The Apple Ecosystem explained

How Apple manages to sell more phones every single year

Let me begin this article by throwing some numbers and stats. This helps in setting the tone and giving the reader some perspective.

Source: Statista

Well, the above infographic says it all.

Apple achieved those numbers despite a global pandemic, impending production delays, and not to mention, supply chain bottlenecks.

So, even before I get to the part where I explain how Apple manages to sell more of its products and services year on year, here is a slightly more significant question that I would like to ask

Why do people keep buying Apple products in spite of they being so expensive?

The answer is quite simple. The one big reason people buy Apple products is because of its ecosystem.

The Apple Ecosystem.

So, let’s get to the key topic or question now. Scroll down.

What’s the Apple Ecosystem

As per Google, the technical definition of an ecosystem reads :

An ecosystem is defined as being a biological community of different organisms that interact with each other and the physical environment in which they live.

The Apple ecosystem may be argued as one of the best, and here I am going to discuss what this ecosystem is and why you are probably trapped in it.

The Apple ecosystem is the different products and services that we all interact with within our daily lives. A sample image is shown below. It’s suggestive but not exhaustive.

The thing about Apple products and services is that they work with all of their other products. They are so simple to use and are seamless. The user experience is undeniably top-notch.

One thing Apple does really well that other companies have been unsuccessful at is building an ecosystem that traps you in and forces you to stay within it.

The tech industry often refers to Apple’s ecosystem of devices as a “walled garden”.

So, for most people, it all begins with an iPhone.

iPhone is the largest and most successful selling product in entire Apple line up.

Then they slowly suck you into a world of more and more Apple products and even before you know it, you are hooked because everything just works so well, you don’t want to go back to the way things were.

As they say, the trick lies in the subtle things.

So, here are some of the coolest things that you can do in the Apple Ecosystem only :

1. Copy a word from iPhone and paste it on Mac
2. Starting a message on a Mac and continuing on an iPad using the Handoff feature
3. Apple Pay seamlessly working on your watch, phone or Mac
4. A single Apple ID acting as an identifier for all your Apple devices
5. Easily share iCloud storage, Apple Music, and your purchases across the family
6. Inserting a photo/scan in a document directly from the iPhone Camera
7. Getting a phone call on iPhone and just asking HomePod to answer it without touching your phone
8. Integrated way to track, erase or ping all my devices
9. Easy discovery of devices and transfer of large files using Airdrop
10. Handover music you were playing on iPhone to HomePod by bringing them close
11. See my screen-time consolidated across all my devices
12. AirPods syncing across all iPhones, Macs, TV, iPad only from pairing once
13. Photos intelligently creating videos and memories, available across all devices but locally processed
14. Safari suggesting and syncing passwords across all devices
15. Privacy of your data across the devices

I can go on and on but I just want to reiterate how certain things are only possible within the Apple Ecosystem and once you are addicted to it, there is no going back.

Also, the updates and upgrades are so timely that make it possible for you to keep using their services and getting the best out of your device years after it was released.

These are some of the things which when combined with the impeccable user experience and tight coupling of hardware and software that Apple provides consistently, keeps the user hooked to the Apple Ecosystem.

So, with each passing year and post every upgrade, Apple ensures it pushes its own limits and builds the garden walls even higher, thereby making it even tougher for the user to escape.

Final thoughts

I myself have been a part of this Ecosystem since the iPhone 3GS days, and I never got out of it.

Partly because I’m a fanboy and the fact that Apple did not fall short of my expectations as far as the seamless user experience and timely updates are concerned. Even till today.

So, this was my Apple Ecosystem story.

Tell me what yours? What kept you hooked to the Apple Ecosystem?

Please do let me know in the comments. If you want to refer to my previous blog, here is the link below.

Until next time, peace!

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