Apple is a great company which makes great products. Even more amazing is that this company is the most valuable company in the world, yet it makes just three or four basic product lines.
Unfortunately, Apple, like Microsoft before it, is in danger of falling victim to its own greed.
Microsoft had two basic product lines that were hugely profitable - Windows and Office. Despite the fact that these product families were producing obscene profits, which were steadily growing with the market, Microsoft wasted huge amounts of money trying to get into markets where it didn't belong.
Likewise, Apple is in danger of making the same sort of mistakes. There are areas that Apple is venturing where it should not - probably because it has so much cash it doesn't know what to do with it all.
Two huge areas which spring to mind are Apple's stoushes with Adobe and Google.
When I bought my iPad 2, it was a constant source of irritation to discover that it would not play native Flash files because of issues Apple was having with Adobe.
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As far as both apps are concerned, I'm not too worried because I can either download them (YouTube) from the App Store or reinstate them from Safari (Google Maps). However, the issue goes beyond the mere inconvenience of being forced to go non-native to get my favourite mobile apps.
With the forced replacement of a mature product in Google Maps with a beta standard proprietary competitor, Apple has openly shown disdain for its user base. The vendor that prides itself on its quality products has used its vendor lock-in status to force its captive users to accept a vastly inferior product. Does that remind anyone of another dominant vendor of years gone by?
