“Recode has reported that Google is giving up on Project Ara, its attempt at a modular smartphon,” Mark Hibben writes for Seeking Alpha. “I had observed back in May that Ara represented a misapplication of PC concepts of expandability to a market that cared more about reliability and portability. Apple’s concept of a beautifully integrated mobile device, the iPhone, has been vindicated. Google’s decision is an acknowledgment of this and more: the entire personal computing industry is seeing a paradigm shift to the type of mobile device Apple pioneered.”
“The personal computing industry is undergoing a very fundamental set of transformations. Mobile devices have become the focus of most personal computing needs. Even as the traditional PC market declines, the smartphone market continues to grow,” Hibben writes. “With the shift to mobile has come a fundamental shift in business model. Rapidly becoming obsolete is the PC OEM model of separate operating system, processor, and PC box providers. The dominant mobile device makers such as Apple, Samsung, and Huawei have become much more integrated.”
“Apple has become the most integrated, which I consider to be a fundamental competitive advantage for the company. Apple controls the operating system design, the processor design, and the device design. No other of Apple’s competitors has that level of integration,” Hibben writes. “The failure of Ara, and the ongoing issues with Android device and OS fragmentation, the difficulty of delivering timely Android OS upgrades through the OEMs, all these factors serve as a tremendous vindication of Apple’s business model.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Yup.
• Apple’s control of the whole widget (hardware+operating system] guarantees as seamless an experience as possible for Mac users. Those using Windows have no such guarantee. Over time, no matter how little you value your time, the Apple Mac is less expensive than Windows, even if it did cost a little more upfront. The more you value your time, the quicker the Mac saves you money versus Windows. Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) is perhaps the most overlooked idea by the vast majority of PC buyers. It’s as close to all-important an idea as you can get when it comes to purchasing decisions, yet it somehow goes completely ignored by most people! The exact same idea holds true for iPod+iTunes vs. also-ran digital music player trying to interact with somebody else’s struggling online music outfit. Control of the whole widget always was, and still is, one of Apple’s main advantages. — MacDailyNews, April 30, 2006
• Vertical integration simply gives the user a superior experience, just look at the Mac, iPod, iPhone, and very soon, iPad, for proof. — MacDailyNews, March 26, 2010
• 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. — MacDailyNews Take, June 7, 2014
• The more vertical integration, the better! So-called competitors will only fall further and further behind. — MacDailyNews, December 19, 2015
SEE ALSO:
Apple’s executive changes hint at an even greater level of vertical integration to come – December 19, 2015
Microsoft finally realizes that Steve Jobs was right all along – October 30, 2015
Samsung will never overcome Apple’s advantage in mobile device profitability – July 30, 2015
Why Google and Microsoft couldn’t emulate the Apple mobile device model – July 9, 2015
J.P. Morgan analyst prefers ‘vertically integrated’ approach like Apple’s in smartphone market – March 26, 2010
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