As I learn the newest report from Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman concerning the apps Apple is constructing for Apple’s forthcoming AR/VR headset, I used to be once more reminded about how distinctive Apple’s place within the tech ecosystem is.
We speak lots about Apple’s rivals, and to make sure, it has them in each single market by which it competes. However whereas Apple has rivals, none of them are enjoying the identical sport Apple is. For many years I’ve noticed that most of the individuals who dislike Apple as a enterprise achieve this as a result of they don’t perceive it–they attempt to fruitlessly evaluate it to different corporations within the tech sector.
The truth that we’re even in a position to focus on Apple’s forthcoming headset, headset working system, headset app platform, and headset apps says all the things about how Apple has a method that lets it execute in methods no different firm can.
Incomplete comparisons
To really see Apple’s uniqueness, think about its closest analogs within the tech trade. The businesses which can be constructing their very own OS and app platforms are largely doing it as soon as: Microsoft for PCs, and Google for telephones. They dabble in {hardware}, too, however different {hardware} companions do the heavy lifting. Apple has {hardware} rivals in every single place, however they’re largely utilizing another person’s software program.
That’s as a result of even constructing and sustaining a single consumer-device working system and app platform is extremely onerous. What number of of these have ever been profitable within the historical past of the pc trade? A handful or two over 4 or 5 a long time. It’s a monumental job to be a platform proprietor: software program, {hardware}, and developer relations. Apple most likely owns extra viable client working methods than the remainder of the world put collectively. (And if not, it’s a surprisingly shut factor.)
This isn’t to say Microsoft and Google are weaklings. In actual fact, Apple form of stepped in it (metaphorically talking) when it forked Mac OS X and turns it into iOS starting in 2007. Sure, the iPhone was an enormous hit that modified the world, after all, we all know all that. However think about what Apple was left with: a rapidly-evolving iPhone OS that wanted to cater to the wants of cell units, and the present base of OS X. Two more and more disparate working methods with fully totally different and incompatible app-development platforms. If operating one computing platform is tough, operating two on the identical time appears practically not possible.
This was the conundrum of Apple within the 2010s. A sufferer of its personal success, Apple wanted to discover a strategy to maintain numerous plates spinning (iPhone! iPad! Mac! Apple TV! The brand new Apple Watch!) whereas looking for a strategy to make all of it sustainable. Slowly, a method got here into focus: take a very powerful and profitable platform (iOS) and make it the middle of the corporate’s technique.
The primary Apple TV initially ran Mac OS X, however it converted to iOS fairly quickly. watchOS was primarily based on iOS and, actually, couldn’t run with out an iPhone close by. There was even a second in the course of the center of the last decade when it seemed like Apple would put the Mac out to pasture.
The iPhone and iOS are what Apple’s platforms all revolve round.
Foundry
Out of many platforms, one
What occurred after that was a masterstroke. Apple began planning to maneuver the Mac to Apple’s personal processors, the identical ones within the iPhone. It spent a couple of years bringing the underpinnings of macOS and iOS again collectively after years of them drifting aside. And it made it potential for Macs to benefit from the iOS software program platform, both by way of Mac Catalyst and even operating iPad apps instantly on Apple silicon Macs.
That is how Apple can handle to be the platform proprietor of all these totally different units. Whereas they appear totally different, and behave otherwise to a sure diploma, beneath the floor they’re all variations of the identical platform. Sure, macOS is an outlier–although far lower than it as soon as was–however each different product is firmly a spinoff of iOS, from the Studio Show to the HomePod… to the forthcoming Apple headset.
That is what struck me when studying Tuesday’s report from Bloomberg: Not even Apple has the sources to construct a wholly new working system, system apps, and a growth platform from scratch for a brand new AR/VR headset. However what Apple can do, and actually has gotten very, excellent at, is taking iOS after which making a variant that matches the product in query.
So whereas Apple is constructing apps for the VR headset, is there any doubt that they’re primarily based on the data, and possibly the code base, of analogous apps on iOS and iPadOS? In fact, any new options of the headset must be added, however Apple has an infinite library of code for display sharing, messaging, gaming, media playback… you identify it.
When Apple unveils this system to builders, it received’t ask them to start out from scratch, both. As an alternative, it will likely be talking to seasoned iOS builders, a lot of whom have been uncovered to VR/AR-adjacent Apple software program instruments for the previous few years. There might be loads of studying to do, however they are going to be ranging from a place of familiarity.
It is going to be lots simpler for Apple to persuade builders to develop apps for a brand new headset that’s operating a well-recognized working system with a couple of new wrinkles. It’ll be simpler for customers placing on the headset for the primary time to see new variations of Apple’s personal apps.
None of that is straightforward. Being a platform proprietor isn’t straightforward. That’s one purpose there aren’t very a lot of them. However the methods Apple has employed to be able to ship so many various sorts of units are precisely the methods they’ll be capable of use to ship yet another. It’s a bonus that solely Apple has, and also you wager they’re going to make use of it.
