Why Apple’s proprietary system and small market share are a good thing

Many would gaff at such a claim, as the fact that OS X cannot be installed on any generic box is a deal breaker for some. Looking beyond that limitation, Apple has succeeded in areas others would dare not venture to. Their proprietary system has only helped Apple access these areas, but at some cost to the consumer.

Since the return of Steve Jobs, Apple’s market share has increased tremendously. However, Apple still commands about 5 percent of the U.S. computer market share and about 2 percent worldwide. For the competition, Apple was no big threat, but their small piece of the market provided one thing every company wanted: a massive testing platform. Apple’s small slice provided just that, allowing them to introduce new products to a wide but limited audience, providing real world results and further optimizing future products.

One of Apple’s biggest hits, the iPod, not only took tremendous planning and execution but required the music industry’s approval. Piracy was a definite concern with record labels, as they had no intentions of promoting a player encouraging piracy, especially after the recent defeat of Napster in court.  Apple and the labels came to agreements on which platforms the iPod would be available for at launch. From its introduction in October 2001 and until 2 years later, the iPod was only supported for the Mac platform, including OS9 (support was stopped in version 3 of iTunes) and OS X. Going Mac-only for the launch of the iPod was due to the need for a testing platform that would provide real world results and evaluate the potential of the player. The small market share of the Mac not only provided the perfect testing platform needed for Apple and the record labels, but gave them a chance to showcase that piracy was a non-issue at the time, further increasing support for the yet-to-be-launched iTunes Music Store. Then in 2003, two years after Apple introduced the iPod, Windows was supported under iTunes along with the new iTunes Music Store. The iPod was now available to a much larger audience, which would not only revolutionize how you listened to music, but also how you purchased it. Had OS X and OS 9 not had such a small market share, selling the iPod and convincing record labels that the iTunes Music Store would not promote piracy would have been a much harder task to accomplish, or may not have happened at all.

The word proprietary is often associated with restriction, incompatibility, and unsupported. In the short run proprietary systems mainly benefit companies without offering much to the consumer. However, looking into the long run, Apple’s use of proprietary systems has offered a lot more than consumers realize. Apple’s two poster children for proprietary systems are Mac OS X and the iPod. Looking into these systems has not only created revolutions and evolutions, but has proven that proprietary systems can offer a lot for consumers, more than they think.

It’s well known that in order to run Mac OS X legally it must be done so on a Macintosh. Although versions have been hacked to run on generic PCs, it’s an option most consumers wish to avoid. Even with hacked versions of Mac OS X, most hardware configurations are not supported, often times crashing, and updates are few and far between. Many have criticized Apple because Mac OS X will only run on a Macintosh with most Macs supposedly out of their price range (although whether a Mac is more expensive than a PC could be debunked). And one could argue that quality does not come cheap. With OS X running only on the Mac platform, Apple has unique advantages over other manufacturers, including Microsoft. What others lack, Apple more than makes up for, especially in the communication department. Computers can be customized thousands of ways with each company going at its own pace, oftentimes surpassing the competition, but this in turn brings the quality down because software designed for other machines is not optimized for newer models. The introduction of Windows XP Media Center Edition, 64 Bit Edition, and Pen/Tablet Edition have shown how uncoordinated the PC industry is. As each new major feature manifested itself into consumer PCs, a new version of Windows was needed to take full advantage of these new additions. However, Apple is in control of their hardware and can tailor OS X for full optimization on each machine. While Microsoft creates new editions of Windows, Apple waits to incorporate all of these new features into OS X, creating a true multi-capable Operating System. Apple also has the opportunity to create simple and seamless transitions no other company would consider. The move to Intel chips from the PowerPC architecture was in the works ever since early versions of OS X. The only reason Apple could pull it off is their control of what hardware is used. If Microsoft were to support a new architecture and eventually phase out support for AMD and Intel chips it would require approval of each PC manufacturer and coordination, which they lack.

Apple has not been known for making new things no one has ever done before. Apple is known for taking an existing product and improving on it in such a way that new concepts and markets spawn from the introduction of a new product.