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Why Apple Is So Sticky
Hugh Pickens writes "'Sticky,' in the social sciences and particularly economics, describes a situation in which a variable is resistant to change. For websites or products it usually means that visitors or customers keep coming back for more. Now Fortune Magazine reports on an analysis by Deutsche Bank's Chris Whitmore on what makes the (iTunes-based) iPhone-iPod-iPad platform so sticky and why it's going to get harder, not easier, for Apple users to switch, no matter what Google and the rest of Apple's competitors have up their sleeves. Whitmore says the investment Apple's customers have made in content for those devices in terms of apps, videos, and music purchased at the iTunes Store creates Apple's 'stickiness.' Apple has an installed base today of about 150 million iTunes-dependent devices that could grow to more than 200 million by the end of 2011. Whitmore comes up with a cumulative investment in those devices of about $15 billion today, growing to $25 billion by the end of next year. 'This averages to ~$100 of content for each installed device,' Whitmore writes, 'suggesting switching costs are relatively high (not to mention the time required to port). When Apple's best-in-class user experience is combined with these growing switching costs, the resulting customer loyalty is unparalleled.'"
Why is Slashdot so stuck on Apple?
pretty much plays unprotected AACs, so there's no lock in there. As far as apps, many are used for a couple weeks and then forgotten or deleted. There may be a psychological lock in when looking at 100 apps, but in reality only a handful are used. At the iPad level, there are bigger and more useful apps which could be more of a lock-in factor, but there isn't much lock-in at the iPod and iPhone level. Hell, there will probably be a dozen comments in this story about slashdotters who switched from an iPhone to android.
Do you even lift?
These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.
Sounds like, at least in Apple's case, "sticky" is just another word for "vendor lockin"
Let's talk about applications only. Sure the average user may have purchased $100 worth of software, but how much of it do they actually use day to day? I think, just like a computer platform, that the cost of switching is lower than it would seem because most software does not need to be replaced, so the cost is lower than it would seem from simply examining purchase prices for everything you own.
Now throw in media... songs are pretty much sold DRM free these days, so there is no cost to migrate media. Video is tricker since through iTunes it is wrapped in DRM. But I wonder apart from children's video, how much video purchased online is really there to be watched again and again - I buy a lot of video online but after I watch it, I generally don't watch it more than once. I "buy" it knowing full well it's really more like a rental, and if I really like a video I'll buy it on physical media that I can load out or keep as long as I want.
There is something to the argument they make, I just don't think it's as strong on the value side as they make it out to be.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
I reject this statement because it is fundamentally not true.
Case in point, the iTunes interface is not intuitive and neither are many of the features. I'm not alone in this belief and I've seen many a novices confused by it. However, people eventually do learn to navigate it.
The same goes for the ipod interface. Thankfully my nano is rock box compatible and I was able to install something that was a bit easier to sync my music with.
I pretty much find all of their interfaces confusing and I really don't have the desire to learn them. Good news is that there are many alternatives on the market.
"You should always go to other people's funerals; otherwise, they won't come to yours." -- Yogi Berra
OS X only exists to make people want to buy Apple hardware. Allowing OS X on commodity hardware would dilute their brand and suck buyers away from what they're actually trying to sell.
I know many people with Iphones, Ipads and Ipods, nearly all of them love the devices but hate Itunes, using it as the only option available to them. Several of my more computer literate friends are unhappy with the restrictions thier Ipods place on them regarding PC transfer rights and lack of backup options for their content, but most never even consider what would happen if their device failed and won't until it does...
errr....umm...*whooosh* *whoosh* Is this thing on ?
I reject this statement because it is fundamentally not true.
Case in point, the iTunes interface is not intuitive and neither are many of the features.
For novice users, I reject that any solution that is based around files (which I know you would prefer and sounds like what you are using) is easier for non-technical users to understand than the way iTunes works. You stated that you saw novice users confused by iTunes, but they got over it. Well I have seen a lot of novice users that never get over the confusion of how to deal with files.
iTunes "just works" for most users despite being somewhat nonintuitive, because the other solutions are either more clunky to set up or less intuitive still.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Is this a serious point of view?
As a software developer, OSS advocate, multiple-os user, I couldn't disagree more.
