Apple Has No Competition
I might as well get this out of the way early. I've been accused of being technologically illiterate and mentally ill. There's nowhere down to go from there.
Apple has no competition. None. Zero. There is no other company that plays the same game as Apple.
Apple creates computers, phones, tablets, music players, operating systems, television set-top boxes, lifestyle and productivity software, professional media software and wireless routers. They also sell movies and music and they have an app store that so far hasn't been challenged.
Name all the other companies that do all that, and you have the list of Apple's competitors.
Every tech company is named at one time or another as a competitor of Apple's. Not true.
Nokia, HTC, LG, Samsung, et.al. produce what might be competitors for the iPhone hardware, but they depend on someone else for the software.They don't compete with the iPhone if you consider the integral hardware and software combination to be the widget.
How about Microsoft? They make operating systems for computers and phones and they produce Office and some other software similar to Apple's. They don't build computers or phones or tablets. Their only attempt at hardware that competed with Apple was the Zune. Remember the Zune? Me either. Microsoft is not a competitor with Apple.
Dell, Sony, Samsung, Acer and other computer makers? Nope. Hardware only. They are dependent on Microsoft for an operating system. They compete with each other on price and the shape of the box. Except for price and brand cachet, these computers don't differentiate from each other much more than brands of potting soil. These companies have no control over the user experience.
One exception is Hewlett-Packard. They have now started making WebOS an optional operating system in their computers and tablets, with Windows also available. Still, that leaves a lot of stuff Apple is doing that they're not. They're at least in the same game for tablets and computers, but not the rest of it.
Android? No. Android isn't even a single operating system. It's a multitude of operating system versions on multiple devices. No one is responsible for ensuring that your device is running, or even can run, the current version. Android apps are not even guaranteed to run on the version of Android your Android device runs. And that's on a brandy-spanking-new Android device right out of the box. An Android device from last year is pretty certainly incompatible with current versions of the OS.
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