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Editorial
An ecosystem is more than just what apps you run, or what digital goods can be bought on a device; it's also the open or closed standards you support for application development, APIs, peripherals and connectors. The way your device communicates with other devices, and the way your ecosystem communicates with other ecosystems, is a fundamental decision that every company dealing in digital goods, both hardware and software, has to make. I think there are a few equally valid approaches for a company to take when building an ecosystem, but there are some important qualifiers. Let's discuss.
I think the dominant trend in the industry right now is what I'd call the "Apple Way." Apple has always loved having its closed off little ecosystems that frustrated and delighted users, usually in equal measure. With the iPod, however, Apple had a closed off big ecosystem. The iPod was basically a monopoly in the portable listening space for nearly a decade — in the world of dedicated music players, it still is. Apple's approach to an ecosystem like the iPod / iTunes juggernaut is twofold: offer an incredible device that people want more than other devices, and then generate buy-in that makes it hard to leave. Both elements grow the ecosystem, and eventually make it difficult to pick another device, even for a new user.
Apple's DRM'd music purchased in iTunes wouldn't play on other music players, and if somebody purchased DRM-free MP3s elsewhere, it wasn't as effortless to get it onto an iPod. Apple was so good at the iPod ecosystem that when it finally lifted the DRM from the iTunes Store (to be fair, something Apple had been advocating from the start), there wasn't a mass migration from the iPod — it was merely seen as a value-add.
Apple isn't the only company to take this our-way-or-the-highway approach. RIM's BBM is another popular example. I'll get a BlackBerry because it has BBM, and I'll convince my friends to get a BlackBerry because it has BBM, and now none of us can buy a different phone, because there's no equivalent pervasive service, and we'd all have to jump at once to guard against peer group fragmentation. RIM's ultimate failure wasn't in its ecosystem strategy, it was in its device strategy. It just shows that no quasi-monopoly is foolproof: if you don't continue to innovate, someone will come along and eat your lunch.
The problem with copying this sort of strategy is that the road is littered with failures, or user-hostile prisons. Microsoft tried to imitate Apple's closed music ecosystem with Zune, and failed miserably. Apple itself has tried to do a BBM-style move in FaceTime and iMessage, but instead of opening up FaceTime like it promised, Apple has kept it as a differentiator. They might make for a good ad, but since FaceTime and iMessage don't play nice with others, and because Apple is far from a majority in the smartphone space, they're ultimately limited in utility, and confusing for users.
Sony is the classic case of proliferating standards. It's almost a byword now. Sony builds its own version of almost every service or standard (music, movies, app stores, discs, memory cards), and rarely shares the love. Instead of making the Xperia Play the premier handheld for playing all Android games, Sony tried to create its own ecosystem, the PlayStation Suite, that could only really catch on if it really caught on. As it stands, the only PlayStation-certified devices are built by Sony, and the number of games in the Suite is laughable.
Carriers also seem to suffer from this disease of creating businesses that can only truly succeed if all others fail. They create a myriad of lock-ins, both monetary and mental, for users, and work hard to keep their networks incompatible with each other. Instead of sharing the load of network buildout, they duplicate efforts (to the tune of billions of dollars), and the user suffers because of it. Few people have to decide which car to drive because of which roads it's compatible with — car makers have found other ways to differentiate.
Now, I'd love it if everybody went about creating open standards, open operating systems, DRM-free distribution platforms, and that there was a single file format per document type. Unfortunately, most innovation in the tech industry is motivated by the opportunity to make money, and making money often requires offering a service that nobody else is offering, or nobody else is able to offer.
If a company is in the position to build an iPod-style monopoly, I can't blame them for trying (as much as I'll resist it and fight for an alternative), but most companies aren't in that position. So, instead of dooming their future by betting it all on a standard that can't hope to win, I think there are two solid options for most for-profits among us.
1. Build an "open" standard that grows and benefits the entire industry.
or
2. Build a "closed" ecosystem that can proliferate across platforms or devices and benefits everyone who participates.
My favorite is option number one, of course. That's where you get things like Wi-Fi, SMS, HTML5, and WebKit. Or the whole internet. The problem with Flash (a standard, but a closed one), ultimately, is that it wasn't a truly open standard that everybody could improve and build on. Its development and propagation was limited to the bandwidth of a single company, and therefore it turned into a target. Ironically, Apple, a company whose own QuickTime was once a potential competitor to Flash, was the one that pulled the trigger.
But option number two has a number of strong success stories to its credit. Netflix, Skype and Kindle are closed and proprietary in many ways, but because they have allowed themselves to proliferate across all devices, there's very little resistance to them on the part of users. Of course, they've spawned many competitors and imitators, with Apple and Google competing on all three fronts. Perhaps all three could die a Flash-style death eventually, and owned-by-everybody standards for digital content distribution and video communication could triumph, but for now all three are synonymous with the respective services they provide. They're Kleenex.
The step beyond an app that spans all platforms is an OS that spans all devices. Android and Windows are the huge success stories they are because they're good products, but also because any device manufacturer can benefit from the work Google and Microsoft have done.
Oh, and if your app or OS isn't great, or mature enough to spread across an entire industry, you really shouldn't bother. Even operating systems full of good ideas alone, like Windows Phone or MeeGo, aren't sufficient. An OS with a small market share is too expensive to maintain and support with the necessary app ecosystem, device portfolio, and rapidly progressing set of features. As much as it pained me, the merging of Microsoft and Nokia's efforts, and the death of Meego, was a very natural result of realism on the part of both companies. Through this paradigm, webOS, an upstart on a closed platform, hardly stood a chance.
When software or services or standards can't fulfill all (or any) of these requirements, they're usually a waste of my time — especially when entering a market with a clear and magnanimous winner. Samsung's ChatOn, Google's Google+ and Google Books, Amazon's Appstore, Apple's iBooks (and FaceTime, and iMessage, and Game Center, and Ping), Microsoft's Zune. Even Kobo and Nook as entire brands feel like a distraction at this point, though I understand that they're a necessary business model for both companies. I'm frustrated by the Kindle Fire as well, and I feel like the Fire and generic Android tablets need to team up and "synergize" or face continual irrelevance in the shadow of the iPad. Every time an Android device manufacturer spends another dozen million dollars on trying to dress up Android in a fancy new skin, or make another redundant Twitter app, I mourn for what could have been faster updates, better OS-integrated hardware, and maybe even improvements to the base OS itself.
If your product isn't "a rising tide" that "lifts all boats," then it better be good enough to be the only boat. Otherwise you're probably wasting my time. You're certainly wasting yours.
Comments
Amazing article. Great insight!
cdawg92 - January 4, 2012 via mobile
Paul, every post I see you make has a brilliant amount of insight. Keep doing what you’re doing!
ianmboyd - January 4, 2012
Uh oh. He insulted WP7. Incoming!!!!
Nice article though!
Mike10010100 - January 4, 2012
I didn’t see it as an insult. I viewed it more as constructive criticism.
WhiteNiteLite - January 4, 2012
I don’t know how one can construct something out of that. I guess Microsoft can keep trying… Or perhaps he was suggesting that Microsoft keep advancing the entire ecosystem.
Mike10010100 - January 4, 2012
Microsoft is an exception. While it’s to early to tell it’s last great invasion (with the XBox) was won simply by sticking in pouring money into it, and waiting for sony to be sony.
that being said, i think they have better competitors on their hands (in google and apple) with the mobile market. Hard to say.
JesseDegenerate - January 4, 2012
Agreed. If there’s one thing Microsoft has going for it, it’s tons of money. Perhaps that’s their handicap (to use golf terms) due to being late in the game.
Mike10010100 - January 4, 2012
I think MS finally gets the ecosystem thing, and they definitely have the brands/verticals to make a really compelling platform, if they can ever actually get their shit together.
Zune, Xbox, Skype, Windows, Office, Kinect… there’s a ton of potential, if they can manage to integrate these brands/services in any sort of real way.
It’s just that they develop everything at an absolutely galcial pace – but they’ve got enough cash to keep their heads above water, while they work on getting the synergy in place.
mattkicksass - January 4, 2012
Perhaps that’s it. Lack of organic or market-driven growth. It feels forced for some reason, with money being the driving force and possibly the only thing keeping it afloat. Every time a marketshare review comes out, Microsoft’s share is still slowly dropping …
Mike10010100 - January 4, 2012
I agree. Out of all of them, Microsoft has the greatest amount of potential due to their depth of services and products they either sell or control. They’re huge. WP7 is fresh, Windows 8 will be huge….it’s a BIG picture to look back, but I am eager to see what they can do.
I’ve been preaching ecosystems for a VERY long time.
AliensWanted - January 4, 2012
Right now there isn’t much point for anyone to use Windows Phone except the distinctive, classy, and slightly inefficient UI.
But MS are working hard on the stuff to make you change your mind: the whole Windows Live, Skydrive, Skype, Mesh, Hotmail, Sync … all this cloud stuff – and all the app and marketplace stuff that’s coming down the pipes – all that is going to integrate into the mobile device products to make them far more a desirable package than they are now.
That’s the plan, progress so far is looking good (I’m loving skydrive and mesh!) and they have the money and resources to execute. .. if post-Jobs Apple starts to fade and Google can’t get it together fast enough MS stands a real chance to be the leader 2-3 years down the road.
Captain Megaton - January 4, 2012
+1 The UI just isnt as efficient as others for the sake of being different.. A nice percentage of phones sold have Touchwiz or Sense on them and those UI’s were developed under MS’s watch.. I think MS is making a mistake on pushing the Metro Homescreen, they are letting Google get marketshare on UI’s they actually helped create indirectly.. And the Metro homescreen doesn’t even follow the same design philosophies and rules of the apps and hubs…
Celz - January 4, 2012
*Sane design philosophies and rules of Metro apps and hubs..
Celz - January 4, 2012
Metro is the design philosophy. Please do tell, are you well informed about what you are talking about? Have you used a Windows Phone for an extended period of time?
What platform has a homescreen that looks like an ordinary app?
chaddaddy - January 4, 2012
I have tried an iPod touch, several flavors of androids that I still maintain for work purposes and now I use an omnia 7 as my choice mobile device (since the first day I tried it). It comes down to user experience “redesigned”. it’s fast, beautiful (though I have to agree it sure isn’t easily accepted by everyone), and it has one thing that I Cannot cope in any other platform… the mail client is the same either you are in gmail, exchange, imap or anything. You erase mails in a way, you reply them in a way, they all look the same (I use 3 e-mail accounts simultaneously). The calendar has the same guidelines as the mail client, just as any other “well built” third party app. (Another thing I do love, is the notifications… the tiles show how many e-mails/sms/calls you got since you last checked, and not how many mails you have unopened :)
jpcarvalhinho - January 4, 2012
I have been using a WP focus for 1.5 years now and I am happy with it even before it upgraded to Mango. I disagree on the inefficient UI part… I like Metro compared to the decades old icon grids.
