In the market of electronics, there always seems to be that one product or brand that the majority of the public trusts in a way that causes somewhat of a monopoly in a certain branch of technology.

Today, “that” branch is portable technology and it’s located on an Apple tree.

Since Steve Jobs struck business gold with the company-saving iPod device several years ago, Apple has been on the rise, and the public has slowly become assimilated to Apple’s supremacy in almost every major portable tech field.

They started with mp3 players, and took over the market there. Then they took on mobile micro-computing (iPod Touch), cell phones (iPhone), and as of a few weeks ago, the almighty iPad.

They then used this newfound dominance to revamp their laptop and desktop PC lines tagged with what had quickly become the most recognizable name in technology.

What has this meant for the average electronics consumer? Well I’m glad you asked that question.

It means that most other companies have product launches that are quickly reiterated due to bugs and other first-batch inadequacies (hello there, 50% Xbox 360 fail rate), which almost always give potential customers pause when considering buying on launch day.

Apple, however, can release just about anything they want whether it’s ready or not, and people will flock to their stores and overpay to their heart’s desire to get anything with Apple’s brand name on it.

Take the iPad for example.

About a month ago, the world held its breath waiting for Apple to announce a tablet PC to expand its territory and beat everyone else to the punch.
Instead, they were introduced to an oversized, over-glorified iPod Touch, complete with a huge screen, no buttons, and rather questionable potential.
Expectations aside, half a million iPads were sold in the first week alone.

This goes to show that when a company gets as big and bad as Apple has become over the past decade, it wouldn’t matter if they unveiled the iPeanutButterandJellySandwich at a press conference tomorrow, you can bet it will sell like hotcakes from Day One and Apple would soon take over the food market.

Usually, when you’re looking to make a rather sizable purchase of something, you wait to see if the product is a good buy early in the release cycle, and 9 times out of 10, that’s the smart choice to make.

1 out of every 10 times, though, Apple will be the developer of the product in question and it might just be a wise move to adopt early, trust in the monopolist, pay $499 and continue directly to GO.