There’s no shortage of iPhone vs Android debates. But most of those arguments are missing the bigger picture. On it’s own, the high-end phone market is a pretty level playing field. But looking at the bigger (and longer) picture, no one is even in the same league as Apple.
For example, my household includes the following Apple products: two MacBook Pros, two iPhones, iPad, Apple TV, Airport Extreme, and two Airport Expresses. No other company makes high-end devices in all of those categories. And as we saw a few days ago, Apple is expanding into new categories.
This puts Apple in a unique position to take advantage of cross-device communication. Right now, if I take picture with my phone, it will automatically show up on my wife’s phone, my laptop, iPad, and TV. The Apple TV and Airport Expresses create a wireless, house-wide audio system that I can control from my phone, iPad, or laptop. By the end of the year, I’ll be able to text, answer calls, and make calls from my laptop or iPad. And it’s really, really easy to enable all of those things. Good luck trying to do that with a mixed bag of hardware and software.
But that’s kid stuff. Imagine 5-10 years from now when everything is internet-enabled. Consider the smart devices that will be in your home: light bulbs, door locks, thermostat, garage door, dishwasher, fridge, prescription bottles, car, sprinklers, etc. [By the way, internet-enabled versions of all of those things are on the market right now]. The only way those products succeed is being dead-simple to use, and they can only be dead-simple to use if they are easily integrated into the rest of your digital eco-system. Done right, there’s a smarter, simpler, more efficient future. Done wrong, there’s a future of headaches, frustration, and missed opportunities.
No other company is as well positioned as Apple to take advantage of that future. Not only will they be able to make better products than anyone else, they’ll be the only ones able to create new types of products that take full advantage of what’s possible. With a house full of Apple products, I’ve experienced a small glimpse of that reality. An Apple purchase today is an investment in my digital world of tomorrow. I buy Apple products because I can see the future.
– Justin