Apple's business model offers a lot more stability and predictability, allowing longer timelines for planning future hardware and software development.
Good - except for this statement which is total complete rubbish.
Apple has the absolute worst stability and predictability in the entire industry. Give your head a shake.
It’s why Xserve died. Why education left. Why they are hemorrhaging what’s left of the creative market. Apple has next to no business presence left period and it’s entirely due to their lack of stability and predictability. It’s why the Mac Pro is dead in the water as well.
A history littered with short-lived proprietary connections and unsupported software does not scream stability.
Apple flogs consumer goods now because it can’t compete on stability and predictability. It’s not in its DNA. (How stable can a company that pushes innovation be?)
The only glue holding it all together is the App Store. Apple has even admitted this by pointing to its future as content creation, health, and services.
I could tell who the author of this atricle was just by reading the title. Maybe I need to spend less time in the "computer world".
So when you see an article that places Apple in a positive light, explaining why Apple is still around and still greatly influencing the digital marketplace you immediately assume it’s more fake news from the author? Only articles critical of Apple or predictive of gloom and doom for the company are valid and newsworthy? Editorials like this are simply fanboy fantasies?
It has nothing to do with being a fan boy, it is about being gullible. People see these long wordy article and for what ever reason take them as the absolute truth. Rather they represent a perspective just like any other article and requires the reader to consider the veracity of the points offered. For whatever reason many take DED’s writing style book line and sinker.
The interesting thing here is that this is perhaps one of DEDs better write ups in that it is largely reflective of history with few distortions. Well as far as I got in the article, I really have trouble with this sort of writing. It is in the same style as the garbage seen on many conspiracy theory sites that use misleading language to get points across.
In a nut shell DED reminds me too much of the writing seen on those conspiracy theory sites and as such is repulsive. Consider what you would think of people that keep flooding you with links to these sites. Would you consider them well informed or gullible and stupid? Frankly when I see people praise these articles, in absolute glowing manner, I loose all respect for them as intelligent creatures. Maybe this is the result of being around since the first personal computers came out and seeing some of this first hand. The reality is that there are many explanations for the failure of almost every competitor to Windows. Believe it or not many companies where simply mismanaged or otherwise shot themselves in the foot.
Tesla is also like Apple selling tightly integrated software with premium hardware, while eschewing useless buttons, knobs, and dashboards in favor of a simple user interface. Tesla is the Apple of automobiles, so much so that I wonder why Apple itself is tip-toeing into the market. Although usually Apple enters a market later than established players, it does so with innovation that shows what the high-volume crowd missed entirely. What could Apple think that Tesla possibly is doing wrong? Maybe the car market is so vast that there can be multiple luxury vendors, or several mass market near-luxury-but-innovative participants.
Windows has proven long ago that the main dimension for product differentiation in computing devices is the OS not hardware. Meaning a mass market for 'high end' Windows machines can never be sustained as long as dirt-cheap good-enough Windows machines are available. Even people who can afford it will pick the low cost machines because the pace of technological change is so fast, who would want to spend a lot of money on a machine that will be outdated in 3 years?
The seminal case is Northgate Computers who started selling DOS-Windows machines using high end components and materials in 1987 and was filing for Chapter 11 by 1994. Steve Jobs knew this so the one of the first things he did when he regained control of Apple was to kill Apple's licensing program. The idea that the clones would sell to the low end Mac market while Apple reserved the high end of the market for itself was just sheer stupidity. High end Macs will not sell as long as dirt-cheap clones are available.
Fast forward to Google and Android. When it first came out, I predicted that the same dynamic will apply and there will be no sustainable market for high-end Android phones. I also predicted that Android will be the phone OS of choice in the third world. 2 out of 2. Not that I was going out on a limb with those predictions.
The amazing thing is that Google thought that Android phones would not repeat the pattern shown by Windows computers. So much for hiring Ivy League economics professors to advise them.
Actually Apple has found a workaround against your (perfectly sound) reasoning, by selling simultaneous generations of iPhones, some of them at very competitive price. But the trick is of course that it is not "high end" versus "low end", but "recent" versus "not so recent (but which used to be an high end, not so long ago, though !)" ......
This is a very good point and interesting that other electronics segments & industries haven't picked up on this strategy more. maybe in time.
Windows has proven long ago that the main dimension for product differentiation in computing devices is the OS not hardware. Meaning a mass market for 'high end' Windows machines can never be sustained as long as dirt-cheap good-enough Windows machines are available. Even people who can afford it will pick the low cost machines because the pace of technological change is so fast, who would want to spend a lot of money on a machine that will be outdated in 3 years?
