With the Iphone X, Apple Made Some Big Changes to Who Gets Review Units First, and Not Everyone is Taking It Very Well

The writing has been on the wall

The hubbub may seem like the kind of parochial, media tempest in a teacup that only journalists care about. But it's points to a bigger change that has defined the Apple story over the past decade or more.

Just a few days before the first iPhone was unveiled in 2007 , Apple still officially called itself Apple Computer . It was a small niche player in the computer and consumer electronics industry. 

Since then, the company has evolved remarkably. It's become the most valuable company in the world with major influence far beyond the tech industry. And it's become as much a mass-market lifestyle brand as a computer vendor. Indeed, Apple is arguably now more of a luxury company than a tech company, with buyers of the iPhoneX just as likely to buy a Louis Vuitton product instead, noted an analyst at HSBC Holdings on Tuesday.

As Apple has evolved, its marketing has had to change too, to reach new audiences and customers far beyond its tech fan base. And that's meant shedding, or at least de-emphasizing, some of its old ways and old friends as dispassionately as it dropped the word "computer" from its name.

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