Apple does appear to have a solid, marketable device in the iPhone 5; so, why the disconnect between the post-announcement sentiments and the record sales? The old sales axiom comes to mind: "No one ever gets fired for hiring IBM". Here's what I mean.
When the iPhone first came out, it was seen as a smartphone with a high-quality "it just works" web browser. That, combined with its nice build and touch-first story led many enthusiasts to jump on it, even though the base price was $499. That's expensive for a phone that was kind of slow, lacked 3G, and didn't even have an app store at launch. As Apple revved its iPhone offering annually, they improved the build quality, lightened the phone, made it lighter and sleeker, and most importantly brought the price down.
In addition, Apple launched the app store in mid-2008 (around the time of the iPhone 3G launch) and pushed its platform to developers. Devs initially responded with the fart apps and simple games, but soon higher-quality apps and games began to show up on iPhone screens.
It took a while, but other phone manufacturers did pivot and did revise their hardware designs and software platforms. Recent offerings from Samsung and Nokia show that you can get a nice, sleek, quality phone outside of Apple. And, browsing the Android and Windows Phone app marketplaces shows that a lot of the popular apps are available today across multiple platforms.
So where does that leave Apple and their loyal customer base? Besides brand loyalty and inertia keeping people on their platform, we have the axiom above. Or, adjusted to fit the situation: "No one has ever had to sleep on the couch for buying an iPhone".
Customers are not buying iPhones just for the hardware quality or the current apps. They are also buying them for the future apps that will be released on the device (often first available on iOS). Apple boasts having sold 400M iOS devices, is projected to have sold 1B by 2015, and has over 700,000 apps available for purchase and/or download. These numbers draw more and more developers into the fold.
As a result, Apple has is this aura of safety. "Buy us," they imply, "and you'll get all the apps your friends have." Or don't, and risk your significant other complaining that his or her phone can't get the cool app that everyone else has.
Sure, other platforms have differentiated app experiences that are not available on iOS, but given the install base that Apple has, some level of iOS integration with competing applications is inevitable.
For competitors to succeed, they'll not only have to match or exceed Apple's hardware designs, build quality, dev platform, and app library. They'll also have to shake this notion that iOS == future proof and other platforms == app envy. Until then, the fear of sleeping on the couch will remain.
As a result, Apple has is this aura of safety. "Buy us," they imply, "and you'll get all the apps your friends have." Or don't, and risk your significant other complaining that his or her phone can't get the cool app that everyone else has.
Sure, other platforms have differentiated app experiences that are not available on iOS, but given the install base that Apple has, some level of iOS integration with competing applications is inevitable.
For competitors to succeed, they'll not only have to match or exceed Apple's hardware designs, build quality, dev platform, and app library. They'll also have to shake this notion that iOS == future proof and other platforms == app envy. Until then, the fear of sleeping on the couch will remain.
1 comment:
This is right on the money. Despite the parity that exists between platforms for many big apps, new apps seem to almost always come to iOS first. (and sometimes only) Unless an idea is literally unimplementable because of the limitations of iOS, people never pick Android or Windows Phone as a first platform for their experimental new app.
And even when an app exists on multiple platforms, developers seem to have this idea that it's only worth implementing your good UI on iOS. I saw my dad using an iPad this weekend, and I was actually embarrassed at how much better the UI, design, and usability of the iOS Weather Channel app (of all things!) is compared to the least-effort Android implementation.
This is the story of my life right now. My wife is weekly regretting buying an Android phone because of this very problem. If it hadn't been her idea to change OSes, I would be the one on the couch right now, weighing paying an ETF against sleeping on sheets again.
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