I hated the HTC android 2.2 phone I had before WP. It often crashed, battery life sucked, sense skin was terrible, slow and buggy… were only a few of the long list of things I hated about android, No matter what Android fanboys say, Android back then was simply not as smooth as first version of WP7 was (it is true it had more features).
Having said that I think current Android version 4.0 is good. I particularly miss the Google Maps and is associated features or apps because Bing maps and nav sucks big time.
neilspartacus - January 4, 2012
try “gmaps”… it works :)… but it will eventually get better with Ovi maps… I hope
jpcarvalhinho - January 4, 2012
If MS is glacial what is RIM
Celz - January 4, 2012
Rocky :)
jpcarvalhinho - January 4, 2012
Glass.
Canucker2 - January 5, 2012
I don’t think you’re giving MS enough credit for the Xbox. Their success shouldn’t only be attributed to their deep pockets. Sure, they were able to keep going for a lot longer than an upstart would, but Microsoft had a tremendous product in the Xbox. Especially after introducing the Xbox 360 and Xbox Live.
They revolutionized the gaming console market by demonstrating two things:
1. That superior software creates a superior experience, regardless of the competitor’s more powerful hardware.
2. The hardware’s useful life can be greatly extended by software updates.
They attempted the same thing with the Zune (because of continuous software updates, the original Zune can do things the original iPod could only dream of doing), but obviously they failed for several reasons, one of them being that Apple is a much better competitor than Sony, but also because MS failed to create any buzz about their product, as is often the case with them.
saposmak - January 12, 2012
The article itself holds the answers… if only you made it a couple of sentences farther along.
TheStrange - January 4, 2012
Uh… trying?
What I understood from that bit – that you right away interpreted as “insulting”, perhaps wishfully – is exactly as it reads: the OS alone is not enough. Besides this the article mainly states the obvious and has a few flippant remarks to spice things.
Anyway, trying. I’m not sure what “tries” to be an ecosystem and what is an ecosystem in your opinion. But my personal experience:
I can XBL, Zune, Bing on my Xbox
I can XBL, Zune, Bing on my PC
I can XBL, Zune, Bing on my Phone
All three are connected. the Xbox is connected to the PC and share content, the Phone can control the Xbox, etc. Add to that Skydive, Messaging, and other services across platforms. I can Netflix on all three. Not sure if this is ecosystem-y enough.
sanshiro - January 4, 2012
And in that, I see Zune as less of a failure. It has become a way to bridge the three screens (TV, PC, phone) for media. I also see Google+ as less of a failure, despite the fact that I don’t see myself using it. It is becoming a central part of the “Google experience”.
chaddaddy - January 4, 2012
I think you’re taking it out of context. What he said was that if something’s going to start with as little market share as WP7 or MeeGo, they had better be super solid, it’s not enough to have potential. Failing that, it should be super easy to put onto a lot of devices and carriers, like android. I think we can all agree that while Windows Phone is good, there’s still a learning curve to it.
hblackwood - January 4, 2012
I think Paul is one of the most talented and insightful writers on the entire internet. Awesome piece, Paul, it is truly a joy to read your work!
mattkicksass - January 4, 2012
Interesting article, but doesn’t the continued success of both Android and iOS contract the “Winner Take All” headline? People may argue over who is winning, Android with its dominant market share or Apple with its record profits, but one thing is clear — neither Android nor iOS is going to disappear any time soon.
RoninEdge - January 5, 2012
That should be “contradict” not “contract”.
RoninEdge - January 5, 2012
I think you proved your point: There is no winner right now.
Winner take all implies 1 remains.
“Winning” implies there are more than one playing.
People arguing over who is winning = implication that there are more than one players, and nobody has won yet.
FlacVest - January 15, 2012
One of the big differences between Sony and Apple is the enticement to join in the ecosystem. More people want to join Apple’s than Sony’s.
crichton007 - January 4, 2012
The same could have been said in the late 80s early 90s about Sony. Where Apple is today isn’t new territory. It’s hard work convincing people to only use your stuff for more than 2 decades, eventually your competitors figure out whatever it is “you do”, improve on it, and sell it cheaper. It happened to Sony, we’ll see who eventually does it to Apple.
avinash240 - January 4, 2012
Sony never had really an ecosystem, just great hardware.
Gadgeteer21 - January 4, 2012
Sony’s buying out Ericsson’s share of Sony Ericsson was driven by the motivation to complete their ecosystem. Phone, tablets, consoles, computers, and televisions, all to be fed content backed primarily by their own film, television, and music branches through Qriocity. Now, knowing Sony, they’re going to screw this up somehow, most likely by executing the idea in a half-baked manner (as if the effort weren’t already rather half-assed to begin with). Which is pretty damn sad because they’ve got all the right assets to take on Apple head-on.
lolstebbo - January 4, 2012
It’ll be most fun when that proprietary memory card on the Vita becomes the expansion storage format for the next Xperia… lol
… Seriously, let’s hope not… I still look back at my old SE running the M2’s with mild derision.
Vasp - January 5, 2012
Playstation and PSP.. And the portable music players were as close to an ecosystem as could be at the time.. Digital music came out in the Walkman/ Discman days Sony would own online music.. The hardware opens the door and Sony dropped the ball after the discman
Celz - January 4, 2012
ATRAC on Minidisc was digital music, Sony even tried selling music on MD, nobody bought it and Sony’s own presence in the industry as a label made other labels reluctant to help it build a new standard.
Sony didn’t drop the ball after the discman so much as screw the pooch. They became so tied up with the industry that they put the needs of DRM above the needs of their consumers. Apple never did, in spite of anger from labels who insisted that CD ripping was piracy.
Cloudgazer - January 4, 2012
Apple owners don’t go ga-ga over “cheaper”.
If I get a non-iOS device, it means I can’t use it with my AirPlay system, it means I can’t transfer my purchased iOS apps to it, it means my settings can’t be transferred or restored with one click, it means my iTunes library that I’ve spent hours organizing and curating is significantly less useful. The list goes on and on.
It’s blatantly obviously to see “whatever it is” that Apple’s doing, to use your words. That’s not the issue at all. The issue is broken compatibility, when someone makes the switch.
I’m not really sure how to combat it. An included “match” service that takes all of your iOS apps/media, and gives you the WP7-licensed versions for FREE when you purchase their device would be a good idea, but Hell will freeze over before anything like that happens.
mattkicksass - January 4, 2012
Your idea to match the music is a good one; in theory at least software like Zune could look at an iTunes database and import it. It is just a database after all, and in theory all the files exist on your hard drive, and are DRM free. In addition the meta data about each file is in the actual file.
mgk69 - January 4, 2012
The Doubletwist app for Android makes transferring your iTunes library to your Android phone pretty painless. It’s just a matter of people being aware of that. I don’t kwow if WP7 has a similar alternative but that seems like a simple first step to drawing people away from iTunes. I think advertising is also very important. The forum post “to kill a streetlight” ( I believe that’s the name…) really summed this one up. People need to be smacked in the face with the useful benefits of a product or else they’ll just migrate to the most popular device, namely the iPhone.
baclap - January 4, 2012
Another app that does a good job transfering music, photos and playlist is iSyncr.
deitiphobia - January 4, 2012
The Windows Phone Connector (sync client) for Mac works with iTunes and iPhoto.
chaddaddy - January 4, 2012
Bah, sorry repeated your comment :P. Anyways, WP7 on Mac is great. Far less of a hassle than I thought it would have been.
MrSeanWashington - January 5, 2012
On Mac computers, The Windows Phone Connector actually syncs your iTunes and iPhoto. It’s great.
MrSeanWashington - January 5, 2012
I just use Google Music. My entire iTunes library is automatically uploaded and then I can download anything I want whenever/wherever on my Android device(s).
ravipatel - January 5, 2012 via mobile
Google Music, Voice and a few other things are not available outside of the US. This is an issue with Apple and MS as well where some key features don’t work well or don’t work at all outside of the US.
aku - January 5, 2012
It’s one of the reasons I would say it sucks, if your connection to the Internet doesn’t suck at home, plex destroys it, and can be used anywhere, with clients on any platform.
JesseDegenerate - January 5, 2012
I’m in the UK and Google Music is trivally easy to sign up for with no issues. Would love Google Voice though.
ravipatel - January 5, 2012
Hey, I understand the idea of “lock-in” and maybe I’m a bit older but I remember when the “lock-in” were hardware things like propitiatory storage, connectors, and media formats. Sony was the KING of doing that, you could spend $1000 of dollars on Sony gear that would only play nicely with other Sony gear. So the way the “lock-in” looks might be different, but the concept is the same. They turned the cassette player into the Walkman, the same way Apple turned the digital music player into the iPod. And before Sony it was GE. I’m just curious to see who it’ll be.
avinash240 - January 9, 2012
Awesome written piece. You’re totally right.
Dylan Spronck - January 4, 2012
Put this in the big feature block. Don’t want anyone to miss this one.
bradygossett - January 4, 2012
Gr8 read…
a2zKiller - January 4, 2012
I don’t want to talk…
Minjin - January 4, 2012
Great article, but I had an issue with one comment:
This seems a bit misguided. There is a place for standards and a place for proprietary. A single file format per document type is not going to fly because software writers could not create new features in their application unless they could save it to the “standard file format”. This means that the “standard file format” would have to allow for some kind of XML segment that had demarcated proprietary stuff embedded within it.
For example, OpenOffice Impress (free presentation software) cannot do all the transitions and animations that PowerPoint or Keynote can do,. Further, PowerPoint and Keynote are capable of specific functions that the other cannot do. These animations and transitions are what differentiate these products and make one or the other better in somebody’s eyes. If we are forced to use the “lowest common denominator” or wait for a standards committee to change the file format just to get an application update, then we as users suffer.
There is a place for standards, but I don’t ever think that a universal file format will be possible EXCEPT as an “exchange” “import-from/export-to” perspective. Anybody who has ever exchanged documents between OpenOffice, Microsoft Office, and iWork will tell you that something is always lost in the translation.
