6 ms·

> tie all of our products together, so we further lock customers into our ecosystem I know they've done this, and i know they've done this on purpose; but to r

> tie all of our products together, so we further lock customers into our ecosystem I know they've done this, and i know they've done this on purpose; but to read it bare like that is a bit too much for me, especially as I think more and more about the benefits of leaving their ecosystem, and weighing against the downsides.

eridius 10y ago
Everybody tries to do this, but few companies have such a comprehensive ecosystem as Apple. Do note that what you've quoted is not in any way malicious. It's just saying "make all of our products work really great together, so that way someone who uses one of them is much more likely to buy into the rest of the ecosystem". This is a bit different than saying "make it difficult for customers to leave our ecosystem", which would be the malicious approach.
- segf4ult 10y ago
  While Apple may not intentionally keep you from leaving their platform, a side effect of their tight integration is that it's harder to leave. Take the Apple Watch for example. Without an iPhone, the Apple Watch goes from a smartwatch to only being able to tell the time. Sure, you could own an Android phone and an Apple Watch, but you wouldn't get any of the benefits of the Apple Watch, which further ties customers to the iPhone.
  - eridius 10y ago
    True, but the Apple Watch is in most ways just an iPhone accessory, and you could make this same argument about any iPhone accessory (though other accessories typically aren't as expensive as the Apple Watch is).
    - kevb 10y ago
      But Apple entered the smart watch market by making an iPhone accessory. Whereas when they entered the smart phone market they made a phone for everyone, not just Mac users. On the other hand IIRC the original iPod required a Mac and they opened that up later.
      - eridius 10y ago
        AFAIK all smart watches require other devices to configure them. Even if you give them cellular connections and whatnot, the screen is just too tiny to do any real configuring on the device directly. But who knows, maybe someday we'll have Apple Watches that can be configured using icloud.com.
- Pigo 10y ago
  So you talked to him, and can now report that it was in no way malicious? Because it sure seems they make it difficult for customers to leave their ecosystem. The effort involved in leaving is usually the justification I hear for why people continue to buy Apple, even when there is other products they'd like to try. No one can deny how effective it has been for them, and a lot of people seem to have no problem with it.
  - eridius 10y ago
    In what way do they make it difficult? Leaving their ecosystem means you're giving up the hardware/software you've paid money for, so the only real question is data, right? I'm struggling to come up with ways in which Apple makes it hard to export your data. The best I can think of is you can't export your iMessages, and any TV/Movies you've purchased on the iTunes Store aren't portable outside of Apple's ecosystem since they're DRM'd (which is not a ploy by Apple to lock you in, but rather a requirement imposed by the content producer), though if you're switching to Windows you can still use iTunes there if you want. Everything else I can think of has at least some way to export it, e.g. Pages/Numbers/Keynote can all be exported into alternative formats, Contacts and Calendars can be exported, etc.
    - Pigo 10y ago
      What else is there besides your data, and what you have invested in media or applications. I imagine it's gotten better than it used to be. But does iPhone even have a built-in file explorer yet, or do you still have to download one to really view your content? I haven't had one in a long time, so I could be off on this. But ask yourself why they didn't. Yes you can sync up to Windows now, and it's less buggy, but you still have to go through their iTunes gateway so they can control whats going on. It's all possible, just like deactivating Facebook is possible. But they only give as much control as people have demanded, and it definitely was a bitch at one time. And now we know that it was by design, hence this email. And believe me, it irks me that every platform now expects me to buy the same Beatles album over and over again.
      - 10y ago
- exodust 10y ago
