back to article iPhone: Apple's Mac battle with Windows rebooted

Apple under Tim Cook has delivered six new makes of iPhone, with a further four derivations based on the overall brand. The future, according to Cook this week, looks an awful lot like Apple’s recent past – especially if you happen to live in India, which is the new China in terms of tech firms looking to tap a vast and …

  1. Thomas Wolf

    Same tired old (and wrong) "market share" meme

    "Despite increased smartphone sales overall, Apple’s sales and its market share for iOS have fallen" - yes, due to off-the-charts iPhone 6 and 6 Plus sales (due to switch to bigger screens), Apple's year-over-year quarterly sales have been down. And that's the only reason this tired, old "iPhone is doomed because of down sales, market share" type of article is possible. In another quarter or so, when iPhone 7 will be compared to the previous year's iPhone 6s, sales will be on a positive trajectory again.

    The comparison with "Mac battle with Windows" is nonsense. Mac lost that war because it and IBM PC came to the party around the same time - and the lower IBM PC prices caused more folks to buy more of those computers - which attracted more software developers. A virtuous cycle ensued - and Apple, without much software, was left out in the cold. Contrast this with the iPhone situation: Apple was to market first and attracted lots of developers because it was the only game in town. By the time Android came around, lots of software was already written for iPhone and lots of developers were making lots of money off iPhone. Even today, despite Android having 80+% market share, app developers make nearly twice as much off their iOS versions of apps than they do off Android.

    1. JimmyPage Silver badge
      Mushroom

      Mac bollocks

      Mac lost the war because IBM deliberately made the PC specs open, so other manufacturers could deliver cheaper versions. For those of us who lived through it, we went from the first true IBM PC in late '82 to a world awash with clones in 1986 - four years being lightning speed for the 80s.

      IBM then realised they had lost lots of money, so the PS/2 (micro-channel architecture) was licensed. Mysteriously very few manufacturers paid for the privilege, and PS/2 (and OS/2, which was a shame) slowly died.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Mac bollocks

        The BIOS itself was NOT open AT ALL. Compaq reverse engineered IBM's and then clean room designed their BIOS.

      2. Thomas Wolf

        Re: Mac bollocks

        "Mac lost the war because IBM deliberately made the PC specs open, so other manufacturers could deliver cheaper versions." - uh, aren't you saying essentially the same thing I'm saying? My point was that customers back then (and, yes, I was one of them) chose the cheaper hardware which, in turn, caused software developers to gravitate to that hardware. More software on that platform, in turn, drew more customers.....virtuous cycle.

        In the iOS vs. Android battle, software does not help Android. Arguably, it continues to help iOS sales (in general, software appears on iOS before Android; and even with Android market share 4x that of iPhone, app developers still make more money on the iOS platform). And, whatever your opinion of iOS native apps, the fact is that iOS users get a choice of core Apple apps *and* core Android apps (since Google doesn't want to miss out on iOS customers) whereas the reverse is not the case.

        Many folks - especially in populous emerging markets - buy Android phones because of price. And that has resulted in its 80+% current market share. The question, really, is whether Apple can continue to convince people to pay a premium to gain the benefits of the iOS ecosystem (better integration between [Apple] devices & better security/stability due to better updating policy). Who knows whether they'll succeed. I know their strategy worked for me: in my family we have about a dozen different Apple gadgets, all working beautifully together (most of the time). An Android vendor would pretty much have to come up with an earth-shattering feature before I'd consider switching.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Same tired old (and wrong) "market share" meme

      Actually, Apple's personal computers predate the IBM PC. and the Macintosh was released three years later than the IBM product. Compaq had already started to sell clones.

      The problems with IBM PCs started earlier, with the failure of Apple III and Lisa models. IBM clones, just like Androids, made the PC cheap - IBM ones weren't at all, especially when it adopted the proprietary MicroChannel architecture.

      For many years Apple's sales were sustained by the very software that couldn't run on PCs - especially for lack of adequate graphic capabilities and performance. It took years before PCs were actually able to run the same applications with the same professional features (i.e. color management). The iPhone lacks this advantage.

      Nor the iPhone came first. Smartphones and large apps stores were available at least since PalmOS. The iPhone was "revolutionary" like the Macintosh was - it had capabilities (i.e. multitouch) no other matched. Just, adding those capabilities to devices became much more cheaper and easier than in Macintosh times. Especially since the supporting hardware was not made by Apple - just like the IBM PC that was designed around off-the-shelf parts.

      What HW vendors needed was just a cheap OS and dev tools.... and Linux + Java provided it quite easily, especially with Google funding.

      Apple phone business is not doomed, but it will be very difficult for it to get market share from Android, unless they can find somewhere some new highly desired unmatched feature - beyond status symbol ones.