My personal laptop is a 1st-gen MacBook Pro when they first made the Intel switch, and I'm using an iPhone 3G. Never used an Apple product until they made the intel switch, and I've loved every minute of OS X.
I still use Windows, Linux and Solaris for personal use, work use and for any other purpose, but if I had a choice I would undoubtedly choose OS X.
Why? Simple, it doesn't suck. I won't say "it just works", but it sucks a hell of a lot less then Windows or Linux. Surely, we can agree on Windows here, and Linux I'm not going to go into some kind of argument, but suffice to say my time is valuable (if not to others, to myself), I don't want to invest tens to hundreds of hours into simply configuring Linux to do what I want, when OS X does out of the box, with a cleaner and (more) unified interface.
Why did I get an iPhone instead of a phone with WebOS, Android or Symbian? Same goddamn reasons, WebOS is a tiny market, Android is fragmented and destroyed by the vendor specific distributions (sad, really, I wish this weren't the case -- or else i'd have gone here). When iPhone 3.0 came out, I was able to upgrade my phone instantly. When iPhone 4.0 beta came out, I was able to upgrade my phone isntantly. My buddy at work with his Android phone? He's stuck on something ridicuously old at 1.5 because he's at the mercy of the combination of his cell provider and handset maker to update their proprietary version of Android.
We all know that the cell phone providers have a long way to go in order to "catch up" with the technology we all want to use; and that's why I went with apple here. They used their brand power to strong-arm a major cell provider into giving them unified control. Sure, I'm "locked in" to Apple for my iPhone. But what do I get for that?
- Free (in a sense, not at additional charge) software and OS ugprades
- Largest app store by an order of magnitude (i seldom pay for anything, tons of free stuff available that do what I want)
- Unified interface to sync/get content (Sure, you see iTunes as locked in, but the app is free, purchased music is DRM free and there is simply no better alternative on any OS. So what the hell are you complaining about? Make a better competitor and maybe someone will use it.)
- The UI is smoother and more intuitive then any other device
- Flash? What? Android doesnt even run flash (except in latest betas, i believe, which wont see an actual piece of hardware for who knows how long, so dont give me that BS)
Until someone else can compete at this level (and that wont be for some time, if they are lucky), then I'll stick with my "locked in" platform, which, has more free and better tools available then the OSS alternatives.
By the way... small share of the market? Apple has moved (literally) over 50 million iPhones, and I believe significantly more iPod Touch's, and the US has a population of what.. roughly 330 million people, and lets say we make some broad assumptions that only about 1/3 (110 million) of those (cut out children, elderly) are even eligible iphone customers, thats nearly 50% market penetration. Small? Are you on crack?
Yes, that's 50 million world wide, but that is just a comparison to put it into perspective.
Lol, "You can avoid the lock in annoyance by buying a Mac and then buy only Apple products"?
+1 funny
So Slashdot historically loves Apple. Reason is twofold:
1) Apple is a historic underdog and Slashdot likes underdogs. They were the small guys fighting the evil that is MS, and Slashdot REALLY hates MS. As such they like Apple, or at least what Apple was.
2) Apple provides an easy to use alternative to Windows with some UNIX underpinnings. While many are loathe to admit it, Linux is a PITA for many desktop uses. Some of the people who use(d) it do so out of anti-MS zealotry and/or a UNIX superiority complex. Well, Apple offers an OS you can pretend is UNIX (even though that is just a minor foundation) that is easy to use and not MS. So, it is the sort of thing many /.ers like.
However, Apple is, and nearly always has been, a company far more controlling than MS. They want to dictate everything about your computer usage. They want you to have to buy hardware from them, in the configurations they specify only. They want you to use only their OS. They want to control where you get your applications and media, they want to tell you when to upgrade, etc.
This is, of course, counter to what Slashdot likes. However it was something that wasn't that apparent, nor that onerous back when Apple was the little guy. However as Apple has grown, it has become more and more obvious that their vision of the future of technology is one where they run everything.
So because of these two things, you see a lot of Apple stories, and a lot of stories on their lock in strategies. Don't expect it to change any time soon as Apple isn't likely going anywhere and the combination of love/hate will continue here.