This is called market segmentation, it’s one of the hardest things to get right in a business, and I think Apple have done a pretty good job of it. Every decision in a business has an opportunity cost, you can’t make products that will meet the needs of everybody in a market, and you can’t try to sell products to everybody in a market. It’s hard because segmenting your market is essentially deciding that you don’t want to sell to some customers, but it’s more important to look at what each customer is worth rather than how many you can get in total.
I guess apple is totally okay with being a minority of the market then since they're doubling down on proprietary sensors and apps that only work in their own ecosystem.
they can ignore the 85% if they want. The 85% of the market will ignore them back in turn.
They "double-downed" on that decision ten years ago, and now they are the most profitable company in the world. I think it's safe to say whatever bet they made paid off handsomely.
If you look at the success of apple - they do one thing really really well; make products for people with money to spend. Apple doesnt care about anything other than customers who can afford to pay, and are willing to pay, for their products.
Apple makes good products, but they arent without frustrations or limitations, and you'd better accept these if you want what you do get from apple products.
You know that the engineering will be in the top ~90%, for example. What is the 10% or so that apple fails on WRT to engineering; accessories, flexibility/upgradability, vendor-lock-in on software. All of which simply lead you to spend more money on supporting having apple products.
Accessories: How much money have you spent on chargers, cables, headphones, cases, screen-protectors, screen repairs?
Flexibility/upgradability: Want more storage/ram? Buy the next model - no upgrades.
Software: Fewer OSS options for software/apps.
There are certain things I like about apple, and certain things I hate. But the primary thing I hate is that you cant do much without paying a premium...
it's paid off handsomely and cut off apples prospects of expanding beyond the 15% market share they currently enjoy. sure owning 15% of the global smartphone market makes them money but androids 85% share ensures googles dominance in the sector unless apple lowers some of its hardware walls and turns them into bridges.
A company that trades like a railroad company shouldn't be gloating about how little of the market share they want. there is no room for apple to expand with their rich people first strategy. Eventually you run out of new rich people to sell your products to.
Apples investors do not expect them to grow much more unlike Google or Facebook which both act as monopolies in both the smartphone and online markets. I'm sure apple knows what it wants but it sure doesn't show any abition to take over the world with their products.
