Apple - is history repeating itself?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=743036

by inovica • 17 years ago

2 6 17 years ago

news.ycombinator.com

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.

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?

brandonteo• 17 years ago

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

jacquesm• 17 years ago

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).

AhmadH2• 17 years ago

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• 17 years ago

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.

AhmadH2• 17 years ago

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.

sarvesh• 17 years ago

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.

Apple - is history repeating itself?

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