What a melodramatic overreaction.<p>Let's not forget that <i>this is not the first time</i>. Hmm, iPhone 4S - seems to remind me of something. <i>Oh right</i>, the iPhone 3GS. Let's see - faster hardware overall, same industrial design, few new hardware features, uses more software features as the selling point... and both products end with an "S".<p>Yeah, okay, easy parallels there.<p>And yet, Apple didn't move away from being a hardware company, nor did they dive headfirst into being a software-heavy company <i>then</i>, so why on Earth would you think that'd happen now?<p>This entire article is only believable, and the authors fears are only relevant if you know <i>nothing</i> about Apple's recent history.
I think this article an example of how market analysts (stephen wunker?) don't seem to understand Apple. If Apple adopted every new strategy that made market sense to people like the author of that article, we would be talking about IBM or Microsoft and not Apple.<p>> or does it let others make cheaper devices and enable access to its services from any suitably powerful phone<p>I predict that this is just not going to happen anytime soon.
Apple won't license software to third party interfaces and sacrifice design to expand market share. That's kind of their thing. Their brand. Their image. That's everything.<p>But as far as software updates go, why am I still not offered a built-in GPS app?! This is a HUGE core functionality gap. Google doesn't want to share and is keeping their GPS for Android, and Apple won't abandon Google maps (understandably). There needs to be a middle ground because AT&T's GPS app sucks compared to Android or a fantasy Apple GPS.