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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.'"
Sounds like, at least in Apple's case, "sticky" is just another word for "vendor lockin"
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
Because they're the ones moving forward and being creative in the computer field with regards to consumer computers while everybody else is just following their lead? Microsoft is creating vaporware tablets to compete with the iPad. Android and the idea around it came out a year after and probably because of the iPhone and the design of its OS. HP is scavenging Palm for their own Apple inspired tablet rather than going with Windows. Things are changing as people are getting used to owning smart phones and being online just about anywhere they are located. This wasn't a feature advancement as my phone years before the iPhone could also (technically) go online, but the iPhone OS was the one that made it actually work like a browser and easy to do for the general public.
I'd like to know where you got your kool-aid
This motherfucker jumped through my wall screaming "OHHHH YEEEAAAHHH" and then poured me a glass of kool-aid.
Because of the limitations and lockdown they're also trying to move the field backwards in many ways. Personally I'm damn glad Google and Android are at least shaking things up and providing a little competition, as even though Apple does some things very well, I don't think I like where they're "moving the industry forward" to.
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.