Customers buy into visions, not products. The iPhone is successful because it's both a great vision and a great product. In its time, Windows was a great vision, at least from the perspective of the people who signed off the budget for buying Windows PCs. Gruber is right that open vs. closed has nothing much to do with it.
However, I think that it gets harder to stay closed over time. As markets mature, products have to do more - interface with more hardware, be deployed in more scenarios and so on. The "ecosystem" becomes important - how many apps do you have, how compatible are you with the relevant bits of hardware? Apple have done fantastically well at both of these things, ensuring a large and high-quality app store, and good integration options. You can switch almost your entire digital life over to Apple products and this works.
But will it always work? Will Apple always be able to ensure that your Apple devices integrate smoothly with your self-driving car, your 3D printer, your home automation systems? As the size and scope of your "entire digital life" gets bigger and bigger, it becomes increasingly difficult for Apple to control the entire ecosystem. Not impossible, but to do it they need to keep on executing at a very high level. They need to be able to say to people that across a very wide range of devices, the Apple device is always the best choice, that you don't need openness and interoperability because why would you ever choose something that's not Apple? And to do that, you do need "genius".
They're already failing somewhat. I don't know many people who think that iCloud is better than Google's equivalent, or Dropbox. iTunes is unloved by most people who use it, surviving largely on lock-in effects and Apple's good commercial skill in dealing with the music industry. If I stop caring about iCloud and iTunes, it becomes much easier for me to stop caring about my iPhone and use an Android (or WP or Firefox or Sailfish or whatever) device instead, because Dropbox and Spotify are open and don't make it difficult for me to do that.
TL;DR: Maintaining a closed ecosystem is difficult in direct proportion to the number of different components in the ecosystem, and the number of components is only going to go up.
While I agree with the rest of your comment (esp the tl;dr), I completely disagree with the above. It's always about the product. Think of every recent Apple ad you've ever seen and ask yourself if they're showcasing the product or some nebulous 'vision'.
People who sign off on budgets don't get lauded because they bought into a 'vision'. It's because product X fits their requirement and likely solves a problem.
Vision, from the perspective of someone about to part with cold hard cash, isn't much of a factor.
OK, I may have phrased that badly. By "product" I meant simply the physical item itself and by "vision" I meant "what that thing can do for you". It's possible to make a beautiful, well-designed and all-round awesome product that's still useless because it doesn't actually fit any real use-case that potential customers might have.
That makes more sense to me now. I lump that all together in 'product' whereas vision is more about where a company is going and what philosophy is driving it (if you get my meaning).
It is possible to have customers who purchase based on vision/direction but this pretty much the defining characteristic of 'innovators' [1], who are willing to take risks on unfinished or poorly supported products.
However, I think that it gets harder to stay closed over time. As markets mature, products have to do more - interface with more hardware, be deployed in more scenarios and so on. The "ecosystem" becomes important - how many apps do you have, how compatible are you with the relevant bits of hardware? Apple have done fantastically well at both of these things, ensuring a large and high-quality app store, and good integration options. You can switch almost your entire digital life over to Apple products and this works.
But will it always work? Will Apple always be able to ensure that your Apple devices integrate smoothly with your self-driving car, your 3D printer, your home automation systems? As the size and scope of your "entire digital life" gets bigger and bigger, it becomes increasingly difficult for Apple to control the entire ecosystem. Not impossible, but to do it they need to keep on executing at a very high level. They need to be able to say to people that across a very wide range of devices, the Apple device is always the best choice, that you don't need openness and interoperability because why would you ever choose something that's not Apple? And to do that, you do need "genius".
They're already failing somewhat. I don't know many people who think that iCloud is better than Google's equivalent, or Dropbox. iTunes is unloved by most people who use it, surviving largely on lock-in effects and Apple's good commercial skill in dealing with the music industry. If I stop caring about iCloud and iTunes, it becomes much easier for me to stop caring about my iPhone and use an Android (or WP or Firefox or Sailfish or whatever) device instead, because Dropbox and Spotify are open and don't make it difficult for me to do that.
TL;DR: Maintaining a closed ecosystem is difficult in direct proportion to the number of different components in the ecosystem, and the number of components is only going to go up.