  Wow that's quite funny that you've interpreted what is clearly about locking users in so they can't leave, as "make all our products work great together". Let me put this to you, if he'd meant "make our products work great together" then that's what he would have said. But he didn't say that. So please don't try to change what the man said. All these tech giants fall over themselves trying to dream up ways to lock users into their ecosystem, it's what they do. It's motivated by profit, competition, and aggressive marketing and business. Nothing to do with benefits for the end user, or open technologies or saving people money.
  - eridius 10y ago
    You seem to be missing the point. There's two different ways to lock people in to an ecosystem. The first way (the "good" way) is to make all the components of your ecosystem work so well together that it's hard for someone to find good replacements for any component (i.e. any replacements they look at won't work quite so well with the rest of the ecosystem, so they would be losing value by replacing any component). The second way (the "bad" way) is to deliberately put up roadblocks that actually prevent people from finding replacements. For example, making it impossible to export your data in a cross-platform format, or using proprietary protocols for the sole purpose of preventing others from being compatible. Apple doesn't do the latter - they use open protocols whenever appropriate, and nearly all products have some way to export your data in a cross-platform format.
    - xorxornop 10y ago
      Except that you can't build anything for OSX when you don't have a Mac. That's a totally artificial constraint. Not lock in, you say? Hell,_Microsoft_ is more open than this... the crowd favourite lock-in bogeyman no less...
      - eridius 10y ago
        Apple does not provide developer tools for other platforms, that's true. But that doesn't make this an artificial constraint. Apple would have to invest time and effort to support development on other platforms, and there's not really any reason for them to do so. Also, you certainly can develop for macOS from another platform, if you're using a development environment that supports this. There's a number of cross-platform environments that will work. The latest fad is Electron. You just can't build a native Cocoa app. That said, I'm unsure if any third party has a way to codesign your macOS app or if that's limited to Apple's developer tools.
- anotheryou 10y ago
  Further down he describes it as making it "sticky". This more clearly says friction to get out, no?
  - jccc 10y ago
    In the dot-com era, marketing types aspired to make their Web sites and apps "sticky" in the sense that readers and users would not just dip in for something in particular, but would be motivated to come back again and again. Frequent, small, regular updates to content is one example of this strategy. This is where the term "sticky" comes from. I realize that's not quite as satisfying as your villain-validating interpretation.
    - anotheryou 10y ago
      Thanks for the explanation. Personally I'm not looking for villains, I always think it's at least in part more systemic. They stick to what works, and tight integration of their services can be done in a purely positive intention that makes everything work better together. However they have the resources and reach to build "their ecosystem" and strengthening it will have the side effect of relieving pressure to do anything open. At most we get some legacy products like itunes on windows or a hidden ical export. Just compare it to a new player like slack with a minimal ecosystem, they build or make possible all the apis for all the services they don't offer. Furthermore apple will use proper apis for all their services, nicely documented, but just not open to the public. (I don't know apple too much, might be wrong here) Oh and by the way: psycho tricks that add no true benefit to the product, but make you stick are very common and widely accepted, but I sill dislike them (though maybe you have to play this game to stay in the game at all)
adamio 10y ago
Customer lock-in is Apple's entire value proposition. Buy in to the ecosystem and we'll provide the best experience that gets better the deeper you go. But yes leaving it is starting to look good to customers as software quality has declined and now hardware options are misaligned and industry is reaching parity in UI and features
- meesterdude 10y ago
  wow, said it better than I ever could

