I think this is pretty naive. Apple's products, for the most part, are very successful. Either Steve Jobs is just extraordinarily average or they do quite a bit of market research. In fact, one of Apple's first hires was a guy who specialized in collecting data from user-testing and figuring out how to make applications better fit how they were used in the real world.
That's one way to do it, but not the only one. For example, it's not how Apple designs products -- their design criterion is whatever Jobs likes.