Dalton Caldwell: ‘Two Brilliant Moves That Helped Create the Apple iOS Powerhouse’

Dalton Caldwell, hailing the strategic wisdom of Apple’s 2002 decision to take the iPod (and iTunes) to Windows, and the way they segment the iPhone market with older models, rather than designing new low-end models from scratch:

Why hasn’t Dell or Samsung or HP implemented their own version of the “Moore’s law market segmentation” strategy? Nothing about this strategy would seem to require it to happen at only Apple (or is specific to mobile devices). I am sure there are a lot of reasons, and there is a very good chance I simply don’t understand the hardware supply chain complexity.

I suspect one reason no other phone maker does this is that so few high-end phones from three years ago would have any appeal today. iPhones are designed to stand the test of time.

Update: Apple shipped iOS 5.1.1 yesterday. iPhone 3GSs bought in June 2009 are eligible to upgrade to iOS 5.1.1 today. How many Android phones from 2009 are running an even vaguely up to date OS? None.

★ Monday, 7 May 2012