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Is Apple really a hardware or software company?

Not so much a software company; yes, they make software but only to sell the hardware. But they also sell lifestyle/design.
They could spend less effort in design the appearance of their systems if they wouldn't mean to sell a lifestyle too.

Apple remove the Computer from its name; start selling content like music, movies and books. Also part of lifestyle. Again not so much software required for that.

Conclusion for me: a lifestyle hardware company ...
 
They're hardware because most of their profits come from hardware.

Software is just a product they commoditize to sell hardware. Not to say they don't have good first party software, but they're willing to sell their software below market value if it leads to more hardware sales. They price OS X at a cheap $30 and dropped the pricepoint of Final Cut, Aperture, and Logic when they stuck them on the Mac App Store. This is because they make up the loss when people buy more iDevices/Macs. Meanwhile they never cut the price of their hardware until the next gen is released.

Notice how Microsoft is the exact opposite. They try to maintain the pricepoint of Office and Windows as best they can but have no problem with OEM's putting their OS and suites on cheap plastic. They sell XBox's at a loss but make up for it by selling games.

Here's a link showing revenue breakdown for last year Q1
 
As far I know Apple is both, software and hardware company. Apple's team develop software products for users. A lot of applications made by Apple, are running in the market. They also believe to sell the hardware products. iN technologies which has life partnership with microsoft, also want to develop partnership with Apple for selling their hardware products. It would be depend on Apple that he make relationship with iN Technologies or not. But people have different different opinion for Apple that it is hardware company or not.
 
Apple is a hardware-software-integrated-together-for-optimal-user-experience company. That's their forte, and I think they need to keep reminding themselves of this.
 
GermanyChris said:
Apple is a lifestyle company, they sell the ecosystem and coolness. The hardware really is just the gate price.
Click to expand...

its more than the cool factor, since every manufacture wants to copy them.

Apple TV is a 'hobby' or was...

If Apple cared how much software u had on your device or what software u used, then it would be interpreted as 'spying' instantly.
 
I'd say they're a hardware company. The only software they really did themselves was classic mac os and we all know how that was. Now they just put unix on everything.
 
Well since they sell both hardware and software, it's both. Durr.

Their software nowadays is that lame though it may as well be a hobby.
 
0x100 said:
I'd say they're a hardware company. The only software they really did themselves was classic mac os and we all know how that was. Now they just put unix on everything.
Click to expand...

Of course, there is no difference at all between OS X 10.0 and OS X 10.1, because, well UNIX.

They did nothing all those years and they offer absolutely no software value other than being UNIX !
 
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Rogifan said:
Question is do they need their own software to sell the hardware? Lets just say for the sake of argument the majority of iOS users start using Google apps across the board and throw Apple apps in an unused folder. Does Apple care as long as people keep buying iPhones and iPads?
Click to expand...

To answer your first question.

Yes they do, very very much !

Because, yes Apple make wonderful quality hardware design.

However, the thing is, the fact that they have this huge "differentiator" in iOS and OS X that nobody else can offer in the market, enable them to sell premium hardware products.

Ultimately, the biggest problem Samsung, Dell, HP, Motorola, Sony have, its not that they cannot build well made hardware, it's that they cannot sell it, because peoples always end up compromising on build quality if you can save some money and still get mostly the same software experience.

Peoples are able to enjoy the difference in hardware quality, but more as an added "bonus" for getting a premium product than something you actually choose to pay extra for.

Having their own software ecosystem make Apple products in "another league" by default. Peoples accept to pay more for well made premium product because there is no other way into their ecosystem.

Remove that software difference, and suddently every sale Apple has to make will always include a comparison with tons and tons of cheaper products that are now way "closer" in term of similarity because they offer the same OS.

And Apple would sooner or later be "sucked into" the infamous "race to the bottom" that plague the rest of the hardware industry.

Right now, all other vendors would kill to get a software situation like Apple is in.
 
Currently Apple seen as a traditional hardware company but the customers thinks the company needs to change perceptions so it is viewed as a "software-hardware hybrid."
 
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