more new products each year than Apple (meaning a larger number of different products, not just more total).