eridius 10y ago

Everybody tries to do this, but few companies have such a comprehensive ecosystem as Apple. Do note that what you've quoted is not in any way malicious. It's just saying "make all of our products work really great together, so that way someone who uses one of them is much more likely to buy into the rest of the ecosystem". This is a bit different than saying "make it difficult for customers to leave our ecosystem", which would be the malicious approach.

segf4ult 10y ago
While Apple may not intentionally keep you from leaving their platform, a side effect of their tight integration is that it's harder to leave. Take the Apple Watch for example. Without an iPhone, the Apple Watch goes from a smartwatch to only being able to tell the time. Sure, you could own an Android phone and an Apple Watch, but you wouldn't get any of the benefits of the Apple Watch, which further ties customers to the iPhone.
- eridius 10y ago
  True, but the Apple Watch is in most ways just an iPhone accessory, and you could make this same argument about any iPhone accessory (though other accessories typically aren't as expensive as the Apple Watch is).
  - kevb 10y ago
    But Apple entered the smart watch market by making an iPhone accessory. Whereas when they entered the smart phone market they made a phone for everyone, not just Mac users. On the other hand IIRC the original iPod required a Mac and they opened that up later.
    - eridius 10y ago
      AFAIK all smart watches require other devices to configure them. Even if you give them cellular connections and whatnot, the screen is just too tiny to do any real configuring on the device directly. But who knows, maybe someday we'll have Apple Watches that can be configured using icloud.com.
Pigo 10y ago
So you talked to him, and can now report that it was in no way malicious? Because it sure seems they make it difficult for customers to leave their ecosystem. The effort involved in leaving is usually the justification I hear for why people continue to buy Apple, even when there is other products they'd like to try. No one can deny how effective it has been for them, and a lot of people seem to have no problem with it.
- eridius 10y ago
  In what way do they make it difficult? Leaving their ecosystem means you're giving up the hardware/software you've paid money for, so the only real question is data, right? I'm struggling to come up with ways in which Apple makes it hard to export your data. The best I can think of is you can't export your iMessages, and any TV/Movies you've purchased on the iTunes Store aren't portable outside of Apple's ecosystem since they're DRM'd (which is not a ploy by Apple to lock you in, but rather a requirement imposed by the content producer), though if you're switching to Windows you can still use iTunes there if you want. Everything else I can think of has at least some way to export it, e.g. Pages/Numbers/Keynote can all be exported into alternative formats, Contacts and Calendars can be exported, etc.
  - Pigo 10y ago
    What else is there besides your data, and what you have invested in media or applications. I imagine it's gotten better than it used to be. But does iPhone even have a built-in file explorer yet, or do you still have to download one to really view your content? I haven't had one in a long time, so I could be off on this. But ask yourself why they didn't. Yes you can sync up to Windows now, and it's less buggy, but you still have to go through their iTunes gateway so they can control whats going on. It's all possible, just like deactivating Facebook is possible. But they only give as much control as people have demanded, and it definitely was a bitch at one time. And now we know that it was by design, hence this email. And believe me, it irks me that every platform now expects me to buy the same Beatles album over and over again.
    - 10y ago
exodust 10y ago
Wow that's quite funny that you've interpreted what is clearly about locking users in so they can't leave, as "make all our products work great together". Let me put this to you, if he'd meant "make our products work great together" then that's what he would have said. But he didn't say that. So please don't try to change what the man said. All these tech giants fall over themselves trying to dream up ways to lock users into their ecosystem, it's what they do. It's motivated by profit, competition, and aggressive marketing and business. Nothing to do with benefits for the end user, or open technologies or saving people money.
- eridius 10y ago
  You seem to be missing the point. There's two different ways to lock people in to an ecosystem. The first way (the "good" way) is to make all the components of your ecosystem work so well together that it's hard for someone to find good replacements for any component (i.e. any replacements they look at won't work quite so well with the rest of the ecosystem, so they would be losing value by replacing any component). The second way (the "bad" way) is to deliberately put up roadblocks that actually prevent people from finding replacements. For example, making it impossible to export your data in a cross-platform format, or using proprietary protocols for the sole purpose of preventing others from being compatible. Apple doesn't do the latter - they use open protocols whenever appropriate, and nearly all products have some way to export your data in a cross-platform format.
  - xorxornop 10y ago
    Except that you can't build anything for OSX when you don't have a Mac. That's a totally artificial constraint. Not lock in, you say? Hell,_Microsoft_ is more open than this... the crowd favourite lock-in bogeyman no less...
    - eridius 10y ago
      Apple does not provide developer tools for other platforms, that's true. But that doesn't make this an artificial constraint. Apple would have to invest time and effort to support development on other platforms, and there's not really any reason for them to do so. Also, you certainly can develop for macOS from another platform, if you're using a development environment that supports this. There's a number of cross-platform environments that will work. The latest fad is Electron. You just can't build a native Cocoa app. That said, I'm unsure if any third party has a way to codesign your macOS app or if that's limited to Apple's developer tools.
anotheryou 10y ago
Further down he describes it as making it "sticky". This more clearly says friction to get out, no?
- jccc 10y ago
  In the dot-com era, marketing types aspired to make their Web sites and apps "sticky" in the sense that readers and users would not just dip in for something in particular, but would be motivated to come back again and again. Frequent, small, regular updates to content is one example of this strategy. This is where the term "sticky" comes from. I realize that's not quite as satisfying as your villain-validating interpretation.
  - anotheryou 10y ago
    Thanks for the explanation. Personally I'm not looking for villains, I always think it's at least in part more systemic. They stick to what works, and tight integration of their services can be done in a purely positive intention that makes everything work better together. However they have the resources and reach to build "their ecosystem" and strengthening it will have the side effect of relieving pressure to do anything open. At most we get some legacy products like itunes on windows or a hidden ical export. Just compare it to a new player like slack with a minimal ecosystem, they build or make possible all the apis for all the services they don't offer. Furthermore apple will use proper apis for all their services, nicely documented, but just not open to the public. (I don't know apple too much, might be wrong here) Oh and by the way: psycho tricks that add no true benefit to the product, but make you stick are very common and widely accepted, but I sill dislike them (though maybe you have to play this game to stay in the game at all)

adamio 10y ago

Customer lock-in is Apple's entire value proposition. Buy in to the ecosystem and we'll provide the best experience that gets better the deeper you go. But yes leaving it is starting to look good to customers as software quality has declined and now hardware options are misaligned and industry is reaching parity in UI and features

meesterdude 10y ago
wow, said it better than I ever could