In a new interview published by Businessweek this morning, wherein Sam Grobart sits
down with Apple CEO Tim Cook, and SVPs Craig Federighi and Jony Ive, Cook
comments on a number of things, including the comparison that’s often made
between the trajectory of Windows and Mac early on, and the current heading for
Android and iOS.
“Microsoft kept things the same, and the
level of fragmentation wasn’t as much,” Cook told Grobart in the BW interview.
“There weren’t so many derivative works out there with Windows.”
The quote is addressing the commonly-made
comparison between Apple’s early progress in desktop computing and its current
situation with mobile; Microsoft made Windows available to any OEM partners,
leaving PC hardware to other companies while focusing on software, whereas
Apple wouldn’t license its Mac OS (except for a brief,
and failed experiment), and built devices in-house married to the software
they themselves engineered.
Naturally, people argue based on that
comparison that Apple is headed for trouble with the current Android/iOS
picture. Windows eventually rose to dominate the computer market
near-completely with its OEM partner model, while Apple’s share dwindled,
though it eventually carved out a lucrative, if relatively small slice of the
market (and is arguably now winning, thanks to iPad sales). But Cook says that
the iOS situation is different, and doesn’t Apple’s mobile devices slipping to
anywhere near those low market share percentages.
Part of that is due to Android’s
fragmentation issue, which Cook also goes into in the BW piece. He points out
that people on Android are often using three or four-year old OS software on
their devices by the time they upgrade, which he says “would be like me right
now having in my pocket iOS 3,” per Grobart. The fragmentation makes it so that
Cook doesn’t “think of Android as one thing,” he tells BusinessWeek, which is
why the situation is different from Windows: With Microsoft’s desktop OS, it
issues updates without having to worry about carrier approval, and Windows
doesn’t get forked and re-skinned the way that Android does.
Cook addresses many other topics in the full
interview, including how Apple didn’t set out to build a low-cost iPhone with
the iPhone 5c (just a great device that costs less than the flagship version),
and how Ive and Federighi manage their intensely collaborative working
relationship and rolls, so it’s definitely worth heading over to read in full.
The point of view Apple’s current CEO holds
regarding Apple’s mobile market battle and how it does or doesn’t reflect past
experience is particularly interesting, however, given how quickly the
comparison seems to leap to the minds of analysts and observers. Of course,
it’s also possible that Android’s flexibility could help it avoid getting
replaced by next-generation device types the way the PC was buffeted by the
iPad, but it’s far too soon to tell in any case.
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