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

[kathy025]

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.

 

[A Guy]

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

 

[Layback Bear]

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

 

[whs]

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

 

[Alejandro85]

Vendor Lock-In certainly plays an important role in that design. Apple wants to restrict users as much as possible to buy upgrades/spare parts only from them, and the cost to use some other vendor as high as possible. While this gives the company a greater profit, is certainly harmful to the user if they ever want to use diverse components/software.
In addition, Apple also applies the single most ridiculous license to its software (Apple software only can run on Apple hardware) as another form of lock-in (there is no technical reason to do so).
That's no an exclusive thing of Apple, many big and not so big for-profit companies actually do something similar to maximize profits (scamming the customer in the process) where there is no technical requirement to do so. Some users would think that's a good thing, but it's in fact a bad practice when people want to break out of the jail . That's when the customer realizes that it's in fact an anti-pattern.

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. For example, Windows sometimes struggles when incorrect or bad drivers are installed, or programs break when something is updated, and Microsoft and developers cannot possibly know every hardware/software combination possible. With a Mac, as long as everything is Apple it's quite difficult to get an incompatibility as the environment is notably stable. Here, diversity is counterproductive.

There could be also an historical factor playing on. I don't know a lot of Mac history, but backward compatibility and previous successes can be another reason to keep going on with the same practice over and over (why change something that works?).

 

[Baddog22556]

It's all about money -

Took the words right out of my mouth. Proprietary means higher costs because you have no choice.
Buy a new car and for quite a while many, many parts for that car can only come from the dealer.
When enough people want certain parts other generic manufacturers start making the part a lot cheaper.
I remember when IBM would sell a 2MB ram stick for $300 where other PC's and clones charged $20-30.
It's all about the mighty buck.

 

[ignatzatsonic]

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.

 

[Layback Bear]

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.

 

[kathy025]

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.

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.

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. :shock:

(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.)

 

[Layback Bear]

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.

 

[Baddog22556]

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.

I must have many friends in low places for I know no one who has an apple computer.
In all my years of computer support I think I installed a printer on an apple for someone ONCE.
I guess they are the very silent minority. Seen any Mac's in large corporations? I can't find most
recent numbers but M$ is closer to 90% usage compared to 8-20% Mac usage. As for iPhones,
I'll take a Droid any day. As Lewis Black (comedian)says, he took his iPhone in an Apple store and asked
if they had an app that would turn his piece of **** into a phone. You gotta see it. :roflmao:

 

[ThrashZone]

My iphone just works that is all I care about white/ black what ever
I've never had to shut it down to fix anything.
I use it for what is mainly = a phone and occasional email and text messaging device.

That would not change no matter which manufacture it would be.

 

[kathy025]

My Xperia Z1 Compact is usually a handheld console, specially when my DualShock3 is paired with it.
It also has extra features like calling and texting.

 

[ThrashZone]

I'm sure one day M$ will also insist on users getting everything from the M$ app store.

 

[Alejandro85]

I'm sure one day M$ will also insist on users getting everything from the M$ app store.

To some extent, they're already doing it. Tablet programs for Windows 8/10 are delivered entirely though the store, and real MS tablets only allow programs downloaded though MS. The whole store thing is an exact copy of Apple, in fact, including the very same ridiculous restrictions.

 

[ThrashZone]

You can pretty much expect it for mobile devices Android included,
It is completely different for an os as we once knew it to be
Linux isn't any different you must use the software manager in most cases.

Once M$ gets enough people to upgrade then it will get pretty obvious about apps and store only installs
Then existing programs will not work anymore Oops my bad M$ it's for the greater good

I feel safer already

Just doing a system image of 7 pro no missing/ unknown drivers wish 10 can accomplish that easy task as it is in 7
Does M$ not know what a usb3 and 3.1 port is

 

[Alejandro85]

You can pretty much expect it for mobile devices Android included,
It is completely different for an os as we once knew it to be
Linux isn't any different you must use the software manager in most cases.

Android is not that restrictive. It has an option (enabled by default) that only allows Google Play programs, but can be disabled at any time. Then if you drop any .apk it will happily install and run it, no matter the source.
Linux also has this kind of "market" too, but also optional, it will again run any binary you put in there, just like Windows does (and on both things, you can just compile software right there).

iOS on the other hand, and Windows Phone as long as I know, restrict to store programs, forcing the user to jailbreak the device to run any thing they like. Windows 8 "metro" tablet programs are also artificially limited to the Windows Store, you can just go to the developer site and download the .exe.

Not to mention the limitations this puts on developers too. To upload any program to one of those proprietary markets, you must pay a fee to Apple/Microsoft to even start testing on a real phone. This effectively hinders innovation by independent people and small firms and limits the platforms to bigger companies only.

 

[Layback Bear]

Microsoft has followed Apples example with the app store and hardware allowed.
It has made Apply a bazillion dollars.
W-10, app store, Microsoft hardware all came for the Apple example.
Sinatra's song comes close to the the New Microsoft.
I did it my way = YOU WILL DO IT MY WAY!

The only way to stop such a thing is just don't use their new products.
Loss of market share and loss of money will make any company change their way.