> I’m not so sure developers would want the alternative of malware-plagued PCs.
We would never even be at the level we're at if there weren't those malware-plagued PCs and their open marketplace of software and operating systems competing with each other.
> Previous consumer OSes had major usability and security drawbacks for the average consumer.
You mean Windows did, because A) it was the OS of the vast majority of desktop systems and B) they had a culture and practice of not taking security very seriously, or at least prioritizing so many things over it that the outcome was the same.
Apple's operating systems traditionally faced less scrutiny (but now there are more security problems since they are more popular). Windows has gotten much better and Microsoft appears to be much more serious about security (since it because a large enough problem to actually threaten their OS market dominance).
> Through no fault of their own, their computers would gradually get slower and corrupted by 3rd parties.
Not really my experience over the last 6-7 years. Prior to that, depending on OS, sure.
> This is similar to the shift to cloud computing. It’s more valuable to have a service take care of me than to have the freedom of licensed software .
To you, sure, but for the average person or company, it's variable and based on many things (capability, scale, etc).
> It’s also worth noting that software always has been considered a service in some sectors - enterprise software dating back to the 1970s for example required 21-25% of your purchase price in annual service & support fees with penalties if you terminate.
The enterprise doesn't really scale to the individual level we're talking about at all. An enterprise buying a specific computer with certain hardware with a custom OS delivered as a service is like a person buying some Tamagotchi toy and looking at it for 5 minutes a day for a week. Enterprises run anywhere from hundreds to hundreds of thousands of desktops and/or servers and any software as a service they pay for in that ecosystem is minuscule compared to the whole. Apple controls a non-negligible portion of most iPhone users compute time in one way or another (or multiple ways).
> We would never even be at the level we're at if there weren't those malware-plagued PCs
The mobile industry would also never even be at the level it's at if it wasn't for the iPhone.
One of the biggest selling points of iOS was precisely that it was free of random third-party crap that everyone was sick of by that time.
Ever since Apple refused to let AT&T shovel their bloatware on the first iPhone, the very identity of iOS has been that it's a curated platform, and you only have to be concerned with one company for almost everything.
It was a breath of fresh air, bringing the philosophy of consoles to a mass consumer device.
Millions of people love that. For everybody else, there's Android.
I've been using Windows since 3.1 and macOS since Panther.
These days I spend most of my time on macOS but I have a Windows 10 desktop machine and it works beautifully. Performance is way better than on macOS.
If Windows had a better text rendering engine I would probably switch. I just have an irrational disgust for how fonts are rendered on Windows. I know it's subjective but as someone that spends most of its time reading and writing text it's imperative I enjoy that.
There is a huge difference between having your PC not work because of viruses and your phone. Since day one security and safety have been the most important feature for iPhone, and the biggest reason consumers select it.
> Since day one security and safety have been the most important feature for iPhone, and the biggest reason consumers select it.
That's ridiculous. That has nothing to do with the reason people selected it when it came out. It was pretty, it had features no other phone really had, such as a browser that rendered the same as the desktop and good touch controls, but security and safety had nothing to do with it.
It’s not ridiculous at all - all those reasons you list mattered (though arguably iPhone had fewer features than most phones, Safari notwithstanding), but the tipping points were the App Store and Exchange integration in iOS 2.0 summer 2008. And the iPhone 3G model. that matched the bar that Blackberry had set for security.
Companies allowed the switch to iPhone when they realized that it was in theory as secure as Blackberry, and didn’t require a BES server.
Some perspective please - The original iPhone had total restrictions and no 3rd party apps. Then they added the App Store the following summer 2008.
So of course a major appeal was that it was a curated and totally secure platform was from day one. I know this because I was a many year Blackberry customer and was in the record lines in June 2007.
The vast majority of phones people had at the time were not smartphones. The original iPhone was more "super impressive dumbphone" than smartphone, because it only had what it came with. Unless you were using Symbian, Blackberry, or a Windows Phone (which most people weren't), you had some dumb phone that had a crappy browser that couldn't render well, and whatever shipped on the phone. Maybe some extra ringtones you could download.
Blackberry was far and away considered the much more secure and safe option, for those that needed it. Your company could run your own messaging service (through Blackberry Enterprise Server), so it was far more secure in that respect.
I also had a Blackberry at the time the iPhone was announced. You were in the lines for an iPhone at the time because you wanted the safety and security it offered? Or because it looked really nice, had a browser that rendered correctly, and had a nice new way to interface? Because I don't know anyone else who switched for security at the time.
I’m saying it was all of those things: a proper browser, a good industrial design, plus the potential for Blackberry levels of security, which was realized only a year after the initial release. If you want to be a stickler on the OP’s original wording, yes this was more about potential than what the original iPhone shipped.