The seminal case is Northgate Computers who started selling DOS-Windows machines using high end components and materials in 1987 and was filing for Chapter 11 by 1994. Steve Jobs knew this so the one of the first things he did when he regained control of Apple was to kill Apple's licensing program. The idea that the clones would sell to the low end Mac market while Apple reserved the high end of the market for itself was just sheer stupidity. High end Macs will not sell as long as dirt-cheap clones are available.
Fast forward to Google and Android. When it first came out, I predicted that the same dynamic will apply and there will be no sustainable market for high-end Android phones. I also predicted that Android will be the phone OS of choice in the third world. 2 out of 2. Not that I was going out on a limb with those predictions.
The amazing thing is that Google thought that Android phones would not repeat the pattern shown by Windows computers. So much for hiring Ivy League economics professors to advise them.
Not so amazing, economics isn't a science, its more like astrology. It’s ‘professors’ can be seen as counselors for kings from the past.
Tesla is also like Apple selling tightly integrated software with premium hardware, while eschewing useless buttons, knobs, and dashboards in favor of a simple user interface. Tesla is the Apple of automobiles, so much so that I wonder why Apple itself is tip-toeing into the market. Although usually Apple enters a market later than established players, it does so with innovation that shows what the high-volume crowd missed entirely. What could Apple think that Tesla possibly is doing wrong? Maybe the car market is so vast that there can be multiple luxury vendors, or several mass market near-luxury-but-innovative participants.
Apple understands computers, not cars. Tesla understands computers and cars.
Those who talk about Window's dominance seldom get it right: They didn't dominate because they had a better mousetrap. They dominated because they had a (far) better marketing scheme(s).
First, after getting IBM to subsidize them then turning around and stabbing them in the back, they essentially gave Windows away to OEM's who couldn't pass it up even though it was junk -- that gave them an near monopoly in the market*. Then they opened up the corporate market with Server and Office. And that was it. (They also dominated the media so that they got almost all rave reviews for their crap product).
But, since then, they have matured and are putting out high quality products. You can argue that this one or that one is better -- but Microsoft software can generally hold its own these days.
* Incidentally, Google is pursuing a similar strategy in public education -- flood the market with cheap products.
Nothing to argue against in there, aside from the length and the compulsion to do free marketing for the company who’s products are the core news topic of this site.
One thing that is absent from the article is the statement of fact about dominant-positioned companies becoming complacent ALSO includes Apple. Apple was complacent and slow to advance Classic Mac OS, which handed the win to Microsoft (it wasn’t just their anticompetitive business practices).
Once again, Apple is behaving the same way: several products are priced continuously higher without an actual value proposition to match, some products that were staples of consumer satisfaction are gutted or dropped (iWork was gutted, Aperture and AirPort discontinued, and I’d offer the argument that iPhone’s usability was gutted at iOS 7’s GUI reskin, but the majority of Apple fanatics would rather support anti-intellectualism and slam GUI design specialists as “arrogant know it alls” than accept that there’s actual science to GUI design).
Some products are having their market potential reduced to a tiny fraction of their original scope by being priced into the realm of impossible access for most of the customers who used to buy them (Mac Pro). The iPhone isn’t far behind. Aiming for luxury sales is self destructive when luxury is far more fad driven than value driven.
Worst of all is the complacency with iOS releases, where pushing out questionable-value new bullet-point features is prioritized over fixing existing bugs (while introducing new ones). I’ve listed the bugs here on countless occasions, most of which were introduced by iOS 7 and still not fixed as of iOS 12 (I’m still waiting on 13, but I have zero trust in it “being the one”). iOS developers are continuing to be pushed around by iOS API changes at excessive speed, causing 3rd-party apps to be abandoned because it apparently costs them too much to maintain existing apps.
------------------------------------
I have to add that a large chunk of reality is missing here.
Though I tend to agree with the bulk of what is said here by dysamoria, I was a PreSales Systems Engineer for Apple products at a major distributor in 1999. Apple's value was 12 BiLLION that year and falling. The company would have failed by the following year IMO.
The story and value of Job's coming back to the company is well documented, but the fact is without gutting of the product line, pulling back from the OS licensing cliff, and the introduction of the Bondi Blue iMac and then in its 5 'lifesaver' colors, and subsequent idea and execution of the iPod, this BiOSgraphy of MacOS and Windows 95 would be footnote somewhere. It bought them the time to do OSX.
Recently the deficiencies and quality of iOS 13 have been a mess form the HomePod debacle to the inability for new phones to handle Message and Notification alerts of all damn things, and power management issues for many. It would be nice to know if I get text of import on Watch 5 or iPhone 11. iPad OS 13 works like a charm, so this is bad iOS QA folks.
