How Apple Gets All the Good Apps | Hacker News Reader

How Apple Gets All the Good Apps

allthingsd.com

27 pointsLightning32 comments

Can't we say the same about the PC market? Sure, Apple doesn't make mobile apps for any other devices but it doesn't sing the same song when it comes to PC. Apple makes the official versions of Itunes and Quicktimes for Windows. Why? Because its business at the end of the day! You can't play adamant when you are not the market leader, it will cost you in money. The same reason, you find all official Google apps for Windows PC and iOS but not a single one for Windows Phone.

Its a simple motto for all companies, let's keep our differences aside when it come to raising that stock price.

For an alternative body to that headline, you could say:

A) A 30 year history and culture of setting and raising the bar in application design, attracting like-minded designers and developers to their platforms who continually one-up Apple's own efforts. B) Coherent, stable, powerful application frameworks C) Relatively fixed device specifications

The article isn't taliking about apps like Instagram where they were initially restricted to iOS only. It's referring to competitive platform owners like Google, Microsoft and Amazon providing apps for Apple.

Maybe it's

1). Have a reputation for charging more for hardware and attract people willing to pay more

2). Create devices that take advantage of people with more disposable income

Ah, that tired myth again. iPads and iPhones are overpriced, unless you consider the competition, then they look like a better value. Ah, what?

At the end of the day, its just good execution, Apple hasn't mis-stepped in a while and seems to be doing everything right. But if you want to justify your own alternative purchasing decisions by seeing Apple as overpriced, please go ahead.

You can't say it's a myth when it's based on opinion. If people have the opinion that iProducts are overpriced, then they are because "overpriced" is completely subjective. Simple as that. There's no myth, but the fact that you're tired of hearing it does mean that people think it.

I am of the opinion that Apple products are overpriced. They really have no value for me or other people like me who want more choices and more control. I don't like their whole culture or ecosystem, so really any price is too high. Furthermore, in purely practical terms there's nothing that I can't do on an Android device.

But you see, its not opinion. The prices for iProducts and their competitors are public info. They are either overpriced with respect to equivalent value products or not; the truth is easy to see.

The ones who ignore the truth are just experiencing cognitive dissonance, and there are quite a few of them left over from the PC era.

Value is an opinion. The Nexus 4 provides me with more value than an iPhone 5, yet costs nearly half. Therefore the iPhone is overpriced, right?

Obviously the nexus 4 is a good deal, and if we see more android phones with those specs selling for those prices, we can begin to call iPhones overpriced (I.e. google isn't just selling these phones at cost). Still, there are plenty of head on reviews that can't make up their mind which one is better even with the huge price delta.

I haven't actually seen any nexus 4s for sale yet in my market (china) beyond a few smuggled in. It will be interesting to see what happens then.

You should really try to see the issue from the point of view of someone who simply doesn't want to be locked into Apple's walled garden, or who doesn't like the way Apple does things. When I can get the same hardware without any software restrictions - Apple products seem overpriced to me. But again, that's because my valuation is completely subjective. You obviously see some value in Apple's offerings.

This is not some left over thought from the PC era, so please - give that a rest. It's about wanting some modicum of control where Apple offers none.

I actually own a Lumia 920, but I miss Apple's more flexible walled garden (damn Lumia won't let me change my store from china to the USA like the iPhone would). I value phones whose ecosystems are not so spyware/virus infested, so android is out of the question, but we obviously are valuing different freedoms.

The PC era still lives, I guess.

Why waste time blowing hot air (myth, shmyth) when we have facts at our disposal?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/appsblog/2012/dec/04/io...

Value of iOS purchases are about 5x those of Android: http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Technology/Pix/pictures/...

So while we can speculate about reasons for this, the fact is that people spend a lot more money on apps in iOS.

The article doesn't really explain how at all. It just makes a simple observation that competitors to Apple in mobile platforms are releasing their apps on iOS as well as their own operating systems.