And anyone who administered BES really wanted to see a market switch to ActiveSync on Exchange, because BES was a massive resource hog on Exchange for no major security benefit over ActiveSync: the messages got routed over auto generated TLS Certs to BlackBerry’s data centers in Canada... so the main benefit was properly configured end to end TLS. Which admittedly wasn’t nothing in the late 90s, so few understood SSL/TLS, and Exchange was a beast, and early ActiveSync was buggy and insecure! But by the mid-late 2000s Microsoft started getting its act together.
> I’m saying it was all of those things: a proper browser, a good industrial design, plus the potential for Blackberry levels of security, which was realized only a year after the initial release.
But this isn't what you actually said. You made a very specific claim, and that specific claim is what I said was ridiculous. You can admit the original claim was a bit hyperbolic, and then we don't really have anything left to argue, or you can defend that safety and security where the "most important feature" and "biggest reason consumers selected it" from "day one", in which case I don't think there's much left for us to cover.
Ugh, my mistake. Those weren't your words. I got you and the other commenter mixed up here and elsewhere (as in I specifically tried to address you each as your respective roles, but got it backwards). Sorry for that.
You can understand how iPhone security and safety helped sell it, even though it was (inaccurately as we later found our) viewed as less secure than Blackberry.
People bought iPhones because they trusted it was secure, and chose it over Blackberry because of features and UX. And they kept buying it because it was secure, had the release of the App Store opened the platform to a horde of malware, we would be saying remember when Apple sold iPhones?
People mostly choose their plane flights based on cost, comfort, and time. Not because safety isn’t important, but because it’s assumed it’s by default excellent. Now how high a priority will safety be for travelers when the 737 Max is cleared to fly again?
I'll totally concede all of this. And it bolsters my actual point, which is that:
>>>>> Since day one security and safety have been the most important feature for iPhone, and the biggest reason consumers select it.
Is incorrect, because safety and security were not the major selling points. The person who said that is incorrect.
Nowhere am I saying that the iPhone was unsafe or insecure, but that it definitely wasn't seem as a "more secure" option and it definitely wasn't the "most important feature" and "biggest reason consumers selected it" from "day one".
This comment of your and the prior ones make it pretty obvious you understand this, so I'm not sure what you're trying to argue anymore. Are iPhones often chosen now for for safety and security? Yes, although I still wouldn't say it's the most important feature or the biggest reason people choose it. It definitely wasn't that when it first launched though.
> How many people would have stopped buying iPhone due to that epic run of malware and viruses that never happened?
I'm not saying make it super easy. I would be perfectly happy with a situation where it's hard to install a separate store (on Android to install any app not from the shipped with stores you specifically have to go to settings and enable untrusted apps. But there's a huge difference between "hard" and "legally impossible".
> Why does Apple spend so much on safety and security if it doesn’t sell iPhones?
Because it lets them completely control the platform, so they don't have to worry nearly as much about competition? The fact that Epic can't just install another store and get around Apple's 30% cut is a huge incentive to spend money on "safety and security", because the way they've chosen to achieve those goals is "we control it all, you control nothing, and we'll keep you safe". That's very convenient for them.
The net profits from that 30% is a trivial amount compared to their iPhone/iPad profits.
Yes they are worried about competition, Android. Epic isn’t competition. Without the walled garden, the iPhone loses a huge differentiator between it and Android, a and one of their developers and customers most valued features.
We would never even be at the level we're at if there weren't those malware-plagued PCs and their open marketplace of software and operating systems competing with each other.
> Previous consumer OSes had major usability and security drawbacks for the average consumer.
You mean Windows did, because A) it was the OS of the vast majority of desktop systems and B) they had a culture and practice of not taking security very seriously, or at least prioritizing so many things over it that the outcome was the same.
Apple's operating systems traditionally faced less scrutiny (but now there are more security problems since they are more popular). Windows has gotten much better and Microsoft appears to be much more serious about security (since it because a large enough problem to actually threaten their OS market dominance).
> Through no fault of their own, their computers would gradually get slower and corrupted by 3rd parties.
Not really my experience over the last 6-7 years. Prior to that, depending on OS, sure.
> This is similar to the shift to cloud computing. It’s more valuable to have a service take care of me than to have the freedom of licensed software .
To you, sure, but for the average person or company, it's variable and based on many things (capability, scale, etc).
> It’s also worth noting that software always has been considered a service in some sectors - enterprise software dating back to the 1970s for example required 21-25% of your purchase price in annual service & support fees with penalties if you terminate.
The enterprise doesn't really scale to the individual level we're talking about at all. An enterprise buying a specific computer with certain hardware with a custom OS delivered as a service is like a person buying some Tamagotchi toy and looking at it for 5 minutes a day for a week. Enterprises run anywhere from hundreds to hundreds of thousands of desktops and/or servers and any software as a service they pay for in that ecosystem is minuscule compared to the whole. Apple controls a non-negligible portion of most iPhone users compute time in one way or another (or multiple ways).