Apple is about selling HW. Google is about selling ads.
That's it. Everything else falls from that.
Google's goal is to commodotize HW, and I this is, at least theoretically, doable. Apple can't really commodotize ads, at least in no way I can think of.
If you start using enough of these new features, switching away to Android, WebOS or Windows will be a nightmare.
I AM, however, tethered to my data.
So if you're good enough at that, people have trouble giving up your platform or service. Calling it lock in is just good features and service in a negative light.
"Oh, Apple does great to replace things when they break, but it's just lock in. It's not actually good service."
But it would only increase switching costs in the event that it WAS an attractive feature. Features that are not useful or interesting to users aren't going to affect switching costs, or lock in.
Facebook has switching costs because all your friends are on it, not on another network, plus you'd have to learn a whole new set of privacy settings, right? The Kindle has switching costs because all your books are in your Kindle library and you can't transfer them to the Nook. Moving has switching costs because you have to give people a new address, learn a new neighborhood, memorize new driving routes, etc.
Strong businesses often have very natural switching costs built in.
Surely companies do things to make the switching cost higher. Like as you said, locking ebooks to a particular device.
But creating a service or feature that is only on your platform just means you're doing something no one else is doing; making you more attractive to consumers (and creating a higher switching cost).
Arguments can be made that because it costs more to switch from one platform to another, that is lock-in. IMO though, lock-in specifically refers to acts where a company intentionally tries to prevent people from moving away from their product or platform, most often manifesting as closed data formats or an inability to extract data that you yourself deposited in a system.
Putting DRM on music so you can only play it on iPod is lock in.
Though I agree Apple is integrating services into iOS that are only available to iOS.So I imagine that gives them lock in.
I don't want to start trying to guess as Apple's motivations, but I don't see them coming out with demanded features as intentional lock in as it appears to be their solution to the problem.
I never said there was lock-in with this new update, I was pointing out what I perceived to be one of the biggest reasons your comment was down-voted.
From the brief bits and pieces I've read about this, I've heard of nothing so far that smells like lock-in. And I'm by no stretch an Apple fanboy either.
Also, minor point, your music is not tied to a subscription. The syncing is. Cancel the subscription, keep the files.
> A lot of Apple's big announcements today were
> about features that create lock-in.
Their music and their content hasn't gone anywhere. Their contacts and calendar events are easily shared and exported via standard formats. They only thing they lose by leaving is the great software.
The fact that Windows/Android/Linux doesn't have a feature or tool that you can import the data to also doesn't mean you have lock-in. It just means the market is a little inelastic, that's all.
It's only lock-in in that the user is locked in [--] In other words, no lock-in at all.
No one is forcing you to upload your music to the iCloud. You can keep syncing it the same way you always have (afaict, anyway).
No one is forcing you to buy an iPhone, iPad, or any other Apple product. What kind of lock-in are you on about?
No one is even forcing you to upgrade to Lion. Keep running Snow Leopard if you want.
If you don't like it, don't buy it. There are plenty of other vendors. The only way in which you could claim that Apple was "locking people in" is that they offer an integrated experience, so that if you go all-Apple, things work better.
Well, damn them, they should be shot! How dare they try to offer an integrated user experience to their paying customers? What bastards!
If you don't like it, don't buy it.
I guess car makers practice vendor lock-in too by your definition.
In fact, almost anyone who sells something practices some form of lock-in.
And yes, mild lock-in is very common. That doesn't make it a good practice from the consumer's point of view.
> Your music is tied to a $25 iTunes subscriptions
> they even want your text messaging tied to your iOS
> devices
> Then there's all those apps you bought on the Mac and iOS App
> Stores that you'll never be able to transfer to another system.
And, even on desktop with our example: Windows itself was the lock-in, not the sale; if a competitor to Windows did show up, the apps would rapidly move (and were in fact already selling both executables): if the sales were caught up in a monolithic App Store, users would balk at developer's inabilities to give them upgrade discounts, and are much more likely to stick to their platform.
> cross-device upgrade pricing was very common
Perhaps from within the industry having a lateral path was a common denominator, something every company had, and in that definition, it may have been "common", but not from a consumer perspective. The opportunity to buy PC software for a Mac was quite unusual for a consumer. There are still plenty of full time Windows folks thinking about getting Macs and asking their friends "Will I be able to use <app> on it?". Maybe not in SF, but most of the people I work with (and we're talking doctors, military planners, etc) are still in a Windows world, at work and at home.
update: Downvotes? In my HN? I was just clarifying what I thought the original author was getting at, which wasn't what the parent post to mine was arguing against. If you have a disagreement with what I say, then argue against it, rather than just down-voting. Then maybe we can both learn something, instead of "I disagree with you, and I want to let people know that, but I don't want to expose my ideas to possible ridicule so I'll lurk in the background."
It's in their DNAs.