It’s official, Apple is now officially the third most popular brand of mobile smartphone, with Nokia at number one and Samsung in number two. Considering Apple’s lack of experience in the communications field, and the revolutionary nature of the iPhone’s interface this is nothing short of stunning. While the rest of the industry watched with skepticism, Apple immediately dominated an industry well known not only for being lucrative but for constantly leaving users disappointed. As it turns out, what people want isn’t $2 downloadable ringtones, complicated voice and data plans or phones with hundreds of features; No, what people want from a cell phone is coincidentally, exactly what they wanted from an mp3 player that Apple was able to provide and no other company has come close to matching, even after six years of Apple’s domination of that industry.
The whole time, the halo effect has been quietly working away in the background as Mac sales have grown year after year. The idea that Apple can do a good job of a phone or mp3 player so maybe they can do the same thing with the Mac computers isn’t new, but since the inception of the iPod Apple’s Mac market share has risen from around 4% to nearly 10%, and that’s with a range of products targeted only at the high end of computing.
Expect Apple to continue to dominate all three core areas of their current expertise, at least until they become irrelevant, and when that happens you can expect that they’ll have played a part in shaping the future of those areas.