Some would argue for a consumer oriented company selling expensive goods to be profitable, a marketing company is the only kind of company it can be.

Marketing means understanding your users, and if you don't understand your users how do you convince them to give you the money? Users are not like government officials or company executives where you can convince them by a slideshow or a list of bullet points about why the product is great; the product itself needs to be great because consumers are the ones using it.

And "great" depends on your user's perspective.

Absolutely. No technology comes out of Apple at all. You should try and maintain some grip on reality, for your own sake

I disagree - yesterday's event was not flashy at all. It was all about hardware and specs. Even the short jab at marketing didn't seem too serious ("lightning and thunderbolt, haha").

I'm still not sure how to feel about this. I think I love the iPhone 5, but iOS6 feels underwhelming.