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Define "win", please. I'm quite sure Android will eventually dominate in terms of market share, much like Windows does to OS X. However, if you look in terms of

Define "win", please. I'm quite sure Android will eventually dominate in terms of market share, much like Windows does to OS X. However, if you look in terms of customer satisfaction and profits generated in the markets they compete in, Apple tend to be so far in front, they subsume the rest of the competition put together. I'd wager that every company out there would love to "lose" the way Apple is/will.

Kylekramer 16y ago
Does anyone think Apple is actually satisfied with OS X's market share? Apple has competing interests in that it wants high margins and market share, but they did it before with the iPod. And I'd argue the iPad is an even better contender for iPod like dominance than the iPhone/OS X. Apple values control highly, but pretending it doesn't infuriate them that Windows is the leader (and Android is posed to be the phone leader) is a bit much.
- ams6110 16y ago
  Their Desktop/Laptop market share is higher now than it's been in decades. While I'm sure they would like it to be higher, I would doubt they're disappointed. They are selling plenty at margins that Dell and HP could only dream about.
- archgrove 16y ago
  Oh, I'm sure they'd love to hold 100% of every market. The point of my comment is they don't need to do this to be considered a big "winner". Unlike e.g. Dell which only makes money on huge amounts of shipments due to low margins, Apple can ship comparatively few units and make large profits. They must know that their dominance in the smartphone area was always a temporary thing - they were never going to persuade the entire world to buy one of two iPhone models available at any time. Their lack of any attempt to create an entire iPhone ecosystem to cater for the spread of users (i.e. the "free, just about adequate phone" that dominates most peoples choice) shows this. This is entirely separate to their iPod strategy, which scales from those with only a handful of dollars (the shuffle), all the way up to the "Smartphone without a radio" iPod Touch. In the phone space, they seem to have chosen the same battle as their computing space - the high end, high margin, "people willing to pay for the experience" market share which contains vast profits. If no serious competitor had appeared (as, bizarrely, happened in the MP3 space), then they might have eventually released an iPhone Nano etc. But given that other players are now in that space, they've just surrendered it, rather than fight a battle they can't win. Were they to open up iOS or release a spate of iPhones covering enough of the usage/price spectrum to compete, they'd lose a large amount of the Apple "experience", damage their premium brand, and risk losing the entire game. Their battle is to maintain enough market share to ensure development for iOS, and to ensure that Android devices end up being (mostly) the choice for mass market, race to the bottom, cheap at any cost devices. If Android starts to seriously infringe on their premium space, then they should be worried and can be considered to be losing. Until then, as far as I can see, they're winning the battle they're fighting.
- tjogin 16y ago
  Apple knows that most people buy computers in the budget segment. Apple doesn't sell computers in that segment. They know what they'd have to do to gain significant marketshare: enter the budget segment, the "race to the bottom", and they won't even try. OS market share simply isn't as important to them as shipping quality products and making money is.
Pewpewarrows 16y ago
On that note, customer satisfaction is inherently easier to keep high when you completely control the closed ecosystem. When you only have a select few devices your software can run on, it's much easier to test any changes or a new version you have against them. When you have to deal with thousand, possibly millions of hardware configurations that you need to support, that becomes nearly impossible. Things are destined to fall through the cracks, which reduces average customer satisfaction. That said, I still think OSX is a better overall OS. But you have to take all the variables into consideration when you discuss things like customer happiness.
- andyzaharia 16y ago
  Yep, thats a good one
- loewenskind 16y ago
  You've just described exactly why I switched to OSX from windows. Less useless choices to make and better likelihood that I wont have to deal with stupid hardware issues.
- archgrove 16y ago
  Indeed. This is exactly why they're unlikely go as "open" as, e.g. Windows with OS X, or Android with iOS. Once they start damaging the "premium" experience they're selling, they lose a key differentiator and will, eventually, slide off into nothing.
tjogin 16y ago
Yeah, I expect it to be very weak consolation to (for instance) Dell that, although Apple is kicking their asses, at least Windows is installed on more computers than OS X is. If Dell is "winning" they'd rather be "losing".

Kylekramer 16y ago

Does anyone think Apple is actually satisfied with OS X's market share? Apple has competing interests in that it wants high margins and market share, but they did it before with the iPod. And I'd argue the iPad is an even better contender for iPod like dominance than the iPhone/OS X. Apple values control highly, but pretending it doesn't infuriate them that Windows is the leader (and Android is posed to be the phone leader) is a bit much.

ams6110 16y ago
Their Desktop/Laptop market share is higher now than it's been in decades. While I'm sure they would like it to be higher, I would doubt they're disappointed. They are selling plenty at margins that Dell and HP could only dream about.
archgrove 16y ago
Oh, I'm sure they'd love to hold 100% of every market. The point of my comment is they don't need to do this to be considered a big "winner". Unlike e.g. Dell which only makes money on huge amounts of shipments due to low margins, Apple can ship comparatively few units and make large profits. They must know that their dominance in the smartphone area was always a temporary thing - they were never going to persuade the entire world to buy one of two iPhone models available at any time. Their lack of any attempt to create an entire iPhone ecosystem to cater for the spread of users (i.e. the "free, just about adequate phone" that dominates most peoples choice) shows this. This is entirely separate to their iPod strategy, which scales from those with only a handful of dollars (the shuffle), all the way up to the "Smartphone without a radio" iPod Touch. In the phone space, they seem to have chosen the same battle as their computing space - the high end, high margin, "people willing to pay for the experience" market share which contains vast profits. If no serious competitor had appeared (as, bizarrely, happened in the MP3 space), then they might have eventually released an iPhone Nano etc. But given that other players are now in that space, they've just surrendered it, rather than fight a battle they can't win. Were they to open up iOS or release a spate of iPhones covering enough of the usage/price spectrum to compete, they'd lose a large amount of the Apple "experience", damage their premium brand, and risk losing the entire game. Their battle is to maintain enough market share to ensure development for iOS, and to ensure that Android devices end up being (mostly) the choice for mass market, race to the bottom, cheap at any cost devices. If Android starts to seriously infringe on their premium space, then they should be worried and can be considered to be losing. Until then, as far as I can see, they're winning the battle they're fighting.
tjogin 16y ago
Apple knows that most people buy computers in the budget segment. Apple doesn't sell computers in that segment. They know what they'd have to do to gain significant marketshare: enter the budget segment, the "race to the bottom", and they won't even try. OS market share simply isn't as important to them as shipping quality products and making money is.

Pewpewarrows 16y ago

On that note, customer satisfaction is inherently easier to keep high when you completely control the closed ecosystem. When you only have a select few devices your software can run on, it's much easier to test any changes or a new version you have against them. When you have to deal with thousand, possibly millions of hardware configurations that you need to support, that becomes nearly impossible. Things are destined to fall through the cracks, which reduces average customer satisfaction. That said, I still think OSX is a better overall OS. But you have to take all the variables into consideration when you discuss things like customer happiness.

andyzaharia 16y ago
Yep, thats a good one
loewenskind 16y ago
You've just described exactly why I switched to OSX from windows. Less useless choices to make and better likelihood that I wont have to deal with stupid hardware issues.
archgrove 16y ago
Indeed. This is exactly why they're unlikely go as "open" as, e.g. Windows with OS X, or Android with iOS. Once they start damaging the "premium" experience they're selling, they lose a key differentiator and will, eventually, slide off into nothing.

tjogin 16y ago

Yeah, I expect it to be very weak consolation to (for instance) Dell that, although Apple is kicking their asses, at least Windows is installed on more computers than OS X is. If Dell is "winning" they'd rather be "losing".