Apple is facing a crisis of salesmanship

Apple haters have always made the case that the company's massive success is as much the product of marketing and salesmanship as it is any kind of technical innovation. Whatever else Apple cofounder Steve Jobs was, he was the consummate salesman. Maybe the original iPhone could have sold itself back in 2007, but Jobs' legendary introductory event definitely helped. But the world has changed. As smartphone innovation seems to have plateaued, the tech giants of the world, notably Google, Microsoft, and Facebook, have doubled down on machine learning and artificial intelligence -- the trendy technology that's making for smarter, more personalized apps and devices.