With Apple’s main developer event coming Monday, I wanted to share some thoughts on why I think this year will be significant for Apple and developers.
There is a point about Apple’s hardware and software platforms that I think gets overlooked. There is no single company with as significant market share in many personal computing categories as Apple. You will not find a single company who has meaningful market share in PCs, smartphones, tablets, and wearables other than Apple. Other companies have meaningful market share in or two, but none have as much device reach as Apple across different categories.
This is relevant because developers play a key role in the secret sauce of Apple’s success. Apps make platforms more compelling, and app innovation is important to keep platforms from going stale. This is where my point of Apple’s hardware reach across categories becomes relevant. Apple has always talked about their different platforms. Mac is its own platform, Watch is its own platform, iPad is its own platform, and iPhone is its own platform. What has intrigued me about Marzipan, and the development tools that will accompany it is how it has the potential for Apple to create THE platform.
Marzipan’s progress will be the thing I’m watching most to see how far it has come and what apps Apple uses as examples along with what tools are highlighted for developers. The current apps Apple has on macOS like Stocks and News have become some of my most used daily apps on macOS. This gives me hope that as developers can move their iOS apps to Mac that it will ignite a new fire of software development for the Mac platform.
The reality, however, is that other than the iPhone, unique app development at scale has not happened for Apple’s platforms. You can argue there is a critical mass of iPad apps that are designed for iPad, and that is true to a degree, but nothing is like the scale of iOS. Similarly, there is very little third-party app push or innovation on Apple Watch. Despite a rather sizable installed base for Watch. Every time we survey and talk to Watch owners, it becomes clear there is not a lot of interest in third-party apps yet, and most people only use Apple’s first-party apps. I still believe Apple Watch remains an exciting platform for developers, but we have not even scratched the surface there.
Marzipan, and the tools Apple gives to developers to unify the platform have the potential to bring more developers (easily) to some of these underserved other Apple hardware like macOS and Watch but it will also help iPad and possibly even AppleTV. While it is important to note macOS has not been totally void of software development the reality is macOS development is still a niche for third parties, and if Apple can get thousands of new developers and apps to macOS it will be a significant boon for the platform.
Marzipan and the unification of the platform has the potential, for the first time, for us to see a company truly create one unified platform across hardware categories. Given the reach of Apple’s hardware I mentioned, this is one of those only Apple situations Tim Cook likes to mention. I’m optimistic.
Can Siri Move Forward?
While Marzipan and its progress seem a given, the area that is a big question for me is Siri and at large Apple’s broader machine learning efforts across their categories of hardware and software. With Apple’s hire of Google’s AI chief John Giannandrea, I hope we see some progress and improvement as it relates to Siri as a platform and how Apple’s devices and the platform is getting smarter and more personal overall for customers.
I’ve long said Apple has architected machine learning into its core iOS so that iOS adapts to its owner and becomes even more personal as an experience over time. Google does this as well, and as far as both platforms are concerned, the device starting to become more helpful and more personal is the battle we are watching play out. Google is marketing its Pixel phones as a more helpful smartphone, and Apple has an opportunity to make progress in this area and create an even deeper value for its customers.
Here again, I think Apple device reach across categories is relevant. Google cannot claim significant market share in PCs (yet), tablets, or wearables but only in smartphones. Which means Google can market a more helpful smartphone but not necessarily a more helpful platform. This is where I think Apple has the most potential to be unique and create more compelling experiences for their users.
While Siri may never be better than Google Assistant, Google Assistant may never have the reach of Siri or Apple’s platforms across devices. So while Google can market the more helpful phone, Apple has the potential to market the more helpful platform.
Again, for Apple, the inflection point from the past 10 years to the next 10 years could be the unification of the platform. If they can execute on this, they remain well positioned for the future.
