> Porting Apple Music to Android was a step in the right direction but they have a long way to go in the new world where services are more important than devices.
Are they though? There's still a huge amount of people buying phones and computers, which cost a lot of money, periodically. There's paid services, sure, like Apple Music, which might become self-sustaining businesses, but a lot of these other "services" by the big tech companies are operated at a loss, like email, maps, cloud-storage, messaging, vide-calling, AI assistants, etc.
The only reason to make free services like all those at a loss is to bring value to a platform so users will stick to it, and Apple keeping its services platform-specific makes its platform even more sticky. Apple benefits from this directly, because it makes money selling its platform. To use iOS you need a device from which Apple makes loads of cash.
Google on the other hand is still essentially just an ads company with hobbies, and its profit from the platform its building is much less murky, indirect, and IMHO flimsy. The only way their platform brings them substantial profits is by collecting data to better target ads, which is concerning too.
The lifetime of devices is growing, so in the long term we have to see if Apple can keep selling as many devices as it does; their main source of income is not entirely future-proof. If you ask me, however, Google might be in a more delicate position, especially considering the growing issues with internet ads (concerning privacy, tracking, obnoxiousness etc) and that so many players are in the ads business nowadays. Some, like Facebook, are moving in deep-- challenging Google in user data analytics and engagement time.
tl;dr: Only some services (like Music) make money. All the rest are more valuable if they serve your core business, and Apple is very much doing that.
Are they though? There's still a huge amount of people buying phones and computers, which cost a lot of money, periodically. There's paid services, sure, like Apple Music, which might become self-sustaining businesses, but a lot of these other "services" by the big tech companies are operated at a loss, like email, maps, cloud-storage, messaging, vide-calling, AI assistants, etc.
The only reason to make free services like all those at a loss is to bring value to a platform so users will stick to it, and Apple keeping its services platform-specific makes its platform even more sticky. Apple benefits from this directly, because it makes money selling its platform. To use iOS you need a device from which Apple makes loads of cash.
Google on the other hand is still essentially just an ads company with hobbies, and its profit from the platform its building is much less murky, indirect, and IMHO flimsy. The only way their platform brings them substantial profits is by collecting data to better target ads, which is concerning too.
The lifetime of devices is growing, so in the long term we have to see if Apple can keep selling as many devices as it does; their main source of income is not entirely future-proof. If you ask me, however, Google might be in a more delicate position, especially considering the growing issues with internet ads (concerning privacy, tracking, obnoxiousness etc) and that so many players are in the ads business nowadays. Some, like Facebook, are moving in deep-- challenging Google in user data analytics and engagement time.
tl;dr: Only some services (like Music) make money. All the rest are more valuable if they serve your core business, and Apple is very much doing that.