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I think it’s easy to look at it with hindsight and say that Apple’s positioning was inevitable, but I certainly didn’t feel that way ten or even five years ago.

I think it’s easy to look at it with hindsight and say that Apple’s positioning was inevitable, but I certainly didn’t feel that way ten or even five years ago. As is, google pays Apple already a lot of money to be the default search engine on their phones. I imagine that number could have been triple that if no credible rival emerged in the medium/high end phone space.

ocdtrekkie 9y ago
There's about a 0% chance of a company that doesn't license or open up their platform not having a credible rival, because by default, there's a huge open market they're leaving on the table. This is the same with Tesla, and why Tesla cannot be more than a niche member of the EV market in the long run. If anything, the companies we need to worry about are those who offer extensible "open" platforms that build partnerships with most of the industry, while retaining control and decisionmaking authority over them all.
- mattnewton 9y ago
  What’s wrong with a possible universe where the iPhone is the only modern smartphone, ubuntu/sailfish/Firefox rules the low end, and Tizen or something is keeping one manufacturer alive in the medium end? There are very strong network effects to an app ecosystem, and you can imagine a future where all the high end users are on iOS.
  - ocdtrekkie 9y ago
    If Ubuntu and the like were successful with a strong ecosystem on the low end, why wouldn't they find someone to build a high end device? Companies that just... don't like profit, perhaps? Android won it's success in the budget market, and that gave it the ecosystem it needed to survive in the high end market.
    - mattnewton 9y ago
      The network effect is a chicken and egg problem that can’t be solved with just finding a partner. A large part of why android succeeded because it solved the chicken and egg developer - user problem by being early enough, and by having a company like google put their full support behind it. Other platforms were late to the table incompeting with iOS (windows), or didn’t have the clout of a large competent software company backing it, or both.
      - esrauch 9y ago
        It seems that Windows phone would have filled the Android mid-range/licensed niche if Android wasn't already established.

ocdtrekkie 9y ago

There's about a 0% chance of a company that doesn't license or open up their platform not having a credible rival, because by default, there's a huge open market they're leaving on the table. This is the same with Tesla, and why Tesla cannot be more than a niche member of the EV market in the long run. If anything, the companies we need to worry about are those who offer extensible "open" platforms that build partnerships with most of the industry, while retaining control and decisionmaking authority over them all.

mattnewton 9y ago
What’s wrong with a possible universe where the iPhone is the only modern smartphone, ubuntu/sailfish/Firefox rules the low end, and Tizen or something is keeping one manufacturer alive in the medium end? There are very strong network effects to an app ecosystem, and you can imagine a future where all the high end users are on iOS.
- ocdtrekkie 9y ago
  If Ubuntu and the like were successful with a strong ecosystem on the low end, why wouldn't they find someone to build a high end device? Companies that just... don't like profit, perhaps? Android won it's success in the budget market, and that gave it the ecosystem it needed to survive in the high end market.
  - mattnewton 9y ago
    The network effect is a chicken and egg problem that can’t be solved with just finding a partner. A large part of why android succeeded because it solved the chicken and egg developer - user problem by being early enough, and by having a company like google put their full support behind it. Other platforms were late to the table incompeting with iOS (windows), or didn’t have the clout of a large competent software company backing it, or both.
    - esrauch 9y ago
      It seems that Windows phone would have filled the Android mid-range/licensed niche if Android wasn't already established.