I’m sure that my take on this is heavily biased by the fact that I was a die hard (pre Macintosh) Apple fan during the company’s darkest times. You know, the time when Apple was barely of life support, but we couldn’t bring ourselves to actually admit that it was true. Thankfully Steve Jobs came back, righted the ship (after plugging the leaks,) and brought Apple back to the healthy juggernaut that they are today. That being said, I still get annoyed by the long int the tooth IT admins who can’t get over the fact that Apple survived. Even though we went through a period where Apple was the undisputed tech darling, they can’t bring themselves to admit that Apple is here to stay. While the industry was using iPads to lure attendees to their conferences and sales pitches, they silently waited for Apple to stumble so they could get on with their march towards a Windows hegemony. I have a colleague who personifies this in my mind. He outwardly goads Apple reps. These reps have commented to me that he talks to them like he’s annoyed that Apple didn’t go bankrupt in the late 1990s. He’s the only person I’ve seen with a Dell branded tablet. Bringing a MacBook into a meeting meets immediate derision. It’s really annoying.
Now that we are 7 years into the existence of the iPhone and iOS these are the people who gloat about Android being the market share leader. You can hear in their voices the glee that they see the Android / iOS market shaking out like Windows / Mac OS did. I find it funny that the same people who wouldn’t accept the defense that even though the Macintosh didn’t have as many apps as Windows, it had the ones that matters now use the same argument to defend Android. The reality is that each year, when Apple releases the new / speed bumped iPhone, the iPhone is the number one selling handset for the next 1-2 quarters. It then holds it’s own for the rest of the cycle, and then it starts all over again. There are many things that Apple could do wrong, and I hope they don’t, but until they do, there is no problem. We’ve seen how well it works when you try to make up your losses by selling in volume (I’m looking at you Dell. How’s that working out for ya?) In the long run, as long as Apple can make products that people want, and can sell them at a profit, they can keep going until the cow comes home.