      1. Steve Davies 3 Silver badge

        Re: Same tired old (and wrong) "market share" meme

        Apple phone business is not doomed, but it will be very difficult for it to get market share from Android, unless they can find somewhere some new highly desired unmatched feature - beyond status symbol ones.

        The question is something a bit different (IMHO)

        Do apple Actually want a huge amount more market share?

        sure they'd make shed loads more $$$ but they'd face Monopoly investigations.

        While they are a minotiry they can continue to charge lots more $$$ for their bling and make more profit.

        Remember that the margins for every other mobile maker are pale in comparison to Apple's.

        Apple needs Android who needs Apple.

        Intel needs AMD needs Intel

        etc

        etc

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: Same tired old (and wrong) "market share" meme

          Well, the IBM PC market share didn't help IBM at all. It eventually sold everything to Lenovo. While the Apple "niche" is still remunerative. But from a company point of view (and its shareholders...) a "niche" is always a "niche" and a larger market share means more money, Especially when you held a larger share before. And greed is always greed.

          Yet it's hard to see how could Apple could increase its share. Licensing iOS looks out of any probability (and could just reduce the niche, even if apps sales grow), as well as creating cheaper devices - Apple is "caged" by being Apple. In the end, probably the best solution for Apple is to hold the high-end of the market (even if somewhat shared with Samsung) - just it need to find a way to defend it well enough - and leave Android the rest. hoping it will be Google to find itself into antitrust issues - and it's beginning.

        2. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          @Steve Davies 3 - "Do apple Actually want a huge amount more market share?"

          Of course not, but not for the reasons you claim (that they would become a monopoly)

          They don't want a lot more market share because the only way they can get it is to offer iPhones across a wide range of prices, just like Android phones. They aren't interested in selling low margin devices on the cheap. If they did, it would undoubtedly cost them money because some people who buy high priced iPhones today would decide that the $250 cheapo model was fine for them. Doubling your market share if it comes at the cost of making less profit is not a good business decision.

          1. werdsmith Silver badge

            Re: @Steve Davies 3 - "Do apple Actually want a huge amount more market share?"

            "because some people who buy high priced iPhones today would decide that the $250 cheapo model was fine for them. "

            This is already the case, but it is known as the used, pre-owned, secondhand - whatever you want to call it - market. $250 iphones with lower spec than the latest new ones are already available.

            I buy very cheap old iPhones because new ones are too expensive and I've tried very hard to get along with Android but still detest it.

      2. Big Ed

        Re: Same tired old (and wrong) "market share" meme

        iOS continued success is all about the eco-system Apple has developed.

        Yes their share is in the 12% range; but that 12% are people willing to pay the premium support and the value of the eco-system Apple grows.

        I was at the Apple Store yesterday for support and it was packed; everytime I walk by, it's packed. I was able to leave my device and pick it up the next day; Apple customers pay for and appreciate that.

        I have a Galaxy tab, and the best they can offer me for repair is to mail it in.

        So is 12% bad?

    3. JeffyPoooh
      Pint

      Re: Same tired old (and wrong) "market share" meme

      Yep.

      I'll bet Gartner is too thick to realize that the 'market' is probably not based on 100%.

      My phone happens to be Apple iOS, but anyone monitoring phone sales will have seen me buy a Windows phone and a couple of Android phoned. These other phones are cheap and cheerful gadgets (my anti-fanboi familiarization), and are not subscribed to any network. They're so cheap that they're nearly free.

      Tablets are even more free than that. One or two of every ecosystem.

  2. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    One factor may be the entry level market, just like Windows. If your first phone was an Android, even when you move up-market you may still choose the OS and apps you're comfortable with. Now that Samsung has been able to create fashionable devices as well (and Huawei is attempting too), less reason for those people to move to Apple.

    That's also why Microsoft should be much more careful about what it is doing with Windows. Now that for more and more people the first OS is no longer Windows, MS has to be very careful to keep Windows appealing and competitive. With Windows 10 instead it took the opposite way in the attempt to monetize user. It works for Android, but may not work for Windows.

    1. TVU Silver badge

      "That's also why Microsoft should be much more careful about what it is doing with Windows. Now that for more and more people the first OS is no longer Windows, MS has to be very careful to keep Windows appealing and competitive"

      That aspect is most certainly true because in the US school education market, the sales leader is now the Chromebook which has displaced both Microsoft machines and iPads in very many schools - it is now 52% Chromebooks and 24% each for Microsoft and Apple (source = Futuresource Consulting).

  3. Opethian

    Confusing article

    Mac and Windows, but you talk about iPhones and Windows Mobile. You say a big player and someone else playing number two... but no mention of Android? That's a big omission.

  4. JeffyPoooh
    Pint

    "If your a fanboi, then before you panic, calm down."

    FFS.

    If *YOU'RE* a fanboi... You're = you are. If you are...

    -30 points.

