Actually, there has been innovation in PC's
it's just all been crushed by MS (mostly) and Intel.
For example, OS/2's WPS was a real advance in U/I design, still ahead of the current PC state of the art.
However, in the main I do agree with you; the only companies that seem dedicated to good industrial design in personal computing are Apple and Sony, and Sony isn't as innovative as Apple (e.g. they haven't improved U/I's).
OTOH, they both share some bad traits, such as significantly higher prices (with exceptions; Sony's Clies are quite competitive), and the desire to monopolize their customers.
And, I think you understand the importance of price. If it costs too much, it might as well not exist. For example, in my job, distributed I/O might as well not exist since it adds too much cost to be considered for everything we've done so far; it doesn't pass a cost/benefits analysis.
Price is a real problem for Apple. If tower Mac's were cheaper (say <$1K), I'd have one, but at current prices it's simply not worth it. Eventually I'll get one, but it'll have to wait until I have Apple's level of cash to spend and their price/performance ratio is better (which probably means either G5 or Hammer). And, with tools such as Python, I can be very productive on PC's.
Tony
