Steve Jobs - Apple Is Software

Steve Jobs himself said that Apple sees itself as a software company ▶ this video The above link is a video where he mentions that. It is true that Apple’s major software products like iOS and MacOS are only available on Apple’s own hardware. But the Steve Jobs justification for this (which he said in a different interview I can’t find right now so I will paraphrase) is that he felt Apple made the best hardware and software in the world so he wanted Apple’s customers to experience the best software on the best hardware possible which he felt only Apple could provide. (I wish I could find the exact quote.) Anyway according to Steve Jobs Apple is a software first company.

You know you might just have a point if you werent completely making that all up. Steve Jobs consistently made the point that Apples hardware is the same as everyone elses, what makes them different is they make the best software which enables the best user experience. Here see this quote from Steve Jobs which shows that his attitude is the complete opposite of what you wrote. ▶ this video

> The hardware doesn't exist merely to run the software Watch this and maybe you might change your mind: ▶ this video

>> There’s a general rule about consumer electronics: The older a device becomes, the more competitors appear and prices fall. This was true for televisions, personal computers and portable music players. >>It was supposed to happen with smartphones. But the iPhone has defied gravity. Because it is not the right comparison. Not even for portable music players which was mostly dominated by iPod. Quoting Steve Jobs [1]. > Apple view itself as a software company I remember, possibly in the same conference Steve basically said Apple is an Software company, you just have to buy Apple's hardware to use it. In that sense. iPhone is not consumer electronics. It is not hardware only. That is why you see all the other examples are race to the bottom for Consumer Electronics. If you look at Software, like Windows, It has been in the dominating position for the past 3 decade. [1] ▶ this video

> Apple has always been a hardware company though. Software has just been for the purpose of selling their hardware. I'm not sure that's the right perspective. Steve Jobs said in an interview [0] that "Apple views itself as a software company." [0] ▶ this video

I think what Tim Sweeney has noticed is what Steve Jobs realised (by his own admission) far too late. The money is in the hardware but the value is in the software. People will buy hardware thinking of that as their investment, without realising that the software is what extracts almost all of the revenue from them as a customer regardless. Steve Jobs talking about this in 2007: ▶ this video

>Remember they are a hardware company not software, they use the software ecosystem to force you to buy their hardware This is what a lot of people thought and it is actually the other way round, and as Steve Jobs put it himself [1], Apple is a software company, you just have to buy its hardware to use it. [1] ▶ this video

"If you look at the reason that the iPod exists, it's because these really great Japanese consumer electronics companies who kind of own the portable music market, invented it and owned it, couldn't do the appropriate software, couldn't conceive of and implement the appropriate software. Because an iPod's really just software. It's software in the iPod itself, it's software on the PC or the Mac, and it's software in the cloud for the store. And it's in a beautiful box, but it's software. If you look at what a Mac is, it's OS X, right? It's in a beautiful box, but it's OS X. And if you look at what an iPhone will hopefully be, it's software." - Steve Jobs (2007) ▶ this video

Actually, Steve Jobs emphasised a few times that the reason why Apple was successful is because of the software. ▶ this video

Steve Jobs - Apple Is Software - YouTube ▶ this video Apple is a Software company, You just have to buy their Hardware first to use it. Apple lately has been too focused, or too worried about the Design of the product and lost sight of its main direction. To more accurately phase it, Apple is an Ecosystem company. You use its Software, Hardware and Services across all ( most ) segment. I'd argue Mac Pro should be the one of those segment, ( representing 1% of the total Mac Sales, and more like 0.1% of Apple's total revenue ) where they should make it impossible for average consumer to come up with a similar spec Machine with similar price. It doesn't mean Apple is making a loss, it is more likely Apple is just making very little profits on it. The Apple now, or the Mac Ecosystem now is very different to 20 years ago. iPhone manage to pull in Lots of new developers and Pros.

I think there are a few concrete things going on: * There are many more integration points between their products now. Shipping only the Mac or only the Mac and an iPod or even a first gen iPhone that can only get data into system apps via a USB cable is very simple compared to what they're making today. For Apple's best-cast customer, who owns a Mac, an iPhone, an iPad, an Apple TV, an Apple Watch, and who uses iCloud, how many integration points are involved now? Integration points are like the exponent on software complexity. It's where software goes to die. * They are still essentially a fat client company that's trying to build more cloud-oriented applications. This leads to additional complexity in the product that other companies just don't have to deal with. An obvious example that jumps to mind is iTunes vs. Spotify. If iTunes was just Apple's version of Spotify, how much better would it be? * Brain drain. Apple's stock made a lot of people a lot of money, and if you work there, you can't participate in the mobile revolution they started. Steve Jobs's passing could also be a natural book end for people in their careers to try something new, or find a job where they're not working 80 hours regularly, or to just take some time off. I guess the last one isn't really "concrete", and is more just me speculating, but I threw it out there because of a decent amount of anecdotal evidence I've seen. Here are some other things that are also just speculative but interesting to