plications as well as elegantly display
digital content, including books, magazines, and video.b
iLLustration by stuart bradFord
access, control,
and the user experience
We have seen Apple rise even though
its products and services remain under
tight corporate control compared to
more “open” platforms championed
by Microsoft and Intel (the Win-Tel OS
and PC device), the Linux community
(Linux OS), Nokia and the Symbian al-
liance (mobile OS and cellphones),
and Google (Android, Chrome, and
the Open Handset Alliance for mo-
bile applications as well as the Google
OpenSocial APIs for social networking
applications). For example, Apple has
barred some applications from run-
ning on the iPhone, including Google
Voice. It does not permit its devices
to run the most common technology
for handling video on the Internet—
Adobe Flash. Legal use of the iPhone
remains limited to official Apple part-
ners such as AT&T in the U.S. Google
b This article is based on Chapter 1 of M. Cu-
sumano, Staying Power: Six Enduring Principles
for Managing Strategy and Innovation in an Un-
certain World (Oxford University Press, 2010),
30–31, 34–44.
also has criticized Apple’s programming rules for the iPhone and iPad that
prohibit application developers from
using Google’s advertising technology.c In my terminology, these kinds of
restrictions make Apple‘s platforms
neither fully open (such as Linux) nor
fully closed (such as a propriety system
owned and dominated by one company), but rather “closed, but not closed,”
or perhaps “open, but not open.” That
is, the platforms are based on proprietary technology, and Apple controls the
user experience as well as what applications or content or service contracts
can operate on its devices. At the same
time, though, Apple has been gradually
loosening up access for outside application developers and content providers, especially during 2009–2010.
In an earlier column (‘The Puzzle
of Apple,” September 2008), I admit-
ted to being frustrated by Apple’s
historical reluctance to open up the
programming interfaces to its new
products and provide easier access
to its services or to license its supe-
rior software operating system. It
pursued this “closed” approach most
c S. Morrison and I. Sherr, “Google Blasts Apple
over iPhone Ad Changes,” Wall Street Journal,
June 9, 2010; http://online.wsj.com/
famously with the Macintosh, intro-
duced in 1984, but continued this
strategy with the initial versions of
the iPod, iTunes, the iPhone, and the
App Store. Nevertheless, the Apple
ecosystems are now as vibrant as any
in high technology. Not only are there
thousands of applications and acces-
sories available for the iPod made by
a wide variety of companies. There
were also some 225,000 applications
for the iPhone as of mid-2010, many
of which work on the iPod and iPad
as well as the Macintosh. Apple also
was receiving some 15,000 submis-
sions for iPhone applications each
week in 30 languages and approving
about 95% within seven days.d By con-
trast, Google’s Android community
had only built approximately 50,000
applications as of mid-2010. To be
sure, Apple and Google both trail by
far the millions of applications built
for Microsoft Windows since the early
1990s. But most computing devices
are now mobile phones, and that is
where the action lies in software ap-
plications development.
d G. Hora, “95% iPhone Apps Approved in
7 Days,” Cooltechzone.com, June 7, 2010;
http://www.cooltechzone.com/2010/06/07/95-
iphone-apps-approved-in-7-days/
