Apple's Comfortable Middle

Thursday, September 13, 2012

Hamish McKenzie, writing at PandoDaily :

With two product launches in a row that show Apple is merely keeping pace with innovation rather than leading it, the world’s most valuable company will start to seem mortal.

I disagree.

For the record, I’m usually on board with Mr. McKenzie’s analyses, and I think he’s right that the iPhone 5 doesn’t restore the staggering lead Apple once had in smartphone innovation. I just don’t agree that there is any probable circumstance in which the iPhone 5 marks the beginning of the end of Apple’s dominance. I want him to be right, but I believe it will take action on the part of Apple’s competitors, rather than mere inaction from Cupertino, to catalyze that descent from the pinnacle.

I want to see something truly threaten Apple’s dominance: it would be good for consumers and even good for Apple, potentially motivating just the sort of next-generation innovation everyone wishes we saw with the iPhone 5. But Android is peddled in an ever-changing array of hardware of wildly varying quality, its interface often marred by manufacturer “improvements” and carrier-mandated bloatware, with no cohesive or remotely predictable software upgrade schedule.

Yes, it’s customizable, “open” (depending on how you define the term), and a provider of competitive pressure. In fact, Android, the OS, in its pristine Jelly Bean state on glorious hardware, is functional and gorgeous. But Android, the experience and, for lack of a better word, the brand, is truly a mess.

Then, there is the iPhone.

Apple tried for years to make things people loved. They succeeded. Now they are in the business of making improvements on the things they make that people love. And they’re succeeding there, too.

Whether or not they revolutionize TV next, and whether or not they drastically refresh iOS in the next couple of years, I think they’re still comfortably in the middle of their dominance, and at the top of their game.

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