BC2009 - January 4, 2012
As a follow-up I do use all three office suites in specific situations in order to take advantage of the merits of each when needed. When I want maximum portability, I go with OpenOffice. When I want the best text revision tracking and comments, I use Microsoft Word. When I want a presentation that will knock somebody’s socks off, I use keynote. I often find that exporting to “PDF” for all three is the best way to share things that are made in proprietary formats.
BC2009 - January 4, 2012
Hah, simul-post.
Paul Miller - January 4, 2012
I got two responses from Paul Miller. Even sweeter!!!
BC2009 - January 4, 2012
You’re right, that line was very pie-in-the-sky. But what if a doctype was more like HTML5? There’s a set of far-reaching standards that are opt-in. Browsers can support their own stuff as well, but it won’t play nice with others. In the document world, it would probably stifle innovation in some ways, maybe promote it in others. Not all-in advocating for it, but I think at minimum that diff document editors could play more nicely with each other. At least PDF displays the same everywhere, .doc doesn’t even do that!
Paul Miller - January 4, 2012
Woohooo…. I got a response from Paul Miller!!!!! Sweeeet.
BC2009 - January 4, 2012
Yes PDF is the best exchange format out there for office suites. Especially since many PDF readers (like GoodReader) let you do markup in an open/standard way.
BC2009 - January 4, 2012
That’s why PDF is the standard document exchange format.
Mike10010100 - January 4, 2012
It’s just not something you can import into MS Office, OpenOffice or iWork and start editing. Big difference between an output format and a document format. PDF is an output format that allows for markup and some very strained editing features.
BC2009 - January 4, 2012
correction: big difference between an output format and a general-purpose document format
BC2009 - January 4, 2012
I used to work in printing and had to edits PDFs allll the time. A real chore. Still, rarely looked horrible.
Paul Miller - January 4, 2012
Exactly — its great for sharing your work in a final form for review because it does a great job of getting all your formatting right 99% of the time (unless the PDF generation is buggy in your app). Like you said before, DOC files don’t even look the same everywhere. In fact the MS Office team for Mac made a real effort to make it so documents would look the same on Windows and Mac far more often than they did in previous versions of Office for Mac.
BC2009 - January 4, 2012
That’s why pdf it’s viewed as the printing/sharing alternative. You print it on paper, and can “never” edit it again… just comment it, write on it, or import it for editing (just like OCR does on paper)… it’s this “permanency” that made it so usable on enterprise markets as a viable document sharing platform… that and digital signatures :)
jpcarvalhinho - January 4, 2012
I was thinking that doubters of the feasibility of a unified documents platform could look at how well html has done, specifically because it is a standard.
Seemingly simple things like digital forms, etc barely exist because of the competing standards. I suppose the web is in a lot of ways subverting the need for individual documents and if a standardized wrapper could be made for portable html5 documents, it could disrupt and displace this. Right now I doubt our collective knowledge is going to be readable in 50 years, in any proprietary format unless a shift like this occurs.
chesterharry - January 5, 2012
That’s why there are so many different types. Really, a PDF is only a medium through which you can exchange information in a fashion that looks the same on every computer.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portable_Document_Format#Standardization
Mike10010100 - January 4, 2012
Just buy MS Office 2010 ang get industrial standard for documents.
Who cares about 0.8% poor linux nerds?
alonza - January 5, 2012
We don’t need to be cared about.
dividebyzero - January 5, 2012
Great article Keep it up Paul. I think Microsoft will take all with Windows 8!
jstine - January 4, 2012
Microsoft has done their homework and has created a beautiful look, even more beautiful features and I see this being a two horse race again. Where Microsoft has the advantage on the mobile front is handset with requirements….that seems to be super smart. What they should implement moving forward it another requirement that has benefitted Apple; handset specific requirements like the charging port location and design.
Apple gets ripped for having that 30-pin adapter but the aftermarket has completely embraced it. It is what so many people have (some form of iDevice like an iHome or some such thing) that lets them pop their iPhone or iPod into it and it works.
If Microsoft figures that out and puts that hardware requirement into place, it’s going to be hard for Apple to compete with that.
AliensWanted - January 4, 2012
Not if they don’t have the mindshare of the people, something Apple had WHEN they decided to go the 30 pin. Well, rather, something they were banking on having.
WP7 is great, but it isn’t large. It isn’t widely known as being as good or better than Android. Just last December my mother, grandmother, and father all got Samsung Infuses because they were free with 2 year upgrades.
Didn’t even consider getting the Windows phone. Why? THey all watch tv, and I’m pretty sure they all saw ads for Samsung Devices on ATT, NOT windows phone.
Sure they used to play quirky ads here and there, but the support, at least from what I’m seeing, dropped off. Admittedly I don’t watch tv often, but when I do, I see more of Apple/Samsung than anything else.
FlacVest - January 15, 2012
I don’t think anyone will ever “take all” with anything in that market. We’re talking about human beings when it comes down to it. You might be able to convince a vast majority to purchase a single brand on a niche product like a tablet, but a market for something as necessary as a computer will always have healthy competition.
baclap - January 4, 2012
It isn’t a literal term; right now Android and iOS are winning, and by a very large margin, at least over here in the states when talking about smartphones.
I’d wager that if nothing changes soon, this christmas we’ll just see that gap grow so large people will really start talking about buying/selling, just like HP.
We are human and there won’t be a 100/0 split of something as long as its sold, but this market is changing faster than ever before; never have I seen constant coverage and growth of something like this, and it’s still NEW.
This wave of smartphones and whatnot is what, 5 years old after the first iPhone? It got competitive really 4 or so (whenever Google got into the game). It’s in its infancy.
And in that short time Palm is gone. WebOS? “Gone”. Next year? Might be RIM.
Crazy times we’re living in, in the electronics area anyway.
FlacVest - January 15, 2012
Great article!
grahm - January 4, 2012
As you point out, Paul, Apple never really wanted DRM in the first place; that was down to the recording industry. I don’t believe that it was harder to get DRM-free music onto an iPod, either. Ripping a CD in iTunes has always (as far as I can remember) been a pretty simple proposition. And importing MP3s into your library is at least as easy as buying something from the store (perhaps save metadata fiddling).
But your point is a good one that once Apple lifted DRM, it just made people like them even more and made them the hero.
boybert - January 4, 2012
Getting non DRM’d MP3s onto an iPod has never been even remotely hard, and the process is identical whether you are using M4A or MP3. I don’t get that comment in the article at all.
Paul'r - January 4, 2012
Indeed. The whole yard spun off the “iPod dominated for a decade and foisted the iTunes Store DRM (mumble…which was later lifted…mumble…mumble) on everyone” premise is just fantasy. The iPod did great way before the iTunes Music Store opened, its original battle cry was “rip-mix-burn” – remember? Why did the iPod become dominant? Is this not worth investigating? Why did people keep buying it when the iTunes Music Store opened, DRM-encumbered as it was? Rather than gazing into the crystal ball of geekdom I reckon trying to understand what regular people (not geeks who are hopelessly outnumbered in the greater scheme of things) want from their gadgets would go a long way toward understanding Apple’s success in the consumer gadget market.
Instead, some elaborate narrative is invented, handing down praise, blame and advice based on a nerdy and skewed view of the world, exciting the target 70% of the Verge readership but leaving everyone else disappointed.
theREALdotnet - January 5, 2012
I think in reality it went more like Napster – iPod.
I think DRM music in iTunes faced the problem that it was more efficient to the end user to download DRM free music illegally than try to work out what to do with stuff they purchased in iTunes – that they expected to behave in the same way.
mgk69 - January 5, 2012
The best “ecosystem” (if it can be called that) for me so far has been Steam. It works on my various Windows based PC’s. It works on my Mac (OSX version premitting) and on any future Mac I buy. Another example is the Kindle software, enabling me to read and use my content on many more platforms than just Amazon’s hardware.
I’d love a cross platform app distribution system like Steam for mobile platforms but the closed nature of WP7 and iOS will undoubtedly not let that happen.
It’s a shame to see so many vendors try to lock you in as they do but it’s in their interests to do so. Despite this, it hasn’t stopped me from moving between iOS, WP7 and Android at all.
Chaz_UK - January 4, 2012 via mobile
Man, I love Steam too. It’s so nice knowing I bought Portal once and can play it on any PC or Mac anywhere forever.
Paul Miller - January 4, 2012
Ding ding ding! Piracy is an issue of service. Steam lets you buy something once and use it anywhere until the end of time. It’s so much more convenient than pirating, and you’re guaranteed updates and customer service, as well as multiplayer.
Mike10010100 - January 4, 2012
Steam just makes it so easy, so accessible it is no contest. The fact that they price it competitively with so many deals/ discounts is really just a bonus to me.
And buy once, play anywhere on supported systems = a win like no other. These guys have their head on straight.
ounkeo - January 9, 2012
Don’t forget Portal 2! Bought it on PS3 and they gave me the PC one, <3 Gabe. (Apparently they couldn’t get that same idea to work with the Xbox, BALLMER!)
AmeenA - January 4, 2012
Forever meaning while Steam exists.
Captain Megaton - January 4, 2012
How does iOS and WP7 being “closed” have any affect at all on cross-platform development? Developers can create apps for any platform they like, concurrently or not, but whatever they do, the cost of time is always going to be a limiting factor. And in a world where time=money, that time needs to be spent as efficiently as possible. That has nothing to do with “closed” or “open” OSes.
MayorBloomberg - January 4, 2012
They’re “closed” in so much that a third party can not create separate application distribution software to distribute third party apps.
The current Steam Play model let’s me buy Civization V for instance which then has binaries for both Windows and OS X.
When it comes to mobile apps, and I’ve had to purchase Angry Birds on two formats (iOS & WP7) to be able to play the game on both platforms. If iOS and WP7 had an official method to install third party software, there would be nothing stopping a third party making a Steam type distribution model for Mobile devices (buy a game once, play on iOS, and WP7 and Andrlid)
I’d be more than willing to pay more for each applicationif if this was possible but vendor lock-in is the name of the game sadly.
I hope that clarifies my point a little.
Chaz_UK - January 4, 2012 via mobile
There are a few options in that respect. AIR and HTML 5 come to mind.
JesseDegenerate - January 4, 2012
More importantly, it’s buying one app and playing it anywhere.
jaggedspike - January 4, 2012
i’m not sure how that would work in the actual app stores. Possibly if your app was free and you used an unlock code to access the real content.
Buy the access code once, use on the platforms you want maybe?
I say this, but i’ve already bought many apps twice. Once on iOS once on Android.
