“What Apple’s boss, Tim Cook, presented on June 2nd, at the company’s annual conference for software developers in San Francisco, were upgraded operating systems, one for its Mac desktops and laptops and another for its mobile devices, plus a new programming language,” The Economist reports. ” These, combined with other moves to nurture the Apple ‘ecosystem,’ should make its offerings even more attractive to both developers and consumers—and even more formidable to its rivals.”
“Apple’s pitch is greater convenience,” The Economist reports. “The operating systems, OS X Yosemite for Macs and iOS 8 for mobiles, will do more than improve on the current versions when they are released in the autumn. (Developers and enthusiastic amateurs can play with a ‘beta’ version already.) They will allow devices to work together seamlessly. An e-mail started on an iPhone or iPad can be finished on the desktop. If your iPhone rings, you will be able to take the call on your Mac—in effect, using it as a speakerphone.”
“Not only does Apple promise friction-free computing; it has customers who are likely to use it. They upgrade eagerly, either by buying new gear or by installing new software on old stuff,” The Economist reports. “Mr Cook boasted at the conference that 89% of Apple’s mobile devices were on iOS 7 and 51% of Macs on OS X Mavericks, the current incarnations. In comparison, he gloated, only 14% of Windows personal computers were on Windows 8. And a mere 9% of mobile devices with Google’s Android operating system had the latest variant.”
MacDailyNews Take: It ain’t bragging (or boasting or gloating) if you can back it up.
“Although Microsoft’s new boss, Satya Nadella, is bursting with bright ideas about a ‘mobile first, cloud first’ world, the firm has a lot of catching up to do. As for makers of Android devices, they lack Apple’s control over the operating system and the app store,” The Economist reports. “The biggest of them, Samsung, plans to sell a smartphone based on its own operating system, Tizen—probably as a hedge against reliance on Google. ‘This is something only Apple can do,’ purred Mr Cook this week. For now, he is right.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: “For now” might as well be forever.
And, “purred?” Seriously?
The Apple wannabes and those who settle for knockoffs are coming to a sad realization.
There’s only one master of vertical integration in technology: Apple. And they have a nearly 40-year head start.
Related article:
Apple’s vertically integrated Mac could make interim Wintel model look like a detour – April 25, 2008
Apple has proven that vertical integration works better – October 24, 2006
Apple was right all along: vertical market quality trumps horizontal market woes – April 30, 2006