Apple News, Analysis and Podcasts

Apple is very good at making hardware. They are also very good at making software that runs on that hardware. But what they are really good at is creating an eco-system that uses their hardware and software to solve a much larger problem.

What made Apple's lead in digital music sales and then the creation of an entire new industry — podcasting — so successful was this self-sustaining eco-system. For cool hardware Apple gave us the iPod; for cool software iTunes (desktop version); but it was the iTunes Music Store was the linchpin that made it so other companies couldn't just make cheaper hardware and/or software to compete on par with Apple. Sure one could buy a Samsung MP3 player and purchase music from Amazon, but the integration was always second-rate. Nothing ever just worked like the iPod, iTunes and the iTunes music store.

There are times when buying products from the same vendor just makes sense because all the pieces of the puzzle just fit. With Apple the whole is greater than the sum of the parts.

iCloud is iTunes version 2.0

Apple knew that its cool hardware and software advantage were only going to last so long. Odds were that eventually Amazon, Google, Microsoft or HP would develop a mobile OS "good enough" to Apple's. For example, in the 90's Microsoft's Windows 95 became "good enough" for most consumers. In addition, Apple knew hardware vendors probably would get good enough with their handsets as well. However, where Apple had a huge advantage and where they needed to cement that advantage was with developers. By providing developers with hooks into iCloud for syncing of files between devices and by providing an online store that says if you buy it once, you can use it on all your devices (up to 10), Apple now has developers hooked in a way that others can only dream about. 

So once again Apple has created an eco-system that can't be duplicated (for a long time). Sure Amazon, HP, Google and maybe Microsoft might get there with their own eco-system, but as we saw with iTunes if you are one, two or three years late to this party, it is pretty much game over.

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