iOS Devices and Services – an Exclusive Dense Cluster
Apple is one of the largest firms in the world with several products, like iPhones and MacBooks, that are immensely popular with consumers. The release of new Apple products is always met with great anticipation and excitement. However, as more and more iOS devices and applications emerge, users become trapped in an infinite loop of consumerism. They continue the purchase the new products, even if their old ones are still perfectly functional. How are people drawn to Apple and how do they get trapped in this never-ending loop?
Rather than modeling each user as a node and friendship as edges, we can view each node as the device or application that the owner has and the edges as the compatibility between them. Theses nodes are strongly interconnected since all Apple products are designed to support its own services while providing a less convenient alternative for services on other platforms (i.e. the iPod and its associated devices require iTunes to import music while Microsoft Excel running on iOS device lacks the solver add-in). This is comparable to the network example of “switching product in a dense community” discussed in class. Due to this tightly interconnectivity between the nodes, the threshold for switching from one technology to another is extremely high. Therefore, it would be difficult to convert completely from a platform as exclusive as iOS to a different one, and many customers become the “Apple fanboys” for life.
This phenomenon can also be analyzed from a different perspective: the self-fulfilling prophecy in Apple users. Those who purchase an iOS device and use its corresponding services are likely to remain faithful to Apple products for its “good” quality, as there are no equivalent programs for comparison on the same operating platform. With this previous success as a favorable signal, users are more likely to purchase the next Apple product based on both their success rate and a lack of alternative options. In this case, the reservation price of the user is high, so better products can be offered at higher costs. In essence, as more users expect better products at higher reservation prices, Apple can indeed provide devices and services with high quality to fulfill the customers’ need.
With the increasing fluidity of information flow, however, applications and services are no longer confined in a single device. Documents and videos can be streamed and saved on networks like Amazon’s Cloud Player, Google Music, Joli Cloud, and many more. These applications have high flexibility from system to system, allowing files to be transferred easily from one platform to another. For instance, Amazon’s e-Books are accessible on PCs, tablets and smartphones including iPhone and iPad in addition to the Kindle reader and Kindle Fire tablet. Therefore, many users choose products for their high compatibility, even though the Apple-equivalents are readily available.
In response to this, Apple has developed iCloud to prevent this customer loss. “Apple has seen this coming, which is why it has implemented iCloud in its own unique way. Rather than created a true cloud computing and services platform, it’s using the ‘cloud’ more as a way to move and manage content between devices. The common theme to everything iCloud is the underlying applications, services and content are all Apple’s. Apple realizes it will have to have a cloud, so it created a private one for its customers.” Apple’s development of iCloud has further changed the market landscape. With this shift and the increase in competition, it will be interesting to see how the market re-equilibrates.
http://news.cnet.com/8301-31021_3-20017064-260.html