I won't get into Catalina, other than to say REALLY? - Yes, helpful I know.
Lastly, Apple's focus on and mismatch of luxury/perception vs value has been raised and the new AirPod Pros bring this out again like a glaring neon No Vacancy Sign.
$250 AirPod Pro - two excellent by fancy earbuds
$300 HomePod - Nifty high tech smart (Ahem) speaker $500-ish Apple Watch 5 w/Cell
So AirPods Pros are half the cost of latest state of the art wrist computer / phone (Apple Watch 5) ?
HomePods are nearly half the cost of an iPhone 11 - AN iPHONE?
I too am an 1984 Mac owner and I'm not going anywhere, but one does grow weary of being abused.
Punch and they slap but we just won[t leave them. Just saying.
Tesla is also like Apple selling tightly integrated software with premium hardware, while eschewing useless buttons, knobs, and dashboards in favor of a simple user interface. Tesla is the Apple of automobiles, so much so that I wonder why Apple itself is tip-toeing into the market. Although usually Apple enters a market later than established players, it does so with innovation that shows what the high-volume crowd missed entirely. What could Apple think that Tesla possibly is doing wrong? Maybe the car market is so vast that there can be multiple luxury vendors, or several mass market near-luxury-but-innovative participants.
Apple understands computers, not cars. Tesla understands computers and cars.
Meh, Tesla doesn't understand car manufacturing very well at all, and that will likely be its downfall, and frankly, there are in fact better EV's from the traditional manufacturers out, or on the way.
What Elon does understand is how to milk subsidies, which are being phased out worldwide, and how to make himself the cult figure that he is today with his outlandish statements.
A well written and thought out essay. I enjoyed reading it. It's fascinating stuff. I loved through much of this and dealt with the Mac or PC issue for years on staff and as a manager. I saw business recede from Macs then jump back on board. It's interesting to look back and really try and understand why Windows took off when it did. And why there was no magic method. Luck, timing, a 'good enough' product in an era of fairly basic electronic expectations from consumers. (remember the horrible interfaces on VCR's to record something!) It's odd to think how the iPod really did change things and while I did get a version 1 and loved it, I didn't get what it was really saying about the industry.
Yet even with Apple including Safari webbrowser to their iOS and macOS platforms, allegedly installed on more than 1.5 billion devices, its marketshare is a paltry 5.1%. Google's Chrome is on 72.4%, and people actually need to go online, download and install it. Somethings up, and it's not Apple's marketshare.
Marketshare of software is difficult to judge. Trying to gather info online even more so. I worked on several internet games that had 'marketshare' numbers that showed they were HUGE, HUGE I tell you. We all knew that wasn't true. That being said, does marketshare matter that much in this case? I've never understood that POV. Do people not buy Fords because more people buy Chevy (or whatever that market is). Marketshare is ONE metric that is often not the most important metric. More often than not it's subjective. If you and I each own a computer. Me a Dell and you an iMac and I work online and am online all day and you use your iMac a few times a week, does that matter? Or I use a PC at work and a Mac at home. What does that metric tell us? Profits seem to be more important and marketshare in a granular form might be more helpful. But it's not cut and dry.
Yet even with Apple including Safari webbrowser to their iOS and macOS platforms, allegedly installed on more than 1.5 billion devices, its marketshare is a paltry 5.1%. Google's Chrome is on 72.4%, and people actually need to go online, download and install it. Somethings up, and it's not Apple's marketshare.
Your stats and Wikipedia link refer to browser market share for desktop devices, yet you seem to be suggesting that it refers to all devices. That is not what it refers to.
Based on this source, Safari has 5.1% of the desktop market, worldwide. That's not really so surprising, is it? Here's more for you, in case you're interested in using information more appropriately: Click through to the source for Wikipedia's chart, (statcounter.com) and then click on their chart for 'all devices,' and Safari goes up to 15.09%. Select "mobile" and Safari has 22.47%. Select "tablet," and Safari is at 67.95%. That all kind of tracks with what one might expect for Safari.
The real news here is that, even though MS Windows tracks just shy of 80% of worldwide market share for desktop computers, Internet Explorer only represents 5.3% of the browser market and Edge 4%.
Windows won in part because of Microsoft's, shall we say. shrewd, dealings with IBM and other manufacturers.
By keeping the rights to DOS, and then by getting contracts that got them paid FOR EVERY PC A MANUFACTURER MADE, REGARDLESS OF OS, Microsoft basically closed the market for competing Wintel OSes for PC cloners.
