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.
When will this “complexity” excuse finally die and software (all over the industry) be seen as the fundamentally broken thing it is?
While you're busy harping on about how "fundamentally broken" software is, most normal people are just working all day on their Macs and iOS devices without significant issues. I literally do not have any serious issues that I could describe as "fundamentally broken" with regard to the OS or any of the major software that I use right now. The occasional glitch? Bug? Crash? Sure, but that's always been true (yes, even in the rose-tinted Snow Leopard and iOS 6 glory days you cling to). Sounds like you're making excuses to help your narrative that everything is terrible and nobody is catering to your needs. Maybe you shouldn't be a computer person?
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?
But, you really can't compare Android profit to Apple's because the purpose of Android is to collect your private data and funnel it to Google -- just like they will soon be doing with those millions of FitBits out there: They will know whether you're a runner, walker, cyclist, weight lifter or coach potato and market your data accordingly.
How will they be marketing your health data? Honest question.
By tailoring the advertising target market for drug companies, health insurers, health care providers, health food manufacturers, etc.
@tundraboy ; Except that Google doesn't have any advertising categories where a users health info can be used for targeted ads. They don't allow the advertiser to collect that data via that company's ad campaign either if it uses Google ad networks.
That's not the only category Google refuses to offer to advertisers for personalized ads despite everyone and his brother claiming Google is using sensitive personal information with its ad network. They don't.
You really should a minute or two to read the following disclosure/policy page.
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?
if Bill Gates didn;t give Apple a handout, Apple would have been dead log ago.
Microsft was required to prop up Apple so the ftc doesn't come down on Microsoft and break up the company for being a monopoly.
Wait, what?
When Steve Jobs returned from exile to lead Apple, he cut a deal with Gates. Microsoft invested in Apple and introduced the Office suite on the MacOS platform, agreeing to support it for at least five years. (Jobs also discontinued licensing of MacOS on third-party hardware, something introduced by the lunkheads who had been running Apple in Jobs’ absence.)
At the time, Microsoft was defending against legal and PR issues stemming from the browser wars of the time, so benevolence towards a hobbled competitor was of significant benefit. They also could use the Mac platform to tinker with Office without upsetting their more staid Windows customers.
Yes, yes, I know all that. And all valid points. But the posters' thinking that MS's $150M investment somehow 'saved Apple from dying' is more than a stretch.
Comments
Except that Google doesn't have any advertising categories where a users health info can be used for targeted ads. They don't allow the advertiser to collect that data via that company's ad campaign either if it uses Google ad networks.
That's not the only category Google refuses to offer to advertisers for personalized ads despite everyone and his brother claiming Google is using sensitive personal information with its ad network. They don't.
You really should a minute or two to read the following disclosure/policy page.
https://support.google.com/adspolicy/answer/143465?hl=en