Why does Apple have such an outsized influence?

[mrochester]

Based on pure market share alone, Apple shouldn’t have as much market power and influence as they do.

So why do they? Is it because they are the only company forging their own path in both hardware and software? Every other company is either a hardware maker for someone else’s software or a software maker for someone else's hardware.

 

[Deleted member 77746]

Market Power
They build great products. Other companies have just as much market power if not more.


Influence
Influence over what?

 

[mrochester]

Market Power
They build great products. Other companies have just as much market power if not more.


Influence
Influence over what?

Influence in setting market direction.

 

[Squink]

Because people in the wealthiest market in the world - the USA - like homegrown products and they like Apples. Europe follows America.

 

[Deleted member 77746]

Influence in setting market direction.

What are they influencing though? What market direction? The people who buy the products are determining that probably by statistics gathered by Apple. If people didn't buy the products then Apple wouldn't do it.

 

[mrochester]

What are they influencing though? What market direction? The people who buy the products are determining that probably by statistics gathered by Apple. If people didn't buy the products then Apple wouldn't do it.

removable battery, 3.5mm headphone jacks, capacitive touchscreens, Face ID, Touch ID, completely wireless headphones to name a few I can think of.

 

[Deleted member 77746]

removable battery, 3.5mm headphone jacks, capacitive touchscreens, Face ID, Touch ID, completely wireless headphones to name a few I can think of.

Does anyone not see that Apple have done things slowly to see how the market react. Their sales figures and sold devices show this.

People are still buying products even if they remove or add certain items. As long as their profits are going up.

 

[matt100]

Oh god not this again...

It's simple, for one they do have a massive market share, particularly for such a small amount of device IDs given so many look alike.

They do things, the market likes them, their market share rises, they have high brand recognition and to some extent people copy.

But it's also lazy generalisation to suggest it's simply copying, they're going down a path all mfrs are heading down to some extent, like the headphone jack or battery, things like that would have been on roadmaps for various companies for ages, less parts, more sealed, less failure etc etc.

 

[glenimp617]

They still have the best ecosystem and I can't see anything changing for a while. Googles has improved, and in some areas is better, but on the whole Apples is still number one.

Why?

They have great integration between phone, tablet, watch, computer, TV and whilst their offerings may not technically be as feature rich as some, what they do offer...works, and works well.

I was an android fan for years....then just before Christmas made the switch to Apple. The iPad Pro is lightyears ahead of anything else (IMHO of course), and I don't just mean hardware specs.

You need to take a step back and see the bigger picture. What you can't simply do is compare say an iPhone 11 Pro to a Pixel 4. You need to look at the entire experience as a whole.

 

[mrochester]

They still have the best ecosystem and I can't see anything changing for a while. Googles has improved, and in some areas is better, but on the whole Apples is still number one.

Why?

They have great integration between phone, tablet, watch, computer, TV and whilst their offerings may not technically be as feature rich as some, what they do offer...works, and works well.

I was an android fan for years....then just before Christmas made the switch to Apple. The iPad Pro is lightyears ahead of anything else (IMHO of course), and I don't just mean hardware specs.

why do you think other manufacturers struggle to achieve what Apple does?

 

[Junglist]

Probably because they refused to build the walled garden that Apple has. I find Android owners are often very happy with the open source nature of the platform and the freedom it brings. But I prefer the benefits of the walled garden approach that Apple has taken. I'd never go Mac in replacement of a PC but I love how well all my Apple devices work together.

 

[glenimp617]

why do you think other manufacturers struggle to achieve what Apple does?

Fragmentation and different visions/models for their businesses. The two closest would be Google and Samsung. Samsung are a business making TVs, fridges and microwaves. Google started off as a search engine and have their fingers in ad revenues, data analytics, cloud services (icloud runs on google servers) etc etc..

Google don't make a computer for a start and run their services mainly from the chrome browser. When I say computer, I don't mean a chromebook although I guess you could argue it is.

There isn't really two companies alike, so you can't compare.

Apple makes everything they provide, so can close off their ecosysytem. The others have to rely on each other, so are more open. Pros and cons, but for me personally, I like the tighter integration offered from being a closed system, even though it sometimes can be a little annoying or too closed.

If you only picked one companies offerings it looks like this:

iPhone / Pixel
iPad / Pixel slate
Macbook Air/Pro / Pixelbook
iMac/Mac Pro / Nothing
Homepod / Google Home Max
Nothing / Google Home Hub
Apple TV / Chromecast
Watch / Nothing
Airpods / Pixel Buds
Siri / Google Assistant
Apple Home / Google Home(Nest)
iCloud / Google Account

Then apple really comes into it's own with things like:

iMessage / erm?
Facetime / Duo < lol
Find My / Google Maps but only for people not all devices

 

[mrochester]

Probably because they refused to build the walled garden that Apple has. I find Android owners are often very happy with the open source nature of the platform and the freedom it brings. But I prefer the benefits of the walled garden approach that Apple has taken. I'd never go Mac in replacement of a PC but I love how well all my Apple devices work together.

It seems odd to me how so insanely successful Apple’s business model is that no other company ever seems to try to mimic it. It would have the side benefit of a much more competitive landscape for consumers; multiple vertically integrated vendors providing truly differentiated product lines.

 

[Junglist]

It seems odd to me how so insanely successful Apple’s business model is that no other company ever seems to try to mimic it. It would have the side benefit of a much more competitive landscape for consumers; multiple vertically integrated vendors providing truly differentiated product lines.

My guess is because the way people think of Android. If Android would suddenly become as locked down as Apples ecosystem, they'd probably face some significant backlash. Been an iOS user since iPhone 3G and have never once even thought about switching. the fragmented nature of Android just puts me off

 

[glenimp617]

It seems odd to me how so insanely successful Apple’s business model is that no other company ever seems to try to mimic it. It would have the side benefit of a much more competitive landscape for consumers; multiple vertically integrated vendors providing truly differentiated product lines.

It will have to be an existing company, and nobody will change their business model as they know it will fail against Apple (who became the worlds first trillion dollar company). Google are the only ones who remotely come close, but they offer different things to different people. They like their way of doing things, and Apple likes theirs.

You can forget Microsoft, they have gone in a totally different direction.

 

[mrochester]

It will have to be an existing company, and nobody will change their business model as they know it will fail against Apple (who became the worlds first trillion dollar company). Google are the only ones who remotely come close, but they offer different things to different people. They like their way of doing things, and Apple likes theirs.

You can forget Microsoft, they have gone in a totally different direction.

It’s a shame it’s ended up this way as the market feels very uncompetitive. If I don’t want android or iOS I am SOL.

 

[Kreeeee]

why do you think other manufacturers struggle to achieve what Apple does?

Lack of control over both the hardware and the software.

 

[matt100]

We discussed this to death, it's been proven to be unsustainable for there to be additional ecosystems. For a combination of reasons.

It is a shame but it won't stay this way forever, nothing ever does.