Third-Party Services Make the iPhone More Valuable, Not Less So
Writing for Recode, Jan Dawson again brings up his idea that Apple Inc. could be vulnerable to its iPhone customers one day seeing past Apple. His basic premise is that potential iPhone buyers would one day see software service providers as so integral to the experience that the device manufacturer starts to fade from relevance.
I couldn’t disagree with him more.
I couldn’t disagree with him more.
Services to the mobile phone are like destinations to a car. It doesn't matter how great the destination is, customers will still purchase their "vehicle" based on price, quality, and design.Based on Jan’s thesis, potential car buyers would be so enamored with all the possible destinations that they could visit that the car itself becomes irrelevant. This couldn’t be farther from the truth. Just because you’re dreaming of your next trip to Toadstool National Park doesn’t mean that you don’t worry about how comfortable or reliable your next vehicle is. In fact, the more time you think you’ll spend in your car the more you may be willing to pay for one.
No matter how much time and energy Johnny Ive lavishes on designing his beloved iPhones, when you pick one up, it’s not with the goal of holding your iPhone in your hand. Well, unless it’s launch day of course. Your goal is something beyond. You want to connect with someone or hunt for some piece of information. Your iPhone is still your “vehicle”, and as such it can make your trip either more or less enjoyable, or it can even suffer a breakdown.
And just like a car, you will worry about its reliability, how to get it serviced, or even how it complements your image. So just because software services may be cross platform, that doesn’t mean that phone buyers will put their brains on hold when they go shopping for their new handset. They don’t want their personal computing device to leave them stranded, they want it to look good, and they want it fast and efficient. Not all devices are created equal and they are all aimed at different priorities.
Not only is Jan’s thesis wrong, it’s 180-degrees wrong. Third party services make the device more important, not less so. Apple’s software ecosystem partners make the device more desirable by allowing the consumer to justify its purchase. The more places that your physical device can take you, the more money you will think it is worth.
I don’t think that Apple is getting into services because it is worried that customers will somehow see the physical device as irrelevant. They are mining a relatively easy way for them to increase revenue and help sell more devices in the future. Services are a necessary and shrewd move by Apple to differentiate their devices and avoid the hardware commoditization that exists in the Android world. But services are not Apple’s future in that they will some day transform Apple into a primarily services-driven entity. Services drive hardware sales, not vice versa.
Look at WWDC 2016. Everyone was disappointed because there was no hardware announced. Why? Software and services are great, but our base, primal nature still craves shiny new objects to acquire. I’m not sure we even fully understand this drive to collect physical things. No one wants to buy their boyfriend or daughter a software service as a gift, but an iPhone or an Apple Watch? You bet! Perhaps the great American poet Madonna explained it best with, “You know that we are living in a material world, and I am a material girl.”
If Google, Amazon, or Facebook are going to stage an assault on Apple by offering great software platforms that allow iPhone owners to do all kinds of new things, then so be it. Apple will be laughing all the way to the bank.
No matter how much time and energy Johnny Ive lavishes on designing his beloved iPhones, when you pick one up, it’s not with the goal of holding your iPhone in your hand. Well, unless it’s launch day of course. Your goal is something beyond. You want to connect with someone or hunt for some piece of information. Your iPhone is still your “vehicle”, and as such it can make your trip either more or less enjoyable, or it can even suffer a breakdown.
And just like a car, you will worry about its reliability, how to get it serviced, or even how it complements your image. So just because software services may be cross platform, that doesn’t mean that phone buyers will put their brains on hold when they go shopping for their new handset. They don’t want their personal computing device to leave them stranded, they want it to look good, and they want it fast and efficient. Not all devices are created equal and they are all aimed at different priorities.
Not only is Jan’s thesis wrong, it’s 180-degrees wrong. Third party services make the device more important, not less so. Apple’s software ecosystem partners make the device more desirable by allowing the consumer to justify its purchase. The more places that your physical device can take you, the more money you will think it is worth.
I don’t think that Apple is getting into services because it is worried that customers will somehow see the physical device as irrelevant. They are mining a relatively easy way for them to increase revenue and help sell more devices in the future. Services are a necessary and shrewd move by Apple to differentiate their devices and avoid the hardware commoditization that exists in the Android world. But services are not Apple’s future in that they will some day transform Apple into a primarily services-driven entity. Services drive hardware sales, not vice versa.
Look at WWDC 2016. Everyone was disappointed because there was no hardware announced. Why? Software and services are great, but our base, primal nature still craves shiny new objects to acquire. I’m not sure we even fully understand this drive to collect physical things. No one wants to buy their boyfriend or daughter a software service as a gift, but an iPhone or an Apple Watch? You bet! Perhaps the great American poet Madonna explained it best with, “You know that we are living in a material world, and I am a material girl.”
If Google, Amazon, or Facebook are going to stage an assault on Apple by offering great software platforms that allow iPhone owners to do all kinds of new things, then so be it. Apple will be laughing all the way to the bank.
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