We are witnessing an onslaught of Android phones at CES. I think it poses a challenge to iPhone in this sense. With all phones (but especially the smart phones), the buyer/user invests time and money in learning/buying the software. Even if iOS stays competitive, as a user I might be concerned to invest in iPhone knowing that my hardware choices will always be very limited. Mac has always been in this situation (and suffered as a result) but with just one phone model (vs dozens, soon hundreds of Android phones) this might be very disconcerting to many.
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Long term prospects for iPhone
- Thread starter lilo777
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It's the same argument that people have always had in comparing Mac to Windows....a decent, less expensive OS that may or may not have been optimized for the thousands of hardware combinations and may present problems now or in the future based on hardware and software incompatibilities or a single, unified platform where the hardware and software is controlled and fully optimized for each other by the same company. The iPhone is here to stay...even if it drops to just a few million sold every year
It's the same argument that people have always had in comparing Mac to Windows....a decent, less expensive OS that may or may not have been optimized for the thousands of hardware combinations and may present problems now or in the future based on hardware and software incompatibilities or a single, unified platform where the hardware and software is controlled and fully optimized for each other by the same company. The iPhone is here to stay...even if it drops to just a few million sold every year
But remember that Macs started having relative success only AFTER Appe offered a solution to run Windows on Macs. Similar route for phones obviously does not make sense.
That is simply inaccurate. Back a LONG time ago, Apple enjoyed a much more robust share of the market. In particular, Macs were more dominant in graphics intensive businesses and education. I don't want to hijack this thread or go into ancient history or even re-trace the corporate decisions that made Apple nearly extinct, but it's important to note that Apple's loss of market share was a result of very bad business decisions and their subsequent rebound started long before there were Windows emulators available on Macs.
What I do find interesting is while each new Droid phone does get some hype, virtually all of them are hailed as the "iPhone Killer". Hardware is important to some people but it's not all in the hardware. How the hardware and OS integrate with each other is what counts the most.
However well iOS integrates with iPhone, you still can not get iOS with physical keyboard or 3" screen or 4.5" screen or NFC (and so on). MacBooks at least offer some choice in screen sizes.
By coincidence, Horace Dediu just wrote a very thoughtful piece on this very topic called "How Sticky Is Android?" It's too complex to summarize easily, but he suggests a way of evaluating how likely it is that users of one type of device will "stick" to that platform.
Modest spoiler alert: Apple comes out looking okay.
Modest spoiler alert: Apple comes out looking okay.
Comparing laptops to phones is comparing apples to oranges. Obviously for laptops, there needs to be some diversity since not all people will want just a 13" or 17" laptop only. Despite its success, the iPhone is still a noob in the cell phone world. Who knows, maybe 3-5 years from now we'll see iPhones follow the same line as the iPods and several different variations. For now though, everyone is still looking to top the iPhone as the "It" device to have. Whenever that does happen then we'll probably start seeing some new stuff from Apple and their iPhone.