This seems like a classic example of how new entrants to a market try to attack the leader. Get people attached to using your services on the leading platform, then claim (perhaps valid if you cripple your iOS offering in some way) that the integration is better on yours.

I think it is because Apple is first, and was the biggest for quite a while. Since they were first, and Samsung/Amazon were not producing their own devices, it made sense to put them on Apple devices.

Interesting to see if this will continue in the future.

Most of those apps are not crippled to get people to switch. They're crippled because of Apple's policies.

Specifically you can't make another browser be the default. You can't make another browser period, you can only skin the one that's built in. So no V8, no JägerMonkey, no Gecko, etc. Google Maps can't be the default map app. The Kindle app can't sell books. The Amazon MP3 app can't sell music. (or at least can't competitively sell)

And on and on.

Mossberg's got an interesting observation here, but he's missing a really important point: Apple's core profit engine is selling hardware. Amazon and Google make money by selling services and non-hardware goods.

Since Amazon/Google make money regardless of platform, they have an incentive to produce content for Apple's platform. Since Apple only makes a real profit if/when you buy their hardware, they have no incentive to do the same.

From the article: "...it stems from the different business models of the big rivals. Google, Microsoft and Amazon are primarily software and services companies, though each makes some mobile hardware (Google through its Motorola subsidiary). But Apple, while famous for making good software, sells that software almost entirely through iconic and expensive hardware, from which it makes the vast majority of its money."

I think he covered that the different companies have different business models.

Shit - I missed that! Good catch - I only watched the video :/

Apple doesn't sell software or hardware. They sell 'experience'. And for the best experience they design their own hardware that is optimized for their own software. Their competitors on the other hand have different focus. AMZN is all about consuming (or buying) content from any device. GOOG is all about information access regardless of device. Most of MSFT's revenues come from selling software.

Simple analogy would be - MSFT doesn't sell the games that it creates for xbox on other platforms.

Yes, because what is an android user gonna do without Apple's Maps?

Not find their way around California as well:

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2416321,00.asp

John C. Dvorak is a professional troll.

Probably get directed to the Atherton Train Station last night, only to discover CalTrain doesn't stop there on weekdays. (Apple Maps Pointed me to HopStop, which correctly recognized that Atherton TrainStation was NOT where I wanted to be)

Let's just say I won't be trusting Google Maps to get Transit Directions which involve Caltrain in the near future. Standing out there in the cold at 10:00 at night after a 30 minute walk quickly cured me of that bad habit.

I'm from Toronto, and I've been in Palo Alto for the last month, and all I know about Atherton is that you do not want to be there.

http://imgur.com/a/aNPaI

I would hate having to deliver packages there with all these paranoid people.

Burn!

So the secret is that they get all their own apps and the best apps from their competitors?

I guess the benefit is entirely predicated on whether the user cares for the default apple offerings. I don't personally care for the vast majority of them.

"their own apps" + "the best apps from their competitors" minus "their own apps" does not correspond to a single competitor's offerings - which is Apple's advantage, according to Mossberg's logic. His argument's got little to do with Apple's own apps (not that they have particularly much of a presence either - even on their own devices.)

"Google’s artificial intelligence app Google Now and its payment app Google Wallet are AWOL on Apple devices. " - ironic how quickly that might (soon?) change...

http://www.theverge.com/2013/3/12/4096074/google-now-for-ios...

Who cares? Who would want the iPhone's map or iBook on Android? Ask Windows users forced to use iTunes for their iPhone if they like it. Ask Safari users on Windows (oh sorry, I forgot - nobody uses it).

Apple is a hardware company, their strength is to control the hardware and the OS. Apps they make for other systems are crap.

The article mentions Siri, iMessage, iWork, iPhoto and FaceTime. I don't miss Siri, iWork or iPhoto, but the lack of FaceTime and iMessage is definitely noticed when most of your network uses Apple products.

It doesn't. Compare Dropbox on Android with Dropbox on iPhone.

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