Apple is generally considered one of the more progressive companies when it comes to design, and their popularity with the consumers is undeniable. It’s easy to see them as just a product distributor focused on selling as many iPods, iPads, iPhones, and Macs as possible but the more one thinks about it, the more one realizes that all those products are just a means to an end. That end is to create a secure and established user base for something much more encompassing… entertainment/information distribution.
It’s elegant… iTunes locks you in, (particularly if you’ve paid and invested quite a bit of money into apps for your iPhone and iPad) and you’re now somewhat deterred from moving to a droid phone, or a Blackberry, simply because you’re invested in their software. As iTunes evolves, not only is it music, but now music videos, tv shows, movies, etc… Apple’s end game wasn’t making cool iPods and making money off that (although it isn’t something to be scoffed at, with their recent earnings report), but their end game was to create a loyal distribution network so that they can charge you money to get entertainment.
Sony has had similar visions of unifying entertainment across the board with their laptop, tv, PS3 but haven’t found the success as Apple has. It doesn’t hurt of course that their products are well designed and very cool to use, but in the end, it’s my (not sure how groundbreaking or even new my thought is) theory that really their bread & butter is going to be in distributing entertainment to those handheld devices that we love so dearly.