    Goes back to continue reading...

    1. FreedomTX

      Re: "If your a fanboi, then before you panic, calm down."

      You grammar Nazi you.

      Heil Jeffypoop!..er.. Poooh.

      ;)

  5. Badger Murphy

    If you know something they don't, then capitalize on it

    With regard to those that would stick up for a company when it gets a negative rating in some regard, you're going about it all wrong. What merit is there in trying to convince the world that your pet company is the beacon of corporate excellence, unable to suffer from slumping sales or a poor business decision? At best, you'll convince a few to no useful ends.

    If you're so sure you're right and everyone's wrong, then that sounds like a stock opportunity for you! Betting against the mob will yield great returns if you're right. If you're not confident enough to put your money where your mouth is, then perhaps you may want to evaluate your predilections.

  6. Dieter Haussmann

    Apple need to get rid of Cook AKA Paul O' Grady.

    1. Updraft102

      Perhaps Apple and Microsoft can arrange a trade of CEOs.

  7. Ashley_Pomeroy

    It's often forgotten, but a similar thing happened with the portable MP3 player market. My recollection is that for all its limitations the iPod was easy to use, neat-looking, and generally better-made than the alternatives. Everything Apple has done since the iPod has followed the same pattern - wait a bit, then enter the market with a good-looking premium product and capture the guaranteed high spenders. It works for Chanel and Rolex and so forth and although Apple would probably never admit it public that is the model I believe they will follow.

    The flip side of mass-market domination is that the mass market is fickle. Fifteen years ago Sony was King of the World and Samsung was just a computer peripheral manufacturer. I believe that people cared more about Sony back then than they do about Samsung today, but even that didn't help Sony in the long run. Sony is still huge, but the Sony of 2016 is not the Sony of 2000. For all its market share I do not believe that many people genuinely care about Samsung, or have an emotional attachment to their products. Some mass-market, low-end product capture the hearts of the public - Coca-Cola, McDonalds etc - but the commodity market is on the whole fickle.

    It will be interesting to see what Apple does with OS X. It feels like a throwback. I have the impression that in the XServe days Apple genuinely wanted OS X and the Macintosh architecture to succeed as a general computing platform rather than a high-end luxury toy, but OS X is in the odd position of being the conservative, no-faffing-about-with-tablet-mode alternative to Windows 10 (or alternatively the world's best-made Linux distribution, but with software support). I'm old enough to remember when Apple's biggest asset was its desktop operating system, but nowadays OS X is like an afterthought, and yet it would be a shame to see it go.

    1. Sandtitz Silver badge

      OSX core

      "...but OS X is in the odd position of being the conservative, no-faffing-about-with-tablet-mode alternative to Windows 10 (or alternatively the world's best-made Linux distribution, but with software support)..."

      I agree with your message otherwise but do note that OS X is not Linux and has nothing to do with it, except that the BSD based OS X core has a somewhat similar free software license.

      1. John Brown (no body) Silver badge

        Re: OSX core

        "I agree with your message otherwise but do note that OS X is not Linux and has nothing to do with it, except that the BSD based OS X core has a somewhat similar free software license."

        FWIW the OSX kernel is Mach derived while the userland is BSD derived.

    2. John Brown (no body) Silver badge

      "Fifteen years ago Sony was King of the World and Samsung was just a computer peripheral manufacturer."

      Not a good comparison. Samsung were the worlds biggest RAM chip maker and second only to Intel in overall chip manufacture. They also built stuff, like the Peteronas Towers and the Burj Khalifa. They were on their way to being the worlds largest flat panel display builder. They were also building ships. For that matter, about 15 years ago they were building fighter jets and tanks/mobile artillery. All that and lots more,15 or so years ago, and they've grown and diversified since then :-)

      Sony are and always have been more narrowly focussed, mainly in various aspects of the entertainment industry, be it transistor radios and their successors or making the music, TV shows and films.

  8. PhilipN Silver badge

    Greater market share - why?

    Sure they want to sell more phones, but there is a natural limit for 2 good reasons:

    Marginal return, which means good hard cash for each phone not a razor thin margin to be able to tout "market share".

    Production. Apple are very very good at the process of commissioning, ordering and controlling supply to the point of imposing those razor thin - damagingly thin - margins on their suppliers whilst at the same time getting millions of high quality products to market. Simply NOT POSSIBLE to triple or even double the supply volume except possibly over a period of years and even then there would be major production and logistics issues. Apple probably went past the sweet spot for volume/quality/profit margin/logistics/production control QA/QC a while ago.

    1. Updraft102

      Re: Greater market share - why?

      There's one big difference that I see, though.

      Apple, being the manufacturer of the hardware and the software, makes money not only on the sales of the phones themselves, but on sales through their App Store. That's something that Samsung doesn't have... while Samsung does have its own "me too" app store, it's not even close to Google Play.

