There's nothing new here. From AirDrop to AirPods, Apple's MO is to lock you into their ecosystem and be as belligerent as possible toward any non-Apple gizmo. Couple that with social and network effects, and you have a perfect formula for monopolizing a market without continuously improving the tech.
> and you have a perfect formula for monopolizing a market without continuously improving the tech.
...but the Apple ecosystem has the best tech. M chips, AirPods Pro, Apple Watch, iPad, Pencil, I mean the tech is great.
Apple isn't monopolizing anything. They're competing like hell and winning because their tech is best. The real question is why the Android and Microsoft ecosystems don't do better at improving their tech. Where's the Windows equivalent of an M4 MacBook Air in terms of performance and battery life?
Microsoft couldn't compete themselves out of a wet paper bag (it may be a slightly different script, but they're anti-competitivists just like Apple).
Apple technology is "great" as long as you you're rich enough to afford it, and buy into the whole ecosystem. And, most crucially: contort yourself yourself enough. (="If it's not working for you, you're not holding it right.")
> Apple technology is "great" as long as you you're rich enough to afford it
I don’t know what point you’re trying to make with this sentence. It comes across as missing the fact that high quality goods… cost more than low quality ones?
Not to mention they have plenty of affordable tech. Their phones have always been roughly the same cost when adjusted for inflation - something pretty commendable. The iPods back in the day came in a huge range of affordable shapes and sizes for the quality.
>Apple technology is "great" as long as you you're rich enough to afford it, and buy into the whole ecosystem. And, most crucially: contort yourself yourself enough. (="If it's not working for you, you're not holding it right.")
1) Apple's lack of success in various categories over the years shows that their success isn't "magical" marketing.
2) So if we're ruling out mindless drones of hypnotised people handing over their hard earned cash hand-over-fist, then we might look to more realistic reasons why some of their products sell very well. When we do we see a much more rational picture, closely tied to the basic economics of product and price.
3) At this point one needs to concede that consumers are majority highly rational buyers, hand waving away others as sheep-like with too much money is a risible position to take.
4) In the markets Apple sell well: phones, laptops, wearables: There's plenty of products that cost more than the Apple equivalent and don't work nearly as well.
5) While you may categorise a person with a $700 phone as rich, consider that the lifestyle improvements gained over the typical 4 year ownership lifecycle works out to be ~48c a day. Depending where you are, that's the equivalent of buying one basic starbucks coffee a week. Sure there's more expensive iPhones, there's more expensive coffees too.
6) When it comes to price discussions there's also a lot of bad faith comparisons. Bad faith = where the author of the comment should, or clearly does know that the comparison they're making is excluding pertinent details, but doesn't include them intentionally to deceive, usually because they value "winning" an internet discussion rather than the value of exchanging ideas.
7) Consumers are rational: If such price comparisons held water then certain the Apple products wouldn't be doing so well. We can already see the ones that don't do well with the mass markets because they're priced to very specific audiences (MacPro, VisionPro, etc.)
>"If it's not working for you, you're not holding it right."
1) I'm not sure about the merit of misquoting a dead guy, talking about a product that hasn't been sold in over a decade. I think if you're trying to convey that Apple has a certain arrogant attitude towards their customers then you should revisit the points above.
2) If you're going to quote this, then you should take the time to read what Jobs actually wrote, since the tone doesn't meet the level of arrogance in your portrayal. The email is here: https://wccftech.com/images/news/iPhone4G/jobs.jpg
3) Despite the mixed views on whether the problem even existed in a meaningful way, Apple gave away free cases, no questions asked, to people who felt they experienced this problem. As a barometer to the actual problem: Not even the land of the lawsuit was able to muster a case, and they did appeal widely for injured parties.
You aren't in any position to make that call, since you have no opportunity to try competing products due to being locked in to an anticompetitive ecosystem. European iOS users will soon be able to decide if Apple really does have the best tech or not.
What are you talking about? I can try all the competing products compatible with Android and Windows. I'm not locked into anything Apple because they're not a monopoly. I am very much in a position to "make that call".
You said that Apple makes the best tech, but you wouldn't know, because you cannot pair third party accessories with your Apple devices and have them work properly, so you cannot determine if third parties are capable of making accessories better than Apple or not.
Whether or not a third party is capable of making a better "ecosystem" of interconnected devices is a separate concern; I'm talking about accessories here, which is the topic at hand.
Kind of amazing you're so confident I don't use the Android ecosystem for a whole bunch of stuff. You know a lot of people use one ecosystem for personal stuff, and another for work? Also that people do stuff like... read reviews? Compare features? Compare specs?
He is specifically talking about accessories, in this case the watches. including apple watches and 3rd party. if apple watches integrate natively, but 3rd party watches don't have the same level of integration then there is no way in the apple ecosystem to make a comparative decision on which watch you want to use as you're automatically funneled into apple watches by design. Now on android, most watches integrate pretty much the same. maybe a different on phone app, but, most APIs are pretty accessible between all devices. (I might be wrong about this)
Sometimes I get the feeling that a lot of people are upset that Apple is deciding what's best for their customers, and customers are happy with that, instead of everyone asking their nerdy cousin or whatever. The condescension towards satisfied Apple users is really shocking.
I just wish that they didn't feel the need to block out competitors to compete on an even playing field - I agree that their hardware is great, but if it's so great it should be able to dominate the market without hobbling competitors on iOS.
Best individual hardware components perhaps, but their software is shit enough that I don't consider their tech to be best. macOS and its weird limitations are enough for me to accept Windows 11 before I'll buy an Apple laptop.
Apple is monopolizing lots of things. You aren't allowed to make software for the iPhone without distributing exclusively thru the App Store. This whole post is about how they restrict third party watches.
If you like it, use it. Why not let other people augment the ecosystem? If Apple allowed Pebble to get full permissions and it all turned out to be the extremely unsafe, buggy disaster that everyone here chooses to portray it as, then you can still buy an Apple Watch. In what way does shutting out the competition benefit you?
How many users do you think call Apple everyday to complain about issues with their third party, knockoff AirPods lookalikes? Could you imagine why Apple could be protective of the user experience of their hardware and sensitive to that user experience being compromised by poorly implemented or nonfunctional peripherals? For every Pebble user, how many people might buy ripoff Apple Watches?
Allowing support for a rich ecosystem of mediocre smart watches does not move the needle on making it better for me personally. And Apple probably has done the market research to confirm most of their customers are like me and not like Pebble users.
> And Apple probably has done the market research to confirm most of their customers are like me and not like Pebble users.
I'm sure. The customers they do not have are like Pebble users, and they don't want customers like Pebble users. They want customers like Apple Watch users.
It is a bit 'masque of the red death' to defend anti-competitive practices, is all I'm saying.
How is it anti-competitive for Apple to pick its own customers? A decade ago, Android used to argue that open was better. Now, people seem to argue that closed should be illegal.
What if you like their computers but absolutely can't stand their mobile devices though?
I got fed up with the walled gardens enough that I made a macOS app to transfer files to and from Android devices using Google's Quick Share protocol (that I had to reverse engineer first).
And no, don't suggest me to try desktop Linux. I want to use my system, not maintain it.
