[dowager_dan99]

even with electronics. Apple didn't achieve their dominance because of their software - any of the times. The physical products were continually refined and the software used as a lever to help them perfect the experience. When they focused on making the software "perfect" it almost destroyed the company.

[doctorpangloss]

Yeah dude. The iPhone continues to be chosen for its superior software. It absolutely became dominant because of the software. I mean they’re all black rectangles. Black rectangles with capacitive screens existed before the iPhone. A good mobile browser didn’t. This is coming from someone who owned a Zaurus, which had the closest thing to a decent browser, NetAccess, and a grid of icons touchable Home Screen all the same. You are underplaying how groundbreaking the software was.

This is one set of facts, totally correct, that you are talking about:

    iPhones are made in China.
    They cost $770 or so with tax.
    They make a 55% margin (or whatever) per phone.
    Consumers prefer premium materials like titanium, and they don’t prefer things like replaceable batteries.

Here is another set of facts:

    Everyone’s phones are made in China.
    But of course iOS is made in the US.
    Consumers are choosing not between a titanium and aluminum phone, but almost always, they are choosing between Android and iOS
    The margin on the software is like 99%
    Apple News, the App Store, etc have a very powerful DRM scheme, where Apple is one of the only companies, besides maybe Sony, where you cannot pirate things they sell for the iPhone like services subscriptions, game IAP and extra iCloud storage.
    The price of the iPhone isn’t its $770 sticker but the LTV of the owner.

This is a big deal because the second set of completely and utterly true facts is why Apple is the richest company in the world. And then you look at NVIDIA, another really rich company but which people feel less passionate about, and unequivocally, people choose NVIDIA because of its software, because of CUDA, which is why you can’t “just” add more VRAM, which is something else that everyone wants and would be a key differentiator, yet for some reason doesn’t manifest in the market.

This matters to firms everywhere not just Japan. If you can’t make 99% margin software someone else will. And consumers LIKE software. So everything you are saying is true but it doesn’t really disagree with me.