JesseDegenerate - January 4, 2012
It can’t happen with the way things are. Plus developers like making more money.
jaggedspike - January 4, 2012
That’s exactly what Chaz_UK and Paul Miller are saying (me too now) – we want it to work.
This is exactly what happens with the Steam analogy.
Because of Androids “openness”, this is possible with platforms such as Windows (Desktop) – DoubleTwist is the best example I can think of.
I pay for AirSync once, (whether on Desktop or Android) and I get it on both.
Actually now I think of it – is that a way you could achieve this with current application stores – a free app download, but you need to login the first time, linking that device.
First time ever (on any device), you’ll be prompted to register and pay,.
BOOM. Problem solved.
Fordy - January 4, 2012
Makes me want it.
jaggedspike - January 4, 2012
Why do those platforms need a secondary distribution source to enable cross-platform apps? This limitation sounds more like a failure of imagination than the symptom of being “closed.” There are plenty of ways an app developer could verify whether you’ve already bought an app or not. The reason you find yourself having to re-purchase apps you’ve already bought on other platforms is because that developer has no incentive to do it another way. Even if that developer wanted to just charge you once, what’s the payoff in that effort? How many people do you think play Angry Birds on two or more different mobile operating systems? If that’s a problem you have, you are in the vast majority. For various reasons, not the least of which is cost, most consumers are on one platform every two years.
Look at the problem another way: when the iPad was first rolled out, most apps that were redesigned for the screen size were separate apps, which required an additional purchase. Customers complained and demanded more universal apps, and for the most part, they’ve gotten that. There’s really very little demand for the kind of thing you’re talking about, because most people are in one ecosystem at a time. But if it was widely desired, there’s no reason it couldn’t be done, closed or open be dammed.
MayorBloomberg - January 4, 2012
Another thing I should point out, since you make the comparison to Steam, is that while Steam exists on both Windows and OS X, it doesn’t really do what you are thinking it does. Steam works best within an ecosystem, not between. While it’s true that I can buy Civilization V once and play it on any Windows or Mac device I own, this is only true if Civ V’s developers wish it to be so. As it stands right now, a good number of Steam’s best offerings are still Windows-only. Any guesses as to why that is?
MayorBloomberg - January 4, 2012
The reason why I thought along the lines of a third party doing their own distribution system is because I could never see Apple/Google/Microsoft reliquishing control of what they have now to make application distribution cross platform platform.
There are only a few options where such a thing could be done today (Android/Symbian/MeeGo e.t.c). You seem to be focusing on my “Open” comment more than anything but it wasn’t a dig at Microsoft or Apple.
I very much would like the freedom to move to another platform come upgrade time to get the best available hardware at the time but phone handsets have gone.the way of the consoles.
I will say that things are far better now in each respective app store than they ever were as I remember buying software in the old days when I was a Symbian user and serial keys were mostly linked to a handsets IMEI. If you had a hardware fault and were givien a new handset, you’d have to smail the software manufacturer your situation, new IMEI and hope that they distribute you a new serial number to unlock your software. If that was not forthcoming you’d have to re-buy the software again.
The way things are today isn’t all bad see? :)
Chaz_UK - January 4, 2012 via mobile
Paul, do you really think there is room for only one social network?
Minjin - January 4, 2012
Certainly Facebook has massive lock in. Makes it hard for any new up and comers.
DrTechno - January 4, 2012
What makes Facebook, Twitter and every other social network work is that everyone and your grandma is on it.
I don’t think Google+ has that problem. It’s seeing a good rate of adoption, just nobody seems to want to actually use their account once they get one. Probably because most find it incredibly redundant to post to their Facebook, their Twitter, their Instagram, and THEN their Google+ on top of all of that.
Webran61 - January 4, 2012
Here is something that can solve that issue….
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ytc9-wGCHW0
Sachin - January 4, 2012
Jump-starting a social network in a world where there’s a dominant player is a herculean task even for a company as big as Google. Sorry, I think that Google+ has exactly the problem you highlighted. The fact that people sign up for it and then don’t use it doesn’t really count as a positive. Facebook is dominant to the point that mainstream brands are promoting Facebook URLs instead of their own in TV commercials, there’s scores of companies listed at BuyFacebookFansReviews that promote Facebook pages for businesses and businesses are gearing their entire social media strategies around Facebook ads and various types of Facebook marketing, and it’s completely dominant within the popular culture. I’m not saying Google+ is doomed (its not, it will continue to grow) but its years and maybe a decade away from being a serious competitor to Facebook. There’s room for more than one social network, but Google has to take a long-term approach to tackling this because there’s no way that a billion people are going to switch social networks anytime soon without a massive incentive.
BlueContrast - January 4, 2012
I don’t have the bandwidth for more than 1.5 social networks. Ideally, only one. Companies can start all the social networks they want, and good luck to them, but the only three that could really pull it off at this point are Msft, Google, and Apple. And it’s not looking good for any of them.
Paul Miller - January 4, 2012
Poor Diaspora
DrTechno - January 4, 2012
Microsoft is partnering more and more with Facebook.
Apple would like to partner with Facebook but cannot resolve the privacy issues.
Google would never partner with Facebook, hence Google+ is their only play.
BC2009 - January 4, 2012
This is where Microsoft got it right again. Facebook is so huge. Apple and Twitter….they had to have some level of integration. I use both, but honestly, Facebook does more. News is what I get from Twitter, life is what I get from Facebook.
AliensWanted - January 4, 2012
“life is what I get from Facebook”
please tell me you didn’t mean to say that…
Captain Megaton - January 4, 2012
Hahaha, what I mean is that people post stuff about their life on Facebook. I worded that quite poorly. Twitter is a little less personal and Facebook (at least for me) is considerably more personal.
AliensWanted - January 4, 2012
there is more truth to that than it at first seems. Getting updates from friends, family and acquaintances is huge. You know what is going on with ppl important to you without the hassle and you can jump in at any time to interact with them.
It is the equivilent of taking a sec to just say to someone, hey, im still around and kicking, hi. It is life, just digitised.
Comparing that to google + where i now have tons of the same ppl…. But the service is so quiet as to be dead, there is, literally, no life there. Just meaningless names.
ounkeo - January 9, 2012
That really sums your life up a treat.
Fordy - January 4, 2012
what do you mean apple and twitter? i know the MS and facebook have close ties, but i have never heard of apple being close to twitter. If you’re talking about the twitter integration in iOS5, wp7 had that LONG before iOS did. and it’s more integrated than apple’s way.
kidjenius - January 4, 2012
yup…just love the way it all works on wp7.5 :)
jpcarvalhinho - January 4, 2012
Linkedin is a specialized social network that for whatever its worth at least proves there need not be a “highlander” mentality to this issue.
Facebook suffers because it does not integrate with the range of services that Google+ can, and it also suffers because it gets its money solely from having people use Facebook. It could easily fade into irrelevance, just as myspace did, just as altavista or AOL did before that, just as Yahoo seems likely to do in the near future.
There’s no particular reason even that “social networks” as we know them today will exist in recognizable form by the time “Web 3.0” rolls around.
Captain Megaton - January 4, 2012
What integration is necessary with Facebook that comes from Google? I don’t think search is of much importance. Maps? Not really. Facebook already has article sharing (now it has the “read” thing as opposed to just liking it). Not everyone is actually on Gmail, and apart from contacts sync, that’s a meh. In fact, Facebook is probably the best source of contacts for many, not email.
The only area I see Google having leverage is YouTube, and if they intend to close it up for their personal use then I will call dick move.
chaddaddy - January 4, 2012
Even if you don’t feel the need for more than one social network, competition is always a good thing that will generate a better overall product. I know that you are a simple man and only want one thing and have it be the best thing ever, but Facebook, or any other product for that matter, will never get any better without more competition.
Someguyperson - January 5, 2012
Only one social network… and the winner takes it all. When you say that sentence, does “it all” mean yourself? The article is about the whole industry and society, or is it about you?
dividebyzero - January 5, 2012
i barley update the one profile i have.
JesseDegenerate - January 4, 2012
Ecosystems are the reason why I don’t know if I will ever get off an iPhone or leave Amazon. They are just too damn good. I was just thinking about getting a Andoid phone, but I have so much outside of my phone that attaches to my iPhone that I could almost never leave. My car would be incompatible. I
rchapoteau - January 4, 2012
I’m an Apple fan who owns tons of their products, but I root for Android to keep improving for two reasons:
1) It helps pace/drive Apple innovation (though they also innovate on their own)
2) It makes for a great alternative for if and when I choose to switch ecosystems
Right now switching from iOS is not something I am looking to do because I am delighted by it constantly. But that does not mean I don’t want their to be viable alternatives in the future if that should ever change.
The nice thing is that if Apple were to turn the direction they went in the early to mid 1990’s again, then they would likely find themselves in a position where they would have to open up their ecosystem to attract new customers. This same turn would allow existing customers like myself to move off Apple.
Paul’s point about constant innovation is very important here. If you don’t constant innovate, somebody will eventually “eat your lunch” as Paul says.
BC2009 - January 4, 2012
Are you referring to the time when Apple allowed Mac “clones” to be sold? Because that was an unmitigated disaster, and brought them very close to bankruptcy.
MayorBloomberg - January 4, 2012
I’m not saying it would be good for Apple. I’m saying that if Apple started producing junk products and an Apple user felt tied to their ecosystem and unable to switch from their junk to the latest and greatest stuff, then said user need only wait for Apple to start doing desperate things and start opening up their ecosystem before switching. It becomes a matter of when a dying company becomes more interested in attracting new customers than holding on to the ones they already have.
I hope Apple never goes that route again. Right now, the best play for RIM to become relevant again is to provide the Blackberry services on other devices. Folks are calling for this, but a healthy RIM would never even consider such a play. The problem is that RIM is producing junk products right now. So any users are tied to RIM’s ecosystem for Blackberry services may need only wait another 10 months for RIM to open things up so they can switch to decent products.
Tying yourself to an ecosystem may seem constraining, but there is usually a way out when the owner of that ecosystem becomes desperate. The problem arises if you want to switch from that ecosystem when it is still very healthy (possibly due to some philosophical stance on open versus closed). Switching when an ecosystem is doing well is much harder. However, an ecosystem is usually only doing well when it is serving its customers well. When that stops, then eventually things change and somebody eats their lunch.
BC2009 - January 4, 2012
That’s kinda exactly what they did. They got desperate. Licensing will never work with the ethos of Apple.
