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Comment by hboon | Hacker News Reader

Not necessary. Their strategy seems to be going for the mass market with their iPhone-OS-based products rather than a niche with OS X-based products. Look at their:

1. Pricing for iPhone (after the initial launch), iPod touch and iPad launch price. They aren't the most expensive "smartphones" and tablets. 2. App store app prices, especially for iPhones/iPod touch. They don't control the prices, but they provide a list to choose from and they indirectly influence pricing. See (3). 3. App store top X, what's hot, etc charts. Apps are sold exactly like mp3s.

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Can you name a major market where the majority of users own the same exact product? People like different cars, different appliances, different houses, etc. How do you expect the phones to be different?

I can think of a major market: operating systems.

Phones aren't like cars, they are more like computers (and becoming more so).

Right. People own a variety of computers. Different models of Dell, HP, sony, apple., etc.

Also known as: Windows, Windows, Windows, or OS X.

Or Intel, Intel, Intel ...

You can pick the abstraction level to suit the argument.

I'd argue that phones are becoming a lot less like computers and more like cars. At least the iPhone as an example, phones are becoming more and more an information appliance, taken for granted to "just work."

They might be able to do a lot of the things that a "real" computer does but you don't have the power to treat them like regular computers. You can't easily put a new OS on them, write software for them without going through a central market place, etc. Apple obviously has this vision, but it's becoming clear that Microsoft shares it, at least for Windows Phone 7.

Not exact product, but same range of products: portable mp3 players.

What excatly is "same" between the teeny shuffle and an iPod touch? This only underscores my point that you need a fair amount of diversity in your products o dominated a market.

Looking only at the price they charge consumers doesn't give an accurate picture of their pricing strategy. Most estimates I've seen peg the average total revenue Apple makes per iPhone hardware sale at about $600, most of this paid to Apple by AT&T. Once that's taken into account, the iPhone probably has one of the highest revenues per unit on the market.

So their strategy is really to make a product that everyone wants, and to use that popularity to get phone companies to sell a high-margin niche product at mass market prices.

Apple has never played the numbers game. To do so would be like BMW, Jaguar or Lexis selling a car for the same price as a Kia Rio. Sure they'd sell tonnes of them, but what is the point in that?

They make their money by making good, high quality and reasonably expensive products. If their stock price keeps going the same way then they shouldn't even consider changing the recipe!

And developer tool lock-in: section 3.3.1.

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