The Apple "magic" is actually based on advantages of some Apple products. Apple notebooks are not bad and have a good software set. If compare with Windows it is much better. And people who don't want to do a self-support and non-Windows choses it. The same can be said about iPhone, actually.

But Apple is not wizard and sometime their products are not very good but average. However, S.J. has a brain and he creates a culture of i* (you described it pretty well) and that products are sold well too.