RIM can still be salvaged, rumor is the CEOs are gonna be relieved.
jaggedspike - January 4, 2012
RIM is dead. We’ve been discussing it over at CrackBerry http://forums.crackberry.com/general-discussion-f2/how-fix-rim-twelve-months-683356/ so go there and read what I have to say about it.
AliensWanted - January 4, 2012
RIM needs to drop the hardware business and port their secure messaging apps to iOS and Android. Beef up the enterprise toolset while they’re at it.
They’ve still got a little time, and their name, at least in the corporate world, still means something.
But they need to do it NOW.
isights - January 4, 2012
and port to windows phone! imagine integrating BBM with windows live messenger and facebook chat in the messaging threads in wp7! AMAZING
kidjenius - January 4, 2012
That’ll kill them. They need the hardware they are in the same business as Apple. The QNX phones need to come sooner.
jaggedspike - January 8, 2012
What I’m saying, however, is that doing such a thing is actually worse for Apple than doing nothing. If all that’s keeping you with Apple is their investment in an ecosystem, and they give you an out, what keeps you around as a consumer? I think that disaster is recent enough that it’s unreasonable to expect them to do the same thing again, should the Earth spin off its access and Apple becomes a bargain-basement seller.
RIM offering their services to other platforms is, for similar reasons, a horrible idea. That won’t make RIM more relevant, but it might help out a competitor. If, for example, Apple hadn’t already come up with iMessage, and RIM offered to license out their Blackberry Messenger, in what way do you see that helping RIM to regain their foothold in the market? What they’ll be doing is adding value to a competing brand and shrinking their own importance in the market. When Sega began selling software on Sony’s gaming platform, it didn’t make Sega “relevant” again; it just cemented their place as a software maker.
MayorBloomberg - January 4, 2012
When a company finds itself in that place they start asking what assets they have that are valuable. For RIM, it might be their enterprise level services on the back end. So in order to boost sales of the backend services, they decide to cede the device side to the competitors. It is certainly a retreat, but there is an intent that in some point in the future they will be able to mount an offensive on a new front. Doing nothing for RIM will mean non-existence, providing BBM or their email services to iOS and Android users might mean they can keep selling high-margin back-end services to corporations. This is what I mean when “attracting new customers becomes more important than retaining the existing ones”. Right now, an open RIM with millions of Android and iOS users that depend on the Blackberry services is likely more attractive than a closed RIM with far less Blackberry users that depend on their services. If it becomes more important for RIM to create a user base to sell their enterprise services than it is to lock in their existing user base, then they can buy time.
There are of course other ways to “buy time”. Steve Jobs bought time for Apple by turning to Bill Gates for an investment. The moral of the story is that you don’t want to put yourself in that position. You want to keep innovating and remain relevant or else one day you are faced with some very difficult choices (none of which are good).
It reminds me of playing risk and trying to hold on to two continents when you only have enough armies to maintain one. You eventually retreat to maintain just one and hope that you will flip the set of cards to eventually give you enough armies to make a come back. Most often you get beaten into oblivion by the other players, every once in a while (Apple’s case) you make a huge comeback and dominate the world.
BC2009 - January 4, 2012
As a follow-up…. my hypothetical Apple of the future may be in a position where in order to sell more devices they need to make it possible to play movies and music streamed from “FutureMediaStore.com” or in order to sell more media they need to convert all their existing media into a format that plays on FutureTech’s devices. Such a condition would be predicated by millions of Apple users jumping ship to some new great thing that comes along, which would likely be predicated by Apple stagnating.
BC2009 - January 4, 2012
I’m not saying that doing something like that couldn’t, in some cases, keep it alive. I’m saying, in Apple’s case (when they actually did it), and in RIM’s case, as a hypothetical, both moves were or would be terrible for those companies and leech value from them such that they speed their own demise. No amount of licensing fees of BBM could return RIM to where they were in 2005. It’s just not smart business.
MayorBloomberg - January 4, 2012
I root for a third player. Why? Google and Apple can coexist and neither would have to dramatically innovate. I feel like the PC market has stagnated with Microsoft and Apple – neither really has to do much to maintain market share (Microsoft) / profits (Apple).
Google is not going to be challenged market share-wise (and that’s all they really want, heaps of devices with their services on it) by Apple’s model. There are flaws in Android that I want fixed that probably won’t be fixed in a duopoly.
chaddaddy - January 4, 2012
Android is open though, so any glaring fault can be fixed in custom ROMs, vendor skins or full blown forks. Android can be the third player, and the fourth, etc.
Cloudgazer - January 5, 2012
If you think things are bad now, extrapolate this out 20 years from now. People’s “digital furniture” stuck in mutually incompatible silos.
I have an iPad and iTunes, but use Microsoft for work stuff, and Google for personal stuff, and have contacts list and photo albums and profiles of various levels of completeness and updatedness spread over a dozen different places.
Things much consolidate and become more inter-operable in the future, as its going to be utterly unmanageble otherwise.
Captain Megaton - January 4, 2012
This will especially be true if the idea of a local hard drive disappears and everything is remote – you won’t even be able to download from remote servers to consolidate everything locally.
Someone could even come up with their own proprietary photo format, like Apple with the M4A and their lossless codec (now open though), or the various MS things like Windows Media Audio/Video. Although those formats are fairly portable imagine if they weren’t… you buy WMA through Zune, you play it in Zune. You buy M4A through Apple, it stays with Apple.
History tells us consumers are not likely to let that happen (like the old school DRM in iTunes) but it could still happen if it is easy, e.g. Zune music is only playable with a Zune pass, you stop paying, you stop playing.
mgk69 - January 4, 2012
Zune only uses WMA for the “rented” Zune Pass content. Purchased content is DRM-free MP3, which is a bigger standard than what Apple uses for its music store.
Entegy - January 5, 2012
OK. I was just using that as an example of “mutually incompatible silos” in reply to megaton.
As I said – history tells us consumers won’t go for that, which is why every store essentially sells fairly transportable files at the moment.
mgk69 - January 5, 2012
And let’s hope it stays that way. I’m fine with the WMAs for Zune Pass, but wouldn’t want to purchase music in WMA.
Entegy - January 5, 2012
I don’t know… this almost reads to me like an argument against competition… so I shouldn’t bother with a closed ecosystem if there’s already a market leader, or if it isn’t compatible with X or Y?
Maybe I’m missing the point, but I really like my Zune HD, for example, and feel like its features have contributed towards better products not only from MS, but its competitors as well. Also, how was Zune a “closed ecosystem?” That was a product. The music was playable on any device. Yes, you had to sync from a Windows PC… is that what the author is getting at? That’s not an ecosystem.
The difference between the current open and closed models the author describes is that the close models originate from companies that can support the ecosystem… they have hardware and software already built out (eg. Apple, Microsoft, Google). Last time I checked, Amazon and Netflix (as the author mentions) don’t have hardware or their own OS… their whole model is centered around a service, it’s not actually an ecosystem at all. When MS talks “3 screens and a cloud,” that’s an ecosystem.
acyclic - January 4, 2012
Sorry, meant to quote this… I couldn’t disagree more, and this is what I was objecting to. Just because you’re already invested in a ecosystem from the market leader doesn’t mean that others are. All you’re really saying here is that we don’t need additional competition because you don’t think these ecosystems are good enough or will catch on.
acyclic - January 4, 2012
Yes, I’m confused by the comment as well because he later goes on to say it was a good idea for MS and Nokia to combine forces. Does he mean MS was thinking too small previous to the Nokia deal? Alone they didn’t have a chance but together they do?
I really enjoy WP7 and would like it to succeed for the long-term.
UniBeam - January 4, 2012
Competition is a good thing. But if your competition is little more that yet another “me to” product, then it’s not going to get very far. Especially in a market with two existing, very strong competitors.
Now, if you create a brand new OS from the ground up that, say, offers a Star Trek voice experience ,and you do it well and it works (sorry, Siri) , then you have the basis for differentiating your product in the marketplace.
isights - January 4, 2012
His main point, clearly, is that you cannot make a play for 4th place. It’s not economically viable to maintain an OS with such a small user base.
By combining Nokia/Microsoft are powerful enough to take on the leaders, alone, even MS would struggle. Anything else literally doesn’t stand a chance WebOS, no, and things like Fusion Garage and other wannabe’s are literally just wasting their time and money – it’s not even a lottery, success is a zero probability event.
Captain Megaton - January 4, 2012
I believe that Paul isn’t against competition… he is against “mee too” competition. When You offer what the best who is installed in the market has to offer, you better provide at least the same experience, or at compensate the lack of it with a differentiation in price. Kindle is a great example. You offer a limited “iPad” experience, in a closed environment, but compensate this with a much lower price point.
The synergy between Nokia and windows is evident. world coverage and cheaper products that can reach to every pocket… WP7 without a hardware flag bearer would follow the path of webos.
jpcarvalhinho - January 4, 2012
“me too” is different from someone trying to put out a good product, as it implies that the company is half-adding in a n attempt to cash in on a trend. Look at the Samsung iPhone clone for example.
WP7, as Paul mentions, is a good product trying to gain market share. They’re investing in it. In my book, that’s not “me too.”
Either way, I find this whole article confusing and contradictory… It reads like a first draft plucked from someone’s head but not proof-read (sorry Paul, no offense)
acyclic - January 5, 2012
If it doesn’t provide a significant set of new features, or a significantly better way to do things, then it’s a “me too” product in MY book. As a consumer, I don’t care about your motives or how much you’re investing in it, only the result. (And everyone is trying to gain market share.)
WP7 gives us a new “Metro” interface, and I give them credit for trying something different. But under the interface the feature set is “me too,” and I don’t see the interface differences as being great enough to steal a major piece of the pie from Apple or Google.
When you have two entrenched competitors with the lion’s share of the market, a “good” product just isn’t enough.
Now, it could be that with the right kind of licensing arrangements, they can get some of the carriers and vendors to switch… but that has little to do with the product itself.
isights - January 6, 2012
Well a certain amount of any effort put into a mobile OS is going to be “me too”. WP7 definitely shows this, but I’d argue the way it’s done is more efficient than on any other platform.
Right now, they’ve showing direction, which is the obvious synergy of XBOX, Windows Phone, Windows 8, Kinect and Skype. It already competes with Apple TV on a most levels and will surpass it once Skype is fully integrated.
bakari.kamau - January 17, 2012
Amazon does have hardware now…the Kindle Fire, and we know that’s just the start of things for them.