      As such, it may be that more market share at the expense of per-unit profit might benefit Apple via greater App Store sales. Or it might not... who even knows? Even the best analysts can only make what amounts to an educated guess.

  9. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Ecosystems Matter

    Speaking as someone who is disenchanted with the direction Windows is going, it is disappointing to see Mac so neglected by Apple. I am tempted by an iPhone of one sort or another. But that means buying into the whole Apple thing, and Macs are part of that. But they're not being developed at all by Apple. Nice phone, old desktops and laptops. Not such an appealing proposition.

    It wouldn't be so bad if I could buy a Mac and upgrade it, but that's not really possible either. It's like they've set out to deliberately keep their products at the bottom of the performance lists.

    1. arthoss

      Re: Ecosystems Matter

      Continuity is worth it, iCloud using apps, gestures and high definition UI properly done

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Ecosystems Matter

        Properly done, but on fairly antiquated hardware.

        The most stupid one must surely be the Mac Pro. It's still using a Xeon E5, which is now 3 generations old, and the GPU is pretty ancient too.

        No wonder people put so much effort into Hackintoshes, it's the only way to get anything comparatively up to date running OS X.

  10. Cody

    In the war with Windows, Apple followed the self defeating tactic of refusing to allow anyone else to make the hardware the OS ran on, and also refusing to contract out manufacturing. The result was that supply was limited. This did allow prices to be kept high, but since lots of people, mainly companies, had decided they needed PCs come what may, it drove them to Windows.

    The Windows PCs meanwhile, because there were multiple competing suppliers, fell in price. As this happened, Apple market share fell, and funding for Windows rose, until finally Apple became something like the Louis Vuitton of computing, a tiny, expensive niche provider in a huge market.

    At least this time they have not made the mistake of restricting supply and have not tried to keep manufacture in-house. They have also achieved Jobs aim of controlling what software runs on their machines.

    However, in the end the dynamic is the same. They are not going to be able to keep a functionality gap. Android is basically free. In the end, you can get a £50 phone in Tesco that may not be as good as the several hundred pound iPhone. But for most people it will do the job, and so they will buy, and Apple in phones will deteriorate into the Louis Vuitton of phones. Tiny market share, very elegant, but not a player in luggage.

    You can't have it all ways. Market share matters. And this is a way to lose it. If you want to see the future, look at the Mac. Old hardware, nothing remarkable about the software, and high prices

  11. chivo243 Silver badge
    Meh

    No innovation... by Apple

    No innovation? That is correct. But what is missing? What else do we need? I don't see a need anywhere. Not in the way a smartphone changed the game anyway. Smartwatch? Wearables? Apple already had the Apple Watch go the way of the Newton... I think the mobile phone was one of the only products that appealed to everyone, not everybody wears glasses, not everybody wears a hat.

  12. mike panero

    Where is the wow? iPhone7

    Where are we lets see...

    6 inch screen you can read, voice req that works most of the time, fingerprint NFC yep all nice when it works to make it work and work quick.(diary, comms bread and butter)

    So the iphone 7...?

    no headphone jack?

    My thoughts

    Two cameras with all the 3d stuff you could then do seems an obvious step; AR/VR Estate agents...

    Front camera? Why not a reverse screen? A screen on the back, eink style for some nebulous messaging advantage that is used mainly for mega-selfies ; the top model sports a small IPS full HD 2" screen WHY

    Built-in hinged cover with razor sharp edge that doubles as a knife; chop your veg help out with a mugging keep your screen scratch free

    Super waterproof No buttons or ports, all capacitive buttons and wireless charging...

    Safari OS; cross-platform integration via the all-new run anywhere safari browser OS, not iOS on a browser but the otherway round and thanks to open standards it works with m$ and google accounts ...

  13. Fenton

    Set OSX free

    The biggest upset Apple could cause Microsoft is to sell OSX so it can be installed on any PC, They could even get away with a tightly controlled hardware list.

    Undercut Windows 10 price, and build in greater integration with iOS.

    .

    As much as I hate itunes, the integration with the iphone/itouch/ipad for transferring content is so much easier compared to the crap you get on Android (so far no music transfer app has managed to copy 128GB of music to my Android phone, so I have to insert the SD card into my PC and transfer manually)

    Windows phone music transfer to Groove Music has to be via Onedrive, sorry I'm not paying a subscription just to get music onto my phone.

    Linux is not the answer to Windows 10. The UI does not appeal to the average user and you still have to use the CLI to get stuff working, which turns most people off.

    1. werdsmith Silver badge

      Re: Set OSX free

      Linux is not the answer to Windows 10. The UI does not appeal to the average user

      *The* UI?

      Is there only one?

      Who knew?

      1. Fenton

        Re: Set OSX free

        And that is exactly the problem, too much choice neither are particular polished.

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