Why does Apple prefer to be "non-standard"?

By "non-standard" I mean proprietary cables, ports, software for syncing, etc.

Different brands (Sony/Motorola/ASUS/Toshiba is my home setup) can interact with each other seamlessly without the need for specialty cables or adapters/converters (generic Mini/Micro-USB to USB 2.0 cables will do). Adding media can be done via copy-paste.

To be honest, I'm not even sure how an iPhone can transfer a song to another iPhone without iTunes or some 3rd-party sharing app.

For example with Android, if my friend wanted a song, simple bluetooth will do and they can have the song in that instant. No extra frills.

Now this is NOT to incite the undying "Apple vs. The World" fandom war. I'm genuinely curious if there is a sound reason (practically speaking) behind Apple's closed standards?

I would prefer to hear objective points of view as opposed to fanboy/girl-ism. Suffice to say I'm not much of an Apple fan (except for the iPad2) but I want to hear the other side of the story - the non-butthurt side.

They have a "walled garden". The "idea" is that everything is created to be 100% compatible with their operating system, and hardware.

In reality it seems obvious they want you to have to purchase everything from them. For them it makes sense. For the majority of their users, they assume Apple products are superior (if not overly expensive).

Why developers put up with the draconian restrictions is a different issue. Even though the market is smaller, it is mostly affluent, or at least prices are higher.

Apple customers will line up for a new phone because it is white. This is something other companies can only dream of.

A Guy

Attitudes of company and customers are completely different than the rest of the world.

Apple (the company) states somewhere that keep their products Apple only insures or improves their products. When they control everything about their products they can insure the best experience with their product for their customers.

To some degree this is true but it is also a money maker for Apple.
When Apple controls all hardware and software they make more money with their captured audience. This method doesn't do Apply much good when it comes to market share except in cell phones.
In my opinion Apple (the company) lives or dies with cell phones. That is where they make their money. People will line up for days in the snow and rain for opening day of a new Apple cell phone release. That is true loyalty to a company and product. Other manufactures wish their customers had such loyalty. These customers don't care what the price is. Cell phones have become in a way like a drug habit. People go into withdraws if they forget their cell phone.

Now when it comes to computers in my opinion things are different.
On a good day Apple market share of computers and operating systems is around 5 or 6 % of the market. Microsoft has as far back as I can remember over 90% of the market share.
The big difference is Apple customers are loyal to Apple. They don't care what it cost or if it is even a better product. It's a Apple.
For these people you could put a picture of a apple with a bite out of it on a can of peaches and they would swear they were the best apples they ever ate.
Their hooked and like it.
If a child is attending a high priced college and their laptop doesn't have a apple on it they are shied from as being outcast. Poor souls that should be shown pity.
Apple laptops are a status symbol like going to a laundry mat with a chauffeur driven Ferrari.
Looking through the Apple app store is considered a day of reverence.

In the end you have company (Apple) that has selected a certain customer for their products and a customer that has selected a company for their needs no matter what the cost. It is not required for Apple products to be better than others. It just has to be Apple.

Microsoft is catching on with W-10.
W-10 app store is Microsoft's wet dream.
Apple has proved it's a money maker.
Microsoft is also coping Apples lead and now is selling hardware like the Surface.
Microsoft like other manufactures are trying very hard to take a bite out of Apples cell phone business; but Apple customers are very loyal.

**I'm not stating whether Apple products are good or bad. They have loyal customers no matter what products or services they produce. Seldom does one see such customer loyalty.

**A Apple repair center is just call home and mommy and daddy will send you another one. No matter what it cost. Then they can give the broken Apple product to one those lowly people and let them try and fix it and use it.

Layback Bear

It's all about money - there is no convincing technical reason. And looking at their balance sheet, they must be doing something right.

whs said:

It's all about money - there is no convincing technical reason. And looking at their balance sheet, they must be doing something right.

Absolutely.

Their market capitalization is 10 times that of Ford and nearly double that of Exxon-Mobil. More than triple IBM.

The last I checked, Apple has around 200 billion, I say billion, dollars in cash.

That's enough cash to buy 100 percent of Intel or Coca-Cola---lock, stock, and barrel.

As long as they can keep up their image through marketing campaigns, I don't know why they'd change a thing.

Mebbe they'll buy Tesla. That would fit in with Apple's image and I'd think Apple owners would be prime targets for Tesla cars.

It remains to be seen how a series of dud products might affect them. Maybe not so much if the believers remain believers. The products don't have to be practical or superior.

Of course the methods Apple uses is to make them money. I think that is obvious.
As long as it continues to make them money and they keep their customer loyalty I don't think they will change their methods.
Why would they?

Their customer loyalty is what make their method work for them.

A Guy said:

Even though the market is smaller, it is mostly affluent, or at least prices are higher.

Apple customers will line up for a new phone because it is white. This is something other companies can only dream of.

Many have pointed out that it's Apple's business plan capitalizing on customer loyalty which by the way is rather astounding. It seems if you aren't that kind of customer yet, the vendor lock-in will take over. It's a small and concentrated bunch of rich people and if not, they do save up religiously to buy iDevices to get in this "privileged" niche market.

Layback Bear said:

It is not required for Apple products to be better than others. It just has to be Apple.

This summarizes the customer loyalty quite very well, I like it. As a business, Apple has done something incredible when it comes to their (almost hypnotic) clutch on their followers. To make people willingly subject themselves to monopoly? You can't even tell people to pick up their trash.

Alejandro85 said:

On the positive side of the things, controlling the entire product stack does have technical benefits. Software developers can do much more serious assumptions over the environment programs will run on, and apply optimizations, take shortcuts, and generally know beforehand how everything will look like with an high degree of certaintly.

This is probably one of the sound technical rationales I have heard, thank you. I'm mainly a JavaEE developer (web apps) but if I move to mobile development, I can already imagine the multitude of Android devices I have to consider for the app I'm writing. With iDevices, you can almost have "magic numbers/strings" (hardcoded values) because the developer is writing for hardware/environment that's already definite compared to the myriad of Android specs. That's why some apps just run smoother on my iPad2 while the Android port needs to be calibrated to compensate (e.g. rhythm games). While this advantage is mainly for the developer-side (a small fraction) and not consumer-side, it's good to have it brought up.

I do agree proprietary stuff does little for cross-compatibility convenience for consumers. One time, someone couldn't use my iPad2 cable for charging because he had the Lightning connector.

It's ridiculous how Apple isn't even compatible with Apple.

(On a side note, it's always refreshing to have a discussion in forums as opposed to comment sections where a bunch of kids think Steve Jobs is the Messiah.)

I think that one must remember that Apple is a status symbol.
Their are always those that will pay more for a product with a status symbol whether it's a better product or not.
Kind of like a Gucci purse. It doesn't have to be better. All it has to do is have a Gucci name on it.