Bobbo Swarley - January 5, 2012
Amazon does have hardware now…the Kindle Fire, and we know that’s just the start of things for them.
Bobbo Swarley - January 5, 2012
Dammit, why is this reply going into the wrong location????
Bobbo Swarley - January 5, 2012
Great post Paul! Honestly – I’m waiting for the day when the entire internet is contained within a dynamic torrent that everyone in the internet is required to seed. NO LEECHERS! That way, everything is always instantly (or really quickly) available!
pjsnyc - January 4, 2012
while AAC didn’t catch on straight away (or ever) It was never an issue to get mp3’s from amazon and load them in through iTunes. My wife uses this means exclusively, and only cause it’s how she likes doing it:D
JesseDegenerate - January 4, 2012
Well, AAC isn’t an Apple format. It was developed to be the direct successor for Mp3 and typically provides better quality and compression all around. Apple had a wrapper for it, .m4p which was their DRM’d file, but otherwise AAC is theoretically just as ‘open’ and deployable as Mp3. Is it even really still an issue though? are there any mainstream devices left that don’t support AAC? Even if Mp3 is still more saturated, I think you’re pretty much ‘fine’ with whichever format you choose.
Qfax - January 4, 2012
I have to disagree with your assessment of Amazon’s Appstore. It fills a void better than any other Appstore has (Android apps for non-“Googlfied” android devices). If Amazon plays it cards right and makes the Appstore truly developer friendly, they have a winner on their hands. They’ve managed to drive a ton of traffic to the store by selling a ton of Kindle Fires, so they are off to a great start.
jason22 - January 4, 2012
Once they sell a phone their ecosystem will be truly exposed and then we’ll see. The phone needs to be identical on all carriers and free on a two year contract to get any traction. Perhaps make Amazon Prime free while under contract from the carriers….that would make it work for those who use Prime and use a Kindle Fire as their primary device beyond their phone. That’s a game-changing offer.
AliensWanted - January 4, 2012
Nowhere other than the US though. I bought my wife a basic Kindle for Christmas and there are no free books (no Lending Library, no Public Library Books) on Amazon Prime in Australia for example.
The true power is still with the creator. The owners of the copyright could still pull their music from iTunes/Amazon/Zune if they wanted to, or refuse to allow it, e.g. The Beatles for a very long time, I think AC/DC still don’t allow their music to be sold digitally? For most artists this would be madness but they could certainly do it (if their labels let them but that is another story).
mgk69 - January 4, 2012
I have a different definition of The Apple Way: Make great products.
When I got my first iPod and then eventually the iPhone, I realized that Macs may not be as bad as I was led to believe by other Windows users (it’s a toy, etc.). And my suspicions were right. Now I voluntarily buy into Apple’s ecosystem because my life is easier and the products are more fun to use with minimal or zero troubleshooting.
Super Tino - January 4, 2012
To each their own – I switched away from iTunes because it became such a resource hog and there was probably a 3 second delay between my clicks and the application registering. Then again, I was using it on Windows… I’d imagine it’s probably better on OSX. Maybe another example of Apple trying to keep their ecosystem closed? :)
acyclic - January 4, 2012
Yeah, iTunes in OS X is fine for the most part. It has some clunky interface choices here and there, but performance wise I’ve never experienced any slowdowns, freezes or significant lag times on any system I’ve used it on. It would be pretty mischievous of Apple to hobble the Windows counterpart on purpose, Probably more of a case of them not devoting enough resources/personnel to keeping things running smoothly than foul-play, but Apple can be pretty ridiculous sometimes, so who knows.
Qfax - January 4, 2012
I think Apple purposely made it bad, either that or they had a bad port.
jaggedspike - January 4, 2012
It’s not any better on OS X either. It’s just as clunky. If it was any good, they’d still be using it, hence iCloud.
sooper_verge12 - January 4, 2012
I believe you still need iTunes to get music to iCloud…so don’t understand the comment :)… I have 25.000 tunes on my iTunes, i 3 different computers…win and mac… never a slowdown once it is loaded… :) I must be lucky
jpcarvalhinho - January 4, 2012
Building great products is how Apple builds their ecosystem. But they also enjoy the “halo effect” or the “feedback loop” as well. When Jobs returned Apple was the punch line of too many jokes. Their only way to succeed was to build great products. According to Jobs its also the only way to stay successful. Too many companies try to ride the wave of their ecosystem for too long and few come back from that….
1) Apple stagnated from 1987 to 1997
2) Microsoft stagnated from 2000 to 2009
3) RIM is currently stagnated and may never return
4) Kodak stagnated ever since digital cameras became popular and they tried to hold on to film
5) Sony has stagnated since the Trinitron TV became irrelevant in 2003
Apple remade themselves in the past 14 years. Microsoft is in the process of doing that right now.
BC2009 - January 4, 2012
I wanted to comment to say something similar. Apple didn’t have a big user base for its ecosystem in the beginning. It had to entice users to use it, and they did that by focusing on the user experience and making everything dead easy to use. Most people don’t care if their ecosystem is open or closed; they just want it to work well, with minimal fuss. Apple gave them that, and that’s how they were able to attract users and become the dominant ecosystem.
DTMD - January 4, 2012 via mobile
Did they really just focus on user experience? The brilliance of Apple’s model was providing something that no one else was doing. Apple took a risk on digital content, specifically music. Capitalizing on the file sharing craze that Napster (and the likes) perpetuated. Except, wherein those services were illegal, Apple/iTunes gave users a way to get at digital content and at a relatively inexpensive cost. Why not buy one or two songs at $0.99 rather than spend $15 on a CD for 8 songs I don’t want or ever want to listen to? DRM (though they didn’t want it in the first place) gave them an easy way to capture the market and keep them. Sure, the iPod’s click wheel was great, but not being able to play your music on any other device must’ve helped a ton, don’t you think?! Just try to remember back. iTunes has NEVER been a pleasure to use under ANY circumstance. The UX sucked donkey. But if I wanted my music, that was the only way. Being tied into the iTunes system was something that Apple saw that they could levy. Fast forward to 2007, now I can have a phone that surfs the web but ALSO plays my digital content?! Easy decision. Apple secured a user base by luring users with a monopoly item, as Paul said. Don’t dress it up with how it may appear now. I have friends that CAN’T leave iOS devices because of where their content resides. Movies purchased on iTunes? Can’t be watched on any other mobile device except iOS. Same story.
sooper_verge12 - January 4, 2012
You make good points about individual track purchase and capitalizing on illegal file sharing. But I disagree about iTunes. I use it almost exclusively on macs, and it’s always been a pleasure to use. Remember WinAmp? Ugh. Lately iTunes has been a bit bloated (tries to do too much), but I never found it painful. Maybe on windows, but hey, not my problem.
DTMD - January 4, 2012 via mobile
iOS = Ecosystem
Android = Community
jdog25 - January 4, 2012
You say poh-tay-toh, I say poh-tah-toh.
You say toh-may-toh, I say toh-mah-toh.
Poh-tay-toh, poh-tah-toh.
Toh-may-toh, toh-mah-toh.
Let’s call the whole thing off.
BC2009 - January 4, 2012
Windows is both. With Windows 8 and WP7/8 we’re going to see an onslaught of users. It’s got a wide footprint.
AliensWanted - January 4, 2012
You are right… but community doesn’t bring me what I want. I want TO BUY a friggin car holder /connector for my galaxy S and there isn’t one on the market… Have to pair with bt, or use a cable for audio input, and have a “lighter cable” to charge the damn thing … still won’t be able to control the music from my wheel buttons, or have the music title displayed by the radio…I don’t want to be able to install another loader on my galaxy… well, at least since installed launcher pro.
I want to get home with my HTC Desire S and dock it to listen to music…
I want to go to an electronics store, buy something that I know it will work with my devices. THis is what I call a powerful ecosystem: when other companies feel they have the chance to win from taking the ride on it.
jpcarvalhinho - January 4, 2012
Didn’t you read my comment, go and be alone with a new iPhone and all the accessories that you could ever want.
jdog25 - January 4, 2012
why… no community on iPhone? are you kidding me? I am the moderator of the biggest forum on portuguese inter webs that covers all techs, the IOS sub-community is one of the most engaged, sharing comments, remarks on apps, reviewing new apps, helping new people to setup their devices, developers helping others. People just don’t discuss jailbreaking and hacks because the moderation team decided so… and I don’t have an iPhone, I use a company galaxy s/htc desire S I got form a HTC demo, or a second hand omnia 7 on daily basis, just because I don’t fancy spending 500 eur on a mobile phone.
jpcarvalhinho - January 4, 2012
I am “one of the mods”, not “the mod”… and yes… I am cheap! :)
jpcarvalhinho - January 4, 2012
it’s a nice read.
but i don’t think every thing to be open source.
google earns its money from add and puts up lot of things for free just get user data.
but think of companies like palm which don’t get their money from adds but from the devices and the software. and because of rich companies like google people lose jobs…
just see the tablet companies all are dying.
open source makes sence, when it’s done from some developers which don’t have big kapital to develope some thing and they take help of others to developers and earn some money through service and support.
Nakoon - January 4, 2012
This is a great article! I would argue against the line the says FaceTime and iMessage are limited in utility and confusing for users because they only work with iOS devices. Apple made iMessage so seamless that non-advanced users like my parents didn’t realize the different between SMS and iMessage because iOS seamlessly goes between the two as needed. Sure they’re not monopoly features but with hundreds of millions of iOS users, they’re hardly a niche utility.
andrewgould - January 4, 2012
No, but they tend to become when market share further erodes, not because less people are using it (that’s the case with bbm), but because more and more people re using the other standard in IM on the other platforms. it’s the “network” effect. sooner or later you will have to install software B to integrate with other friends, and tend to “spend more time” on it.
jpcarvalhinho - January 4, 2012
The moral of the story is you should use closed ecosystems, preferably market leaders, to benefit from unity, just make sure said ecosystems are from a 3rd party and play on all devices.
Music – Spotify
Movies – Netflix/LoveFilm
Books – Kindle
Social – Facebook
Files – Dropbox
Calls – Skype
Games – Steam
etc…
alexh2o - January 4, 2012
I’d say Amazon/iTunes for both Music and Movies. The streaming solutions are nice and all but Netflix’s selection is terrible compared to iTunes or Amazon and (at least I find it) it is difficult to really get into listening to music on Spotify. It’s more like a better version of Pandora than a replacement for actually having a music library. So, great if you just want something on, or to hear that one song that’s in your head, but I still prefer owning my music outright.