Then bake in the economies of scale drive by an 'open' (thanks to COMPAQ's lead) architecture, and the explosion of Wintel was inevitable. As stated, a cloning economy for MacOS was wrong from the start. Apple needed to change the game, which they did starting with the iPod, then iTMS, then iMAC...and the rest is history,
Just remember, Android may gave 95% unit share of the phone market, but Apple has 95% profit share. Which would you rather have?
Yet even with Apple including Safari webbrowser to their iOS and macOS platforms, allegedly installed on more than 1.5 billion devices, its marketshare is a paltry 5.1%. Google's Chrome is on 72.4%, and people actually need to go online, download and install it. Somethings up, and it's not Apple's marketshare.
I could tell who the author of this atricle was just by reading the title. Maybe I need to spend less time in the "computer world".
So when you see an article that places Apple in a positive light, explaining why Apple is still around and still greatly influencing the digital marketplace you immediately assume it’s more fake news from the author? Only articles critical of Apple or predictive of gloom and doom for the company are valid and newsworthy? Editorials like this are simply fanboy fantasies?
It has nothing to do with being a fan boy, it is about being gullible. People see these long wordy article and for what ever reason take them as the absolute truth. Rather they represent a perspective just like any other article and requires the reader to consider the veracity of the points offered. For whatever reason many take DED’s writing style book line and sinker.
The interesting thing here is that this is perhaps one of DEDs better write ups in that it is largely reflective of history with few distortions. Well as far as I got in the article, I really have trouble with this sort of writing. It is in the same style as the garbage seen on many conspiracy theory sites that use misleading language to get points across.
In a nut shell DED reminds me too much of the writing seen on those conspiracy theory sites and as such is repulsive. Consider what you would think of people that keep flooding you with links to these sites. Would you consider them well informed or gullible and stupid? Frankly when I see people praise these articles, in absolute glowing manner, I loose all respect for them as intelligent creatures. Maybe this is the result of being around since the first personal computers came out and seeing some of this first hand. The reality is that there are many explanations for the failure of almost every competitor to Windows. Believe it or not many companies where simply mismanaged or otherwise shot themselves in the foot.
You talk about "conspiracy theory" writing by giving three paragraphs of character assignation and troubled concerns that you describe as "repulsive" and use other emotionally abusive negative language common to cult-style doubt and ad hominem attacks without ever factually supporting anything you are saying, and really without actually saying anything to support.
"I loose all respect for them as intelligent creatures." Is this an Onion comment?
Nothing to argue against in there, aside from the length and the compulsion to do free marketing for the company who’s products are the core news topic of this site.
One thing that is absent from the article is the statement of fact about dominant-positioned companies becoming complacent ALSO includes Apple. Apple was complacent and slow to advance Classic Mac OS, which handed the win to Microsoft (it wasn’t just their anticompetitive business practices).
Once again, Apple is behaving the same way: several products are priced continuously higher without an actual value proposition to match, some products that were staples of consumer satisfaction are gutted or dropped (iWork was gutted, Aperture and AirPort discontinued, and I’d offer the argument that iPhone’s usability was gutted at iOS 7’s GUI reskin, but the majority of Apple fanatics would rather support anti-intellectualism and slam GUI design specialists as “arrogant know it alls” than accept that there’s actual science to GUI design).
Some products are having their market potential reduced to a tiny fraction of their original scope by being priced into the realm of impossible access for most of the customers who used to buy them (Mac Pro). The iPhone isn’t far behind. Aiming for luxury sales is self destructive when luxury is far more fad driven than value driven.
Worst of all is the complacency with iOS releases, where pushing out questionable-value new bullet-point features is prioritized over fixing existing bugs (while introducing new ones). I’ve listed the bugs here on countless occasions, most of which were introduced by iOS 7 and still not fixed as of iOS 12 (I’m still waiting on 13, but I have zero trust in it “being the one”). iOS developers are continuing to be pushed around by iOS API changes at excessive speed, causing 3rd-party apps to be abandoned because it apparently costs them too much to maintain existing apps.
iOS isn’t quite as flaky as Droid variants that I still witness here and there, but it’s also not as accessible or consistent (or reliable) as it used to be. iCloud-relying cross-platform services don’t work half the time (Reminder statuses are never synched any more between my devices, and Universal Clipboard has not worked for me beyond the first few months of the feature being extant).
Compared to when iPhone won its dominance via being the superior product, it has lost considerable ground in these areas, and Apple seem utterly unaware or to not care at all (as to be expected under an MBA-type leadership, focusing on Wall Street, rather than excellence). iPhones aren’t superior any more; they’re simply the less irritating choice compared to the competition.
