blumenbach
Jul 24, 2017 · 2 min read

I’ll follow the tone of the other comments here and emphasize what’s implicit in Jean-Louis’ post: in the end it’s how a company leverages performance in its devices, pure and simple. Apple’s success hinges on its continuing ability to leverage the solid performance of its products — it “just works”, as opposed to Microsoft’s inherent laissez faire attitude to performance.

I recently spent a two-year stint as European strategy director for a global corporation. I lived out of my suitcase and Lufthansa’s Senator Lounge — one day in Reykjavik and the next day in Cagliari — and my iPhone 6s Plus was critical to my performing at a high level, it was a true workhorse. Everything was pushed to me from the main office: tickets, boarding passes, meetings, notes, white papers, analyses, hotel bookings, etc etc etc. My iPhone managed and organized this steady barrage of activity like a quietly responsive servant; no hiccups, everything just worked. I could rely on it in critical situations, no hiccups, no apologizing to a client because my smartphone didn’t work.

Could Android (I won’t even mention Windows here) have worked at this high level of integrated performance? Not even close, and I can say this with confidence because I saw Android in action in my day-to-day work with others fumbling and struggling with hiccups and the lack of integration. But Android doesn’t even try to do this, that’s not Google’s goal here. Freely available Android’s only purpose is to get Google into as many people’s hands as possible to sell more advertising. Google is competing with Apple not with performance but rather by being just sufficiently effective to convince people to buy inexpensive Android-based hardware. “Sufficiency” is Google’s mantra with all of its products and platforms, not performance.

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