
Apple's stunningly huge opportunity - steal Android market share. - hoodoof
It&#x27;s an old theme, and has always been rejected firmly by Apple, but image if iOS was totally free for all phone manufacturers to put on their own phones.<p>Ruthlessly quality controlled by Apple to ensure binary compatibility across all iOS compatible phones.<p>Ruthlessly legally controlled by Apple to ensure manufacturers cannot install their own customizations and crapware.<p>Ruthlessly controlled by Apple to ensure it retains control over the operating system update process.<p>Ruthlessly controlled by Apple to ensure there continues to be one and only one Apple app store.<p>Surely for Apple growth into the future comes from owning the customer and selling services via iTunes and the app store.  The only way to do this is through greater market share.  The easiest and perhaps only way to steal market share from Android is to give iOS away free to the Android manufacturers.<p>People don&#x27;t need new phone hardware so often these days so why should Apple be so stuck on selling the hardware?  Time for Tim to start stealing the Android market share.
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ljsocal
One big reason Apple is so much larger and more profitable than other tech
companies (hell, all companies!) is that they are vertically integrated. This
is an expensive business model and it leaves a lot of near-term opportunity
(like seizing Android market share through OS licensing) on the table. If you
want to build a bullet-proof business, follow Apple's lead.

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slater
Looks like someone wasn't around for the PowerPC clone idea of the 90s! :D

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hoodoof
Indeed I was but it ain't the 90's any more.

In the 90's there was not a huge revenue stream to be had from selling
services such as music, games and apps.

It's a different world.

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bobajeff
Huge compared to selling phones? No. That's not the case for the App Store or
Google Play. Hell even selling physical media can't compete with what Apple
makes in hardware. Just look at Sony.

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MaysonL
It seems to me that it would make a lot more sense for Apple to allow other
companies to buy Ax chips, assuming that they priced them well (somewhat
higher than Qualcomm etc.).

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towndrunk
Apple is a hardware company... why would they want to be in the software
business?

