[Mirioron]

It makes no difference. Apple's past behavior has alienated enough people from their brand that they must provide such a large 'eco-system' themselves. For Windows, Linux and Android it's the users that provide those tools instead.

>Revenue, operating income, and cash flow metrics undersell how Apple is performing in the marketplace from a new user perspective.

If anything, then the financials oversell their position in the market. Apple is not in the lead in (almost?) any category in the number of users. They are the premium product, but a premium product that many users want to avoid, rather than can't afford.

But ultimately being second has been very smart by Apple. It has allowed them to not be punished by regulators for their (previous) bad behavior.

[danaris]

Ah, right, Apple's past behavior, like when they forced OEMs to pay for MacOS licenses on all computers, even when they didn't have it installed—oh, wait; that was Microsoft.

No, you must mean Apple's past behavior when they turned a popular and well-made browser into a tool for stealing everyone's data so they could profit off it—no, sorry, that was Google.

Then it must be Apple's past behavior when they chose to stoke millions of people's worst political divisions in order to increase their own profits—dammit, no, that was Facebook!

Let me check my notes.

Right, Apple's behavior. Like when they....reads notes...Made phones and computers that...were more expensive than some people wanted? Made them hard for users to repair?

Um.

Yeah, I don't think that's alienating enough non-geeks to have the effect you describe.

And I can tell you, as a Mac user for over 30 years now, that the primary reason Apple provides such a large ecosystem themselves is because from roughly 20 minutes after the first Macintosh was announced through well after the iPhone went on sale, the majority of the tech world considered them "doomed" because they didn't act like Microsoft. And after the iPhone came out (and yes, overlapping with the "doomed" narrative), they instead declared roundly that Apple had lost its spark every time they held an event that did not introduce a product as groundbreaking as the iPhone (which is to say, always). Apple provides the ecosystem themselves because decades of experience shows them that no one else is going to do it for them, and when they depend on outside companies for important parts of their experience (Motorola, IBM, Intel, Qualcomm), those companies eventually let them down.

[musicale]

As another potential "bad behavior," some developers and government regulators are saying that platform fees for the iOS App Store (comparable to the 30% taken by Google Play or Nintendo's eShop) are excessive and that Apple should be required to lower them.

However, I don't think it has had a huge effect on Apple's brand reputation among consumers.

[isaiahg]

Try to tell that to the younger generations. They want apple products and they're either too young or don't care about Apple's behavior. Their friends have iPhones and the fear of becoming a green bubble is real. Apple is definitely over performing and could become the leading computing platform of the next generation.

I'm not exactly an Apple fanboy either and it's very obvious to me how this has started to play out. (I've never even owned an Apple product) Apple today is the best at portraying their vision than any other company. Google never commits fully to their products. Meta is limited by the bad press from Facebook. And Microsoft is doing... whatever they're trying to do with windows 11. Meanwhile Apple is pushing one of their strongest lineups in decades.