[aduric]

Ok, I'll bite.

It seems to me that Apple is following a trend they set in the early nineties. Since around 1986 to 1994, Apple introduced some of its most successful consumer products: Macintosh, PowerBook, System 7 (later to become OS X), etc. These products were wildly successful. They were richly-engineered, consumer-friendly, albeit expensive products. They had their own software stack that was not transferable to other platforms, and that 3rd-party developers were not encouraged to deviate from.

Apple relied on very high profit margins that were not sustainable and instead of competing with companies that were making cheap commodity software that ran on any machine (such as Microsoft), they sued them.

All this set the stage for the rise of Microsoft and their licensing partnerships. Unlike Apple, Microsoft software such as Windows and Office ran on any machine. Developers could create software for these systems free of any restrictions. Even though it can be argued that Apple's software was better, it didn't matter. Developers were already heavily invested in developing for Microsoft's platform.

And now to make my point:

Where developers went, consumers soon followed. It became clear that more software was available on Windows, at a lower cost. Apple was soon on the decline. I am arguing that the same thing will happen again because I'm seeing the same narrative right now. You don't have to try too hard to find frustrated developers switching from Apple to another platform. It's become a hassle. And it will continue.

And again, where developers go, consumers follow.

[glhaynes]

On the other hand, there were a ton of IBM PCs (and clones) at the time the original Mac was introduced. The Mac never had a chance of catching up in sheer market share numbers.

With the iPhone (and iPad), the story is the opposite: there wasn't any mainstream (i.e. "household name") smartphone on the market at the time the iPhone was introduced. The App Store has a wide early lead in terms of number of apps. Likewise, there hasn't been a mainstream tablet like the iPad seems set to be.

"Where developers went, consumers soon followed."

Is this really the case? I see this sort of thing being said very often these days, but I'm not convinced it's accurate. (Always be suspicious of a group telling itself how important and influential it is!)

Windows took over because PCs running DOS were already vastly dominant. Hardware manufacturers and users of course wanted GUIs and Microsoft made sure Windows was cheaply available as part of the (restrictive and exclusive) licenses the hardware companies already had for MS-DOS — I remember hearing that IBM's hardware division could get MS-DOS/Windows cheaper than they could get IBM OS/2 from their own software division! And Windows had much more mainstream resource requirements compared to OS/2, its only real competitor on the PC desktop. So every PC very quickly started to ship with Windows. The Mac was already confined to a niche, Windows just narrowed it further. Users ended up in a situation where they would have had to have gone far out of their way to get a PC that didn't have Windows, so of course there quickly was demand for Windows apps.

Also, while the PC was widely used at home, it also had the advantage of being even more widely used in business. So people decided to buy a PC at home because they were compatible (disk and document formats, not to mention being able to bring home software from work) and were already familiar with the PC. The same sort of compatibility lock-in doesn't exist in today's mobile space (if anything, there are a ton of apps on iPhone OS that people want and can't get anywhere else); and I don't see many people buying Blackberrys because they're already familiar with them from work. (More like they buy iPhones because they're already familiar with their iPod ... and iPads because they're already familiar with their iPhone.)

[bad_user]

Apple II was the first affordable personal computer, with a beautiful design. Released in 1977 whereas the IBM PC was released in 1981, 4 years later, and because of its design the Apple II was manufactured until the early 90s.

Your recollection of history is wrong.

> Windows took over because PCs running DOS were already vastly dominant

You're confused.

Apple II was dominating at the time IBM PC was introduced. The reason why it became such widespread was because the market wasn't saturated by Apple and because the partners of IBM (which had a license to clone IBM PCs) were competing on price ... had it not been for the likes of Compaq, IBM PCs would have gotten nowhere.

> I remember hearing that IBM's hardware division could get MS-DOS/Windows cheaper than they could get IBM OS/2 from their own software division!

OS/2 was a collaborative effort of Microsoft and IBM (later forked by MS to Windows NT). The reason for Windows 3.0 and later 9.x being more successful was because it ran on cheaper computers and OS/2 also had a high price tag.

Both IBM and Microsoft viewed OS/2 as the future, waiting for hardware to catch up.

Also OS/2 3.0 (Warp) released in '94 was full 32-bit with preemptive multitasking and had binary compatibility with Windows 3.x / MS-DOS. If anything it was a failure because IBM had other revenue sources and couldn't commit to it (in '95 I remember seeing commercials for Win 95 on MTV).

Also one could argue that Microsoft was more succesfull because it had better partnerships and favored open-hardware systems, leading to more drivers developed for Windows. You also had to shell out extra money for the the OS/2 SDK AFAIK.

> The same sort of compatibility lock-in doesn't exist in today's mobile space

That's because today customers use phones to make phone calls or for SMS, only occasionally opening a web browser or reading emails. That might change, and when it does people are going to start wishing for binary compatibility.

[glhaynes]

Your response didn't make it clear to me where my recollection is wrong or in which ways I'm confused.

The Apple II was doing very well at the time the IBM PC was introduced, but no one system dominated in any sense. It was clear early on, though, that IBM's entry into the market was going to be a milestone for the industry and that IBM was going to dominate in the business market, almost regardless of product quality because of the "IBM" name and marketing channels. Apple floundered with responses including the Apple III and the Lisa. Jobs clearly felt that IBM domination was nearly inevitable: look at the 1984 Mac commercial.

I don't recall the "partners of IBM (which had a license to clone IBM PCs)": if there were any, they were very few and insignificant. Compaq was the first successful unauthorized PC clone and was promptly sued by IBM, who also became distracted for the rest of the decade trying to re-proprietarize PC architecture with the PS/2. IBM was seeing tremendous success with their PCs before clones became popular, though clones and the race toward low-priced commodity certainly helped the PC architecture become further dominant and ensured its continued dominance until the present day.

I mostly agree with your statements about OS/2 vs. Windows 3.0/95/NT, and your point about Microsoft's partnerships leading to more Windows drivers is a good one. IBM wasn't in a good position to do this, since they were only interested in selling the whole box. This was certainly a factor in Windows' ascendancy and something that IBM didn't begin to catch onto until much too late.

I don't foresee users becoming locked in to phones in anywhere near the same way as they did with PCs: even most users who have many apps on their phones and use them for some sophisticated tasks wouldn't have much of a problem jumping to a different mobile OS. This is due to several factors, including the types of tasks that people do with their phones (generally simpler tasks with less integration between multiple apps) and the ascendancy of both open/compatible document formats and web services. On the hardware side, people are already used to throwing out their cases/chargers/adapters when upgrading from last year's model to this year's model by the same manufacturer, so there's little lock-in there, though Apple at least has some capability for lock-in through so much of their (very popular) stuff being standardized around their proprietary Dock Connector. I'd say Apple's recent moves show that they get that mobile lock-in doesn't work in the same way and isn't as much of a factor as it is in the PC business: they're not trying to use their current market position to lock users in nearly as much as they're attempting to lock developers in.