Qfax - January 4, 2012
I disagree here. RIM’s ultimate failure isn’t their device strategy. Churning out devices is the least of their problems. Their software, a fundamental part of the ecosystem, has not kept up with competition and RIM didn’t pull the trigger on QNX soon enough. And who wants to develop apps for the aging core that is their current offering?
This passage begs the question: How are Facetime and iMessage limited in utility and confusing for users? Is it because they’re not apart of an open standard?
construct - January 4, 2012
I do agree that facetime is confusing and limited, solely because of its dependence on WIFI
Dube - January 4, 2012
Agreed.
aperley - January 6, 2012
because they don’t interoperate with other IM’s available on other platforms. I can “talk” to you on FaceTime, but I have to switch to Skype to talk to every other member of my family…. better install Skype and promote it with other iOS friends.
jpcarvalhinho - January 4, 2012
That is indeed the case for FaceTime. But don’t put iMessage in the same bucket – the two are quite different. What sets iMessage apart from anything else on the market – including the venerable BBM – is the way it’s integrated with SMS. Don’t think of it as yet another IM platform – instead, think of it as your SMS messages becoming free when the recipient is on iOS device. Zero resistance is the key.
aperley - January 6, 2012
So, in your opening thesis statement, you said: “An ecosystem is more than just what apps you run, or what digital goods can be bought on a device; it’s also the open or closed standards you support for application development, APIs, peripherals and connectors. The way your device communicates with other devices, and the way your ecosystem communicates with other ecosystems, is a fundamental decision that every company dealing in digital goods, both hardware and software, has to make.”
When the tale is told, you’d naturally assume you’d come to the conclusion that Android/Google have gotten this right. They’ve certainly risen the tide that lifts all the boats. Their services every increase and are accessible across devices. And yet, a promising article that was set to set the record straight, some how deteriorates into another pro-Apple, “Apple’s done it right” editorial, where by every device is irrelevant in the “shadow of the iPad.”
You should start writing suspense, because from the arguments you were laying out there, I thought we’d finally be reading something new and refreshing. Instead, we got the same old conclusion. Apple’s closed system, with apps and services that work only on their devices, within their devices and their rules, constraints and limitations are “winning.” Everything else is irrelevant, wallowing in the shadow of the almighty fruit.
I’m not even a Fandroid, but articles like this… man, they rile me up. And yup, I am mad bro!
sooper_verge12 - January 4, 2012
Not really sure how you got that from my article. I listed Android and Windows as rising tides, and complained about more Apple services (especially iMessage and FaceTime) than anything else. I demand a recount!
Paul Miller - January 4, 2012
Is there any evidence Windows Phone is a riding tide?
It might yet become one, but current industry figures show this tide to still be on the way out… and fast.
hewbass - January 4, 2012
rising. I meant riding tide…
hewbass - January 4, 2012
when you talk with business insiders, hardware manufacturers and other participants in the market, you will get a general feeling that windows 8 and metro UI is the place to be in the future of tablets, desktop and mobile. So yes… I wouldn’t call it a rising tide, at least not a visible one, yet.
jpcarvalhinho - January 4, 2012
Windows Phone right now isn’t so much a rising tide, as it is concentric circles on a lake. Different body of water analogy.
JimmyIsTheOne - January 5, 2012
I don’t see android/google lifting “The way your device communicates with other devices, and the way your ecosystem communicates with other ecosystems,”.. I can’t even have a friggin car dock that works with my galaxy S… oh…right…forgot… BT+ lighter charger+dock? My radio doesn’t have BT… what about music at home? some fun objective to “upgrade” the camera? use it to read credit cards? wait, wait… measure heart rate, or other health monitoring devices/accessories,… (don’t have iPhone, but for me Apple is the only one that truly got it right… until now… I mean…)
jpcarvalhinho - January 4, 2012
well microsoft was able to make xbox succeed because it put it all in something they never did with zune which is why it failed. they still havent put zune on mac.
cris178 - January 4, 2012
XBox was the start of Microsoft’s turn-around, but especially now with Kinect, Windows Phone 7, and the upcoming Windows 8. Too bad the guy who headed up XBox for Microsoft left after the fallout from the Courier and too bad Microsoft cannot keep the doors to their research lab locked up. They need to play things a bit closer to the vest, but I still think Windows 8 tablets are going to change the landscape a bit and allow Microsoft to gain ground on Google in the smartphone space. Many Android advocates were Microsoft folks who did not want to switch to Apple when MS did not offer a decent smartphone OS. However, Android tablets are lagging in sales and a Windows 8 tablet has quite a bit of appeal to many. Having a Windows 8 tablet will likely entice folks to also want a Windows Phone. The Windows 8 tablet is the best play Microsoft has to reinvigorate the Windows ecosystem.
BC2009 - January 4, 2012
Good article until the end.
Google + is nto just a replica of facebook, it is a merging of facebook and twitter, that in my opinion is better than both. It isn’t DOA either, it is growing and I think is picking up steam. Just because you may not love it, doesn’t mean it isn’t doing well. I’m sure you remember the facebook beginnings, having a post on your wall or more than 30 friends meant you were the most popular kid ever. Yes social media has advanced since then, but i’d say Google’s numbers are healthy considering 6 months being active.
Also i will defend Zune till my death, the devices (especially Zune HD which is still my MP3 device) were great, and the software awesome, Microsoft didn’t do crap to really make it work. If they put half the effort behind Zune that they put behind Kin it would still be around I truly believe.
Jaguar10301 - January 4, 2012
I think Google+ has a chance, but your arguments that cast it in the same light as Zune, Zune HD, and Kin don’t seem to support your point.
BC2009 - January 4, 2012
They were separate arguments :P hence the paragraph separation.
Jaguar10301 - January 5, 2012
Zune will live on in spirit, probably folded back with Media Player, Media Center and what not as the media hub, app store, and sync bridge of Windows devices rather like what iTunes is for Apple.
Paul was a bit “mean” when it came to G+, which I don’t consider a waste of time on Google’s part but rather the central key to their next phase of development. Yet I agree that it’s pointless just to do another facebook, even a better one,
if people are locked into the original. I just feel that the internet is still still fluid enough to allow for this kind of migration over time. It’s not a question of which one you use, but which one you use more, and for what, and that’s a dynamic thing.
Captain Megaton - January 4, 2012
Google might need it, but I don’t. At least not yet. My argument is great until it isn’t!
Paul Miller - January 4, 2012
G+ will only “explode” if it turns into a fun way to get to your e.mails and rss feeds et all on one app. Like a communication HUB, even then it might gripe people that prefer the “better to have one great app for each service”. Until then, keep calm and carry on.
jpcarvalhinho - January 4, 2012
And I do need it, sure I can post on Facebook and get lots of my friends to reply, but I can’t have real conversations and awesome debates as often as I can on G+, i’m already more fulfilled on G+ with only maybe a tenth of the friends…. I enjoy it far more.
Jaguar10301 - January 5, 2012
This is why I bought an iPhone over the phone that I really loved looking at and holding in my hand. Only iOS has the apps I need and use all the time.
Leica_Virgin - January 4, 2012
Really, what major apps do you get on iOS that you use all the time that you don’t get on Android. I’d say the opposite, the great native Google Apps I get on my Galaxy Nexus would prevent me from ever having an iOS device.
Jaguar10301 - January 5, 2012
There’s no Android phone I love holding or looking at. I find Android phones mostly look the same. I was referring to the Nokia N9.
Apps that I use daily like Instagram or Flipboard.
Leica_Virgin - January 5, 2012
Really? the iPhone looks so old and clunky and square, and the one button is just so old school now. the OS is old and unrefreshed as well. Really there is nothing visually appealing to me at all about the iPhone. I guess its just different tastes.
Jaguar10301 - January 5, 2012
To be brutally honest, I don’t find the iPhone’s design that beautiful or exciting either. I initially skipped the iPhone 4 in the hopes that the iPhone5 would be better designed but the iPhone4s was what was out when I needed a new device. I bought it for the application ecosystem and that’s it. If I could have had this ecosystem on a Nokia N9 then my life would be perfect.
Leica_Virgin - January 8, 2012
I hate closed ecosystems. I have a Windows Phone, a PC and an Xbox. I love these OS’s and products but I can’t stand Bing and Zune. I don’t like the idea of having a dedicated button for Bing on my phone, or Bing search on my Xbox dash. I get that people like Apples ecosystem, because they have services that actually doesn’t suck. But then, there’s a lot of restrictions in Apples ecosystem and it feels like you have to buy all their products if you buy one of them. If only Google had a real desktop OS…
Dwight Schrute - January 4, 2012
For some reason I have been thinking about this recently, trying to straighten out my Google and MS Office stuff over the holidays and getting frustrated that they remain completely unaware of each other : MS photo browser cannot “see” my photos uploaded on my Picasa web albums. Internet explorer and Chrome do not share a common set of synced bookmarks. It would make life so much easier. I came to the conclusion that the incompatibility is not about the operating system. In 2012, it’s “have browser, will travel”. after all. It’s rather the “fight for the cloud”, each company (Apple, MS, and Google, and half-heartedly Yahoo) takes your stuff into their own “clouds” but none of the clouds talk to each other, and anyway the whole point of the cloud is that there is just one of them!
I’m going to predict that by 2020 we’ll have all our “stuff” in some huge “common cloud” and different and that the storage services will be a very minor thing. The big money will be in the curation and management services that allow us to interact with our data (and everyone elses) in some meaningful, comprehensible way.
Captain Megaton - January 4, 2012
well Bing sucks so that makes sense, but what is wrong with Zune, I still use it even though it’s dead as an MP3 player and I don’t own an xbox for WP, so I’ll never get updates or any reason to keep it, but I just renewed my year subscription to Zune Pass because it is amazing on my Zune HD.
Jaguar10301 - January 5, 2012
I agree with you 100% Paul. There seem to be a lot of people who fear a closed ecosystem like the one Apple has built, but I embrace it. A closed ecosystem leads to products with flawless integration and features, and who doesn’t want that? I understand that once you’re “locked in” to a particular ecosystem it may be hard to move into a different one for fear of losing your content/media, but when you’re a part of an ecosystem that works well and flawlessly, then what desire would there be to leave?
