Understanding this about Apple helps explain otherwise inexplicable decisions, such as why Apple got into the mobile phone handset business, and why the company is so ambivalent about business products.

To Apple, the mobile phone industry proved clueless at how to offer a compelling user experience with a phone, with its history of cramped buttons and claustrophobic user interfaces. They believed, correctly it turns out, that their designers could drop a game-changing phone into the market and "change the world" again. But when Apple casts its gaze at the enterprise space, it doesn't see sufficiently compelling design problems that will emotionally affect users. So why bother?

Apple's choices in markets it gets into make no sense, unless you understand that they don't want to dominate industries, or even maximize revenues. They just want to design and sell better products that will affect user experience in markets where that's an achievable goal.

Of course, business success is great. But Apple sees that as only a means to the end of shipping thrilling designs.

Steve Jobs was recently named by Fortune Magazine. I'm sure Jobs' ego was pleased by the designation. But ultimately, he doesn't care about this sort of thing as much as you might expect. Jobs doesn't want to be viewed by history as a Lee Iacocca or a Henry Ford. He wants posterity to look at him as a Mozart or a Da Vinci. He wants to be seen as a builder of beautiful things, not a builder of business empires.