I have just read what Apple shown at the WWDC 2016.
In the 1985 Windows 1.0 was born. In a snap, the IBM compatible system evolved, and the competitive advantage of the Macintosh dried up and disappeared.
IBM PC was cheaper and way more open.
Like in the 1985, now in the 2016 the iPhone revolution has come to an end. After the Retina Display introduction, no real new feature was introduced. The apple Watch was beaten by competition.
Two years passed with no true innovation (i.e. Apple Watch is not a revolution).
The last MusicApp removed the beautiful cover navigation, and try to sell you the apple music rent service all the time, instead of let me play the music I have already bought.
MacOSX is the oldest one nowadays.
Historically Apple system are very closed. The reason is simple: when you go to your shareholders and ask for money, you can show you have a competitive advantage, a strong set of feature no one can take apart from you. But Apple lost this war in 1985, when the high pricey Macs cannot compete with open IBMs clones.
To be fair, IBM could open to clone market because its business was on high-end server, and Microsoft alliance will help to sell more IBM PCs.
In the 2000 I see Sun Workstation with custom mouse and monitor plugs, which costs a lot more then standard keyboards and mouses. I think: “They are crazy. As soon as their customers will find a cheap hardware, they will drop this crap of over-priced workstation”. In my university a Sun Station (dump display with keyboard and so on) costs as much as a complete PC, so my Lab preferred to buy real personal computers, and a buch of macs.
Steve Jobs has always tried to keep the closed-system advantage, coupling hardware and software. But now this strategy is a suicide. Google Android is a highway for Google services, and Samsung, LG, ZTE do not care: they are happy to outsource the operating system and related service infrastructure to Google, for free.
In the meantime, when I open my Visual Studio I see I can write application for iOS and Android too, so Windows Phone it is not the “only child” of Microsoft Ecosystem.
Nardella’s Microsoft has learned by its error, even if it cannot understand the full potential of Internet (Azure services are still behind Amazon, and remember: amazon has started selling books, not services or software…).
Google by the other side is becoming an evil company: it does not understand how to keep a product shining, it drop support for stuff every days (GoogleCode, Google Reader, Orkut/G+ as dead guys, etc).
We need more then a “bigger iPad”, or a “hey ObjectiveC is a 1980 crap, use Swift 3.0 which is a python2.0 whoooa”.
Apple customers and developers deserve more. I want to encourage, to urge Apple to hard work, do trial and error and find out a new path of innovation.
Apple need to risk more to find new ideas and to be a step ahead of competition.
See you soon at Christmas 2016.