As for the need for certain standardized file formats, I also agree. It is infuriating to export a document on one machine, and it comes out looking completely different – and often times improperly formatted – on another. This is an issue we need to resolve.
ericleamen - January 4, 2012
great article. so true too
Savitt - January 4, 2012
Paul… great words… but I believe that there is a note that you don’t mention that gives the power to the ecosystem debate. When other companies start to ride the benefits of what company X does, this means that the ecosystem is strong. When B&W starts to make High end devices to Dock an iPod… you know there is power in the ecosystem you created. when you see a company to create a docking device that reads credit cards and can be used with any device of type Z, you have made it big. When small enterprises start cashing on meaningful accessories like a “camera lens?! for a smartphone?!? WTF?!”, you know you have convinced not only the end user that buys it, but also the company that invests its time and money, with the objective to pay those who depend on it for income and work. And that is the biggest notice that the ecosystem is thriving… and that is very rare in these markets, exactly due to the lack of common standards…
… just look at the mess that Android ecosystem brings to the table when you want to build a universal car dock… Who the heck is going to invest on that… except the company that made the phone?!
jpcarvalhinho - January 4, 2012
Apple made hay while the sun shone on “the dock”. The big payoff for having maintaining the iPod format for the iPhone and iPad. Having the foresight to have a digital audio connection out the dock connector and allowing CDs to be ripped to lossless compression audio formats also helped: it meant that an iPod could be treated as a high-end transport and so there was some justification for B&W and others to integrate them into their product line.
Captain Megaton - January 4, 2012
Well shouldn’t this be the case where google should step up and “force” this kind of standard connector for every hardware manufacturer?? This is a scenario of what Paul is defending… It’s a case where everyone would come out winning, and allow the creation of a real ecosystem beyond the Android device. Google should push this one.
jpcarvalhinho - January 4, 2012
Hey, I just posted a forum about the google ecosystem today
maxrobs - January 4, 2012
does anyone remember when iPods came with a sticker on them that said ‘please don’t steal music’ ?
At the time, I had no idea what that was about and when I found out, it meant I did not really ever have to buy a CD again…..
Among other things, that killed the Sony Walkman eco system and apple ran away with the spoon……
bocher - January 4, 2012
I agree with most of Paul’s points, especially the comment about Kindle Fire vs. Android tables. Its frustrating that Amazon isn’t making their video app available to vanilla Android tablets (flash player doesn’t count). This is especially frustrating since we know they have a sunk cost in developing the Android app already for the Fire. Granted they need to satisfy the DRM gods with a secure implementation on many hardware platforms, but somehow Netflix managed it.
While they’re at it, why don’t they do the same for iOS for video and their cloud music service? Come on, Amazon—where are these apps?? You could give us a way to buy content and not feel so tied to one hardware manufacturer, and I think people would embrace this. Netflix gained popularity not by tying their service to Roku but by integrating it into every platform they could find.
WiresMcGee - January 4, 2012
I like these piece Paul and I have to say that reliable, attractive hardware also plays an essential role in ecosystem adaption. I mean what better way to entice people to use your services than buying a great device that has them preloaded and shoved in your face from the get-go, with compatibility being a non-issue?
AppleHeadlines - January 4, 2012
As has already been stated many times, this was a great and very insightful article. Thanks for the read, Paul!
kallam - January 4, 2012
Mamma Mia! Above the fold, there’s one whopper of an ABBA double entendre.
Champs794 - January 4, 2012
Great article.. I will say I’m sick of hearing about webos at this point.
It was a commercial failure even at its prime and even though it had great ideas.. It’s over. A footnote. It’s less relevant than pretty much any other os.. Let’s just send it to the OS/2 ring of Dante’s inferno and never speak of it again.
nothingreal - January 4, 2012
So we’re stuck with Android.
Ah… the dire consequences of people satisfied by crappy devices.
Pacoup - January 4, 2012
ah there’s the +1
oshizo2 - January 5, 2012
what a very well written column. well done.
RLM22 - January 5, 2012
TheMilkWars - January 5, 2012
In the battle of eco-systems, I’m willing to invest myself only in the product-service that’s most portable to other platforms. i.e. the less lock-in the better.
This is why I avoid Apple’s offerings despite unique advantages.
This is why I think HTML5 is important.
This is why I hold out against Google for closing down on the WP7 Youtube apps, and leaning on OEMs to pay for their services out of the box (ref: Skyhook thing) making Android not ‘free of charge’.
This is why I buy into WP7’s ecosystem – I am least obliged to stay if I hated any one part.
Vasp - January 5, 2012
Excellent article, Paul. For me, the psychology of the technology giant’s and market share is extremely fascinating. I wish there were more articles like this!
travis.leigh - January 5, 2012
Fantastic piece Paul. You are the reason the Verge rocks!
As a Windows, Mac, iOS and Android user I find it so frustrating having to use separate services for the same things. Like using Google Music to access my iTunes library on my phone and iTunes Match to get the same stuff on my iPad. Your last sentence about lifting all boats or being the only boat really rings true.
This is the reason why I use something like Readitlater over Instapaper, even though the latter may be superior. I don’t want a service that limits me to one platform.
And then even within the same ecosystem you have issues like iMessage being available on iOS but not on the Mac. Seriously?
ravipatel - January 5, 2012 via mobile
Normally i write half decent comments but goddammit, all i can come up with is I LOVE YOU PAUL.
pro.bono.publico - January 5, 2012
What an awesome piece Paul.
Does iMessage and Facetime really need to be cross-platform? I mean Apple have the market share and the control to really make a succes of these products but why are they failing :/RIM make it work with BBM but it just baffles me !
reakhy - January 5, 2012
How does Apple have the marketshare in smartphones? Android is the dominant force on the market by numbers. My wifes mom has an iPhone and wanted to video chat with us, she thought it was so cool she had facetime, but of course we had to use skype because we are Android people, it’s not going to make me switch to iPhone but it does mean she won’t use facetime as much, but will use Skype more. Also with my Nexus I can “hangout” with my video chat with anyone on G+, pretty nice feature, huh.
Jaguar10301 - January 5, 2012
“If your product isn’t “a rising tide” that “lifts all boats,” then it better be good enough to be the only boat. Otherwise you’re probably wasting my time. You’re certainly wasting yours."
I love the last 2 lines here, the only problem is everyone thinks they are going to build a big single boat. After the success apple had with this strategy, all these companies wont stop until they have emulated it.
Supercgeek - January 5, 2012
This is a great article, although – as pointed out by some others – I think you’ve kind of mischaracterized the iPod. The iPod was incredibly open for its time. If you wanted to put music on it, iTunes made it very simple to just rip a CD (which is still where most of the music on my iDevices comes from). If you didn’t like the default AAC (which is a standard), you could switch the default to mp3. If you already had mp3s in your computer (say from the Napster days), you could just drag them in to iTunes. You could (and probably still can) burn songs in iTunes to a CD.
The iTunes Music Store, which came out a couple of years after the first iPod, did sell DRM’d music, at the insistence of the publishers. (Apple, of course, always preferred that music not have DRM – they wanted it to be as easy as possible for people to put stuff on their iPods. And it’s not like they owned the music copyrights anyway). Of course, the insistence on DRM did lead to a situation where if you wanted to use the best online music store, you had to have an iPod…an unintended consequence of the publishers’ DRM requirement was that they were at the mercy of Apple for online distribution.
And it’s easy to overstate the importance of the iTMS – as touched on above, when people bought their first iPod (which for most people was their first digital music device), the first thing they did was rip their (say) 50 CDs and put them on the iPod. And when they bought new CDs, they would just rip them and they would magically appear on the device when you synced it. As a bonus, you could also get new music through iTunes…but most people seemed to use that for the occasional single they wanted, and not as the primary way of acquiring music.
So I think it’s important to remember that Apple’s initial success was built on having a simple-to-use player that it was easy to find music for. There was no iPod lock-in, and you were free to put music from almost anywhere on the device without ever buying a song from iTunes. So a new company looking at Apple and seeing App store lock-in would do well to keep in mind that the best way to get customers is not to start with a restrictive infrastructure. (And it’s interesting that while people who bought a lot of DRM’d music on iTunes might have felt locked in, once Apple was allowed to sell non-DRM’d music, they also provided a way to unlock existing locked music). And it was also dead simple to download music from Amazon or audiobooks from Audible and put them on your iPod – both programs would just automatically transfer the content to iTunes.
All of this is quite different from the approach Apple took with iPhone apps, which must, of course, be bought from the app store (only) and which may only be used on an iDevice.
Andy H - January 5, 2012
Great comment. But regarding the last paragraph: why? Why must the apps be bought only from the Apple store, why is this obvious, and why may they only be run on an Ithingy?
dividebyzero - January 5, 2012
Re: iPhone Apps – I assume they must be bought through the App store so apple can get a cut, although there are some advantages to the curation aspect. (When I said “of course,” I meant it in the context of “as everyone knows,” not in the context of “this is obviously necessary.”) But my main point was to contrast the “walled-garden” of the app store on iDevices with the “open garden” that applied to putting music on an iPod.
Andy H - January 6, 2012
I agree with your take, and while I don’t want to give too many props to iTunes, it is nice that the XML music database is in an open format that can be parsed by other tools. This allows other programs to add stuff to the iTunes library, read the library, etc. Apple could have locked that down and blocked that kind of activity.
The key thing missing from an open-ness standpoint is allowing 3rd party devices to sync (either manually or automatically) from within iTunes. I understand why Apple didn’t want to support that from a marketing and support standpoint, but I still want it :-)
WiresMcGee - January 6, 2012
A nice synthesis of the misconceptions that cause all those crazy articles in The Verge and Engadget.
It sounds like impartial and thoughtful… In the end it’s just more of the same: these guys are still deeply infatuated by all things Apple, but try hard to keep a professional look, a scientific attitude. Maybe they do it to try creating some pressure on the “United Fruit Company” so it doesn’t explore them too much.
Hints of their fanaticism (or my paranoia if you will) are everywhere, starting from the picture in the headline.
By the way, there is nothing ironic in Apple, a long-time Flash competitor, is still fighting it. Maybe if Quicktime had been previously defeated by an open standard with the help of Adobe, but that didn’t happen. It’s just a long standing vendetta coming to an end. Not ironic at all.
And before I go: MeeGo wasn’t a full operating system. And Nokia had Linux stuff before it, and still has. N9 is out there. Didn’t die. As Symbian didn’t die either. Symbian is still the most used smartphone in the world
-and the name used in the marketing couldn’t matter less. All those little facts always seem to be unfit to the mindset of our dear writers, exposed in the article, so they are repeatedly denied around here.dividebyzero - January 5, 2012
Excellent article.
bcswartz - January 6, 2012
Awesome article
P.Girish - January 10, 2012
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