“The map mess demonstrates why circumstances are turning against Apple’s current business model,” Holman W. Jenkins, Jr. opines for The Wall Street Journal. “Simply, content is king again. However much it might benefit Apple’s business model to force users to patronize its own maps app, the company won’t get far in trying to deny them Google’s far superior app. Apple for a while managed to tame the power of content and make it subservient, but that day is coming to an end.”
“Forget the maps farrago. Look at Apple’s agony over the TV puzzle. Apple is frustrated because there is no solution to TV that will let Apple keep doing what it has been doing,” Jenkins writes. “Apple’s fans imagine the company can do for TV what it did for music: breaking up the existing distribution model. Forget about it. Television is about to demonstrate the inadequacy of Apple’s own business model.”
Jenkins writes, “To maintain its position, the company will have to focus more on giving its devices superb access to content it doesn’t control and hasn’t approved. Can Apple CEO Tim Cook and company make the turn?”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Here’s an arena where the Tim Cook’s pragmatism may work better for Apple than would have Steve Jobs’ hard-nosed, take-it-or-leave-it negotiation style.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Sarah” for the heads up.]