I AM NOT THE first person to complain about the permanence of Apple?s preloaded apps. I am in no way the most qualified to complain about Apple Music. I would, though, like a chance to join this chorus?because I want to make Music go away. And frankly, it?s in Apple?s best interest to let me.
You might remember a similar wave of complaints after iPhone owners woke up to find a meaty iOS update had landed a Watch app on their phones, regardless of whether they owned or wanted to own or had even heard of Apple?s shiny new $350-$17,000 accessory. Smart and observant writer folk rightly called out Apple?s ?junk drawer? problem, their increasingly overstuffed iPhone folders labeled ?Apple Crap.?
It was bad then. It?s worse now. In fact, it?s gotten to the point that it?s not just frustrating for consumers. It might end up hurting Apple.
Software, Hard Times
Let?s think about this from Apple?s perspective for a minute. It?s not hard to imagine why it might want to highlight its own wares, in the same way you don?t wonder why Legoland doesn?t feature a ?World o? K?Nex? installation. It?s just good business.
?Music, Photos, anything that ties into the cloud, all of these things are ecosystem plays,? explains Forrester mobile analyst Michael Facemire. ?We?ve seen that just having a good device isn?t good enough in mobile? For Apple to maintain its stranglehold on the markets it enjoys, the higher-end markets, it needs to make sure it has that complete ecosystem buy-in.?
It?s true that Apple has the strongest (though not the largest, thanks to legions of perfectly decent, inexpensive Android device) smartphone and tablet ecosystem in the world. Getting iPhone owners to use Music instead of Spotify, or Apple Maps instead of Google Maps, is a hypothetically terrific way to ensure that dominance continues.
In practice, though, spotlighting your own apps only works as well as the apps themselves do. Apple Maps, which arrived on millions of iPhones in 2012, was so outrageously bad that Apple CEO Tim Cook penned a public apology (since deleted from Apple?s web site) that included the unthinkable act of suggesting iOS users rely on a competitor instead:
?While we?re improving Maps, you can try alternatives by downloading map apps from the App Store like Bing, MapQuest and Waze, or use Google or Nokia maps by going to their websites and creating an icon on your home screen to their Web app.?
Eep. And yet! Apple Maps, junked up as it was, remained on iPhones through the (lengthy) renovation process, an unmoving mistake.
Read more at?WIRED
