

Apple - is history repeating itself? - inovica

Over the years I've read quite a bit about business, and I love reading biographies of people and companies. I'm just wondering if Apple (or Steve Jobs) are repeating their mistakes from the past.<p>When the Macintosh was first created, it was done so as a completely 'closed' unit - there were no expansion ports like there had been on the Apple II.  Prior to this, Apple had the market for personal computers with their Apple II, but they refused to license the OS and the rest (as they say) is history. I'm thinking that with the iPhone - which I love BTW - and the controlling method which Apple are going about the management of the Apps for it, are they in danger of the same blindness which afflicted them before?
======
AhmadH
Apple is profiting a lot from the App store in its current form. Profit is the
definition of success in any realistic business.

There is no way to prove that this will ultimately fail when it is so
successful now. You can try boycotting them, but then their failure will be
your self fulfilling prophecy.

~~~
chaosprophet
The only reason Apple is raking in so much profit from the App Store is
because there is no real rival to it. Like I have said on many other HN
threads, when the smartphone market matures, Apple will have to become more
transparent. If it doesn't and keeps doing stuff like rejecting really useful
apps like Google Voice then not only developers, even consumers will start
abandoning the device/platform.

~~~
AhmadH
Apple are treating their developers the same way they treated the music labels
and media companies. It worked marvelously for them, why would they change
anything?

As far as Apple are concerned, App developers should be thankful they even had
a choice in pricing.

------
jacquesm
Apple and Sony both.

Their strategy seems to be that if you try it enough times and apply the
lessons from the previous time then one day you'll find that holy grail, a
format or a market that is completely yours, and as a result of that a captive
audience that you can milk for a long long time.

Sony failed with betamax against the more open format VHS but they succeeded
with Blu Ray vs HD DVD.

Apple with the Mac vs the PC (which technically pitted Apple against IBM, but
which now seems to be reinterpreted as Apple vs Microsoft).

------
brandonteo
when at first you don't succeed, try again.

------
sarvesh
I don't believe they are comparable. The situation, the products and
competition are all different. And I really don't think they failed the first
time, they may have lost of to the PCs then but they didn't perish as a
company.

Their philosophy has been to create a great product and sell it in one
package. And it has worked pretty good for them with Mac line of products.

With the app store model they still get to control the applications that run
on the iPhone. Which does give them the ability to not approve any application
that would make the user experience with the device undesirable. This control
over the app store is being used for tactical reasons by Apple. But obviously
whether it was intended reason from the get go, I highly doubt that. Add to
this who knows what legal agreements they are bound by with the Carrier. The
carrier may say it wasn't us but when things go bad between them I am pretty
certain there will be a few people in both these companies looking at those
legal agreements.

Whether this is a good thing for developers, no. Whether it is good for Apple,
may be in short term but probably not in long term. A more open policy with
the approval process would be ideal.