Mac OS isn’t exactly doing brilliantly either. Each release causes regressions in daily functionality (I see this with Finder and Quicklook all the time, as well as basic performance decreases). The last time it was properly optimized was Snow Leopard, which was really just a positive side-effect of optimizing the core OS to run on the then-new (and extremely constrained hardware) iPhone. That needs to be done again, on all of Apple’s now fragmented platforms.
The biggest threat to any dominant company is its own success.
It’s your opinion. I myself don’t see that happening to the extent your describing. Yes, I’ve seen Apple trip up some iOS/MacOS issues over the years but for the most part have been pretty good given the complexity of what they’re doing.
i blocked dystopia long ago, his posts are fanciful whining. because he feels he’s an expert on UX but apple isn’t, etc. or the notion that apple’s “affordable luxury” market is a mistake...here he calls it a fad that will end, while completely ignoring the fact that it’s been the most successful product in human history. fad, lol.
Comments
Good - except for this statement which is total complete rubbish. Apple has the absolute worst stability and predictability in the entire industry. Give your head a shake. It’s why Xserve died. Why education left. Why they are hemorrhaging what’s left of the creative market. Apple has next to no business presence left period and it’s entirely due to their lack of stability and predictability. It’s why the Mac Pro is dead in the water as well. A history littered with short-lived proprietary connections and unsupported software does not scream stability. Apple flogs consumer goods now because it can’t compete on stability and predictability. It’s not in its DNA. (How stable can a company that pushes innovation be?) The only glue holding it all together is the App Store. Apple has even admitted this by pointing to its future as content creation, health, and services.
while eschewing useless buttons, knobs, and dashboards in favor of a simple
user interface. Tesla is the Apple of automobiles, so much so that I wonder
why Apple itself is tip-toeing into the market. Although usually Apple enters
a market later than established players, it does so with innovation that shows
what the high-volume crowd missed entirely. What could Apple think
that Tesla possibly is doing wrong? Maybe the car market is so vast that there
can be multiple luxury vendors, or several mass market near-luxury-but-innovative
participants.
This is a very good point and interesting that other electronics segments & industries haven't picked up on this strategy more. maybe in time.
Not so amazing, economics isn't a science, its more like astrology.
It’s ‘professors’ can be seen as counselors for kings from the past.
Tesla understands computers and cars.
Tesla understands how to mesmerize shareholders.
First, after getting IBM to subsidize them then turning around and stabbing them in the back, they essentially gave Windows away to OEM's who couldn't pass it up even though it was junk -- that gave them an near monopoly in the market*. Then they opened up the corporate market with Server and Office. And that was it. (They also dominated the media so that they got almost all rave reviews for their crap product).
But, since then, they have matured and are putting out high quality products. You can argue that this one or that one is better -- but Microsoft software can generally hold its own these days.
* Incidentally, Google is pursuing a similar strategy in public education -- flood the market with cheap products.
What Elon does understand is how to milk subsidies, which are being phased out worldwide, and how to make himself the cult figure that he is today with his outlandish statements.
I never had to. I'm not a 9 to 5 desk jockey, and in the creative field, I get to use what I want.
Your stats and Wikipedia link refer to browser market share for desktop devices, yet you seem to be suggesting that it refers to all devices. That is not what it refers to.
Based on this source, Safari has 5.1% of the desktop market, worldwide. That's not really so surprising, is it? Here's more for you, in case you're interested in using information more appropriately: Click through to the source for Wikipedia's chart, (statcounter.com) and then click on their chart for 'all devices,' and Safari goes up to 15.09%. Select "mobile" and Safari has 22.47%. Select "tablet," and Safari is at 67.95%. That all kind of tracks with what one might expect for Safari.
The real news here is that, even though MS Windows tracks just shy of 80% of worldwide market share for desktop computers, Internet Explorer only represents 5.3% of the browser market and Edge 4%.
REGARDLESS OF OS, Microsoft basically closed the market for competing Wintel OSes for PC cloners.
Then bake in the economies of scale drive by an 'open' (thanks to COMPAQ's lead) architecture, and the explosion of
Wintel was inevitable. As stated, a cloning economy for MacOS was wrong from the start. Apple needed to change the
game, which they did starting with the iPod, then iTMS, then iMAC...and the rest is history,
Just remember, Android may gave 95% unit share of the phone market, but Apple has 95% profit share.
Which would you rather have?
"I loose all respect for them as intelligent creatures." Is this an Onion comment?
lotsa nonsense.