Apple has had a remarkable run in the last decade. The iPhone turned out to be one of the most influential consumer products of all time, and Apple followed it up with the iPad, cementing its position as the world’s most valuable tech company. But it wasn’t always this way. In fact, just a few years ago, Apple was struggling to find its place in the post-PC world.
The story of how Apple turned things around is a fascinating one, and it provides some important lessons for any company that wants to maintain a leadership position in today’s rapidly changing marketplace.
It all started with a shift in strategy.
Apple has always been a company that prided itself on making great products. But in the early 2000s, it became clear that the company was losing its way. The iPod was a huge success, but it wasn’t enough to offset declining sales of Apple’s other products. And while the iPhone was still years away from launch, it was clear that the mobile market was going to be important.So Apple decided to make a big bet on mobile. It acquired a small company called NeXT, which brought Steve Jobs back to Apple, and it began work on the iPhone.
The iPhone was a radical departure from anything else on the market at the time, and it took a lot of risks. But it paid off, and the iPhone became a huge success. But the real key to Apple’s success in mobile was its Maps app. When the iPhone first launched, it used Google Maps as its default mapping solution. But that all changed in 2012, when Apple decided to launch its own.
how did apple trump google to become the dominant mapping platform on ios?
There are a few key reasons.First, Apple made a big investment in building its own mapping data. It acquired companies like Placebase and Poly9, and it built a team of mapping experts. This allowed Apple to create a mapping solution that was more comprehensive than anything else on the market. Second, Apple integrated its Maps app into the core iOS experience. It made it the default option for directions and search, and it gave users easy access to features like turn-by-turn navigation. This made it much more likely that people would use Apple Maps, even if they weren’t particularly happy with it.
Third, Apple invested heavily in marketing its Maps app. It ran a series of ads highlighting the app’s features, and it worked with developers to create apps that integrated with Maps. This created a virtuous circle, where more people used Apple Maps, which made it more attractive to developers, which led to even more users.