Photo by Medhat Dawoud on Unsplash

After reading the title of this post, you might feel a sense of agreeance or a sense of complete and utter rage. In this rage you start to type:

"Apple is a mockery to computing! Their technology is rahh, rahh, rahh!"But let me stop you there.

This article isn't necessarily intended to outright say why Apple is better than its competitors, but rather why Apple stands out so much in their market. If I were to tell some folks that Apple is better than Android or Apple is better than Dell we'd probably be arguing for hours.

For the sake of productivity, let's talk about what Apple does right for their market, andconsequentially, why this makes them stand out as a company.

Features making Apple devices stand out:
  • User Friendliness
  • Sleek Design
  • Continuity
  • Developer Preference
  • Security
1. They're King When It Comes to Being User-Friendly:

Plain and simple, whether you're using the operating systems iOS or OSX, it's very easy to navigate and learn. Apple prides themselves on slightly limiting overall customizability to make things more streamlined and easier to understand. In fact, it's so easy my grandparents of 70-80 years old picked up and learned the basic functionality of their iPhone 7 within a month (with some help of course).

No matter what the user's educational background is, Apple has created a straightforward interface that just about anybody can figure out. Windows users will argue that the customizability their devices have isn't there, but Apple doesn't want that. Because Apple stood their ground on simplicity, they've no doubt increased their sales to both the younger and older markets.

2. They Know how to Design a Sleek Product:

Say what you will about Apple's interface, but you can't deny that their products are beautiful. When Steve Jobs announced the first iPhone back in 2007 the cellphone game had completely changed. From the very start, Apple made it a point to have a clean and modern design.

It's not just their phones either, their MacBook lineup completely revolutionized the way laptops look and feel. If you've ever had the chance to type on a MacBook or click around on their trackpad then you know what a quality laptop should feel like. I remember my first ever laptop, it was a Dell Inspiron that I got to help me get through high school and it was nowhere near the quality that my MacBook Pro offers. It felt cheap, slow, and unnecessarily heavy!

Now, the only downside to a pretty device is its lack of protection.A caseless iPhone sure is a beautiful thing, but when you drop it that beauty can transform into broken very quickly.

3. One Word: Continuity:

As a social media influencer, I love my Apple products. I can edit videos and photos on my MacBook and airdrop (a way of sending files instantly using Bluetooth technology) them to my phone instantaneously. This makes posting content to my Instagram and Snapchat a very thoughtless and efficient process.

Although that isn't the only way airdrop has proven itself useful; teachers in schools that utilize MacBooks can have their students simply airdrop written assignments when they're finished. On the other hand, teachers can airdrop new assignments to their students at any given time during class.

Apple's continuity has also proven itself useful via their applications such as iMessage or iCloud. With iMessage, when my phone receives a text, it also goes to my laptop. I find this convenient as replying with a physical keyboard can be much more efficient for those occasional long texts.

If you're unfamiliar with iCloud, basically it is Apple's version of a cloud data storage. For only $0.99 cents per month, users can enable the iCloud functionality for 50GB of virtual storage. This is a breath of fresh air after vacations when all the photos I took on my phone are automatically backed up to my laptop for future editing or viewing purposes. These are, of course, only a fraction of all the ways Apple has made their devices interconnected.

4. Mobile Developers Prefer Apple:

This one might not make a lot of sense to some if it's your first-time hearing about it, but it's very true. One of the most prominent instances of mobile developer preference to Apple comes via the popular app Snapchat.

Many iPhone users will complain that Snapchat pictures sent from an Android are ugly and pixelated. The reason behind this is somewhat complicated, but I'll try to make it easy to understand. At first, Snapchat was developed for the iPhone and its internal artificial intelligence/software surrounding the camera's capability. Whether or not users have an iPhone 7, 8, or X, this technology has remained very similar… so Snapchat can count on it. The Android marketplace is filled with a variety of different hardware options such as the Pixel, Samsung Galaxy, or 1+ lineups.

Because each of these phones utilize different software options to help the camera take better pictures, it is not cost-efficient for Snapchat to try and work around each option. Instead, Snapchat on Android simply utilizes the camera itself and none of the backend filtration/correction software.

This isn't true for every Android; Snapchat has gotten better about being more inclusive for some Android manufacturers.

5. Apple Believes that Security Matters:

When it comes to the safety of your virtual data, you can count on Apple's encryption and belief-set to keep your data secure. Very rarely do you hear about an Apple product getting hacked or obtaining a virus. This is because the operating system Macintosh was built on Unix, a very old and very tightened-up (in terms of security) platform. Infecting an Apple product with a virus is both difficult and inefficient for virus-makers when compared to the vulnerability of a Windows machine.

Apple also proved their belief in security when they were faced with a request to access a locked device by the FBI. The FBI had obtained a cellular device from the San Bernardino shooter back in 2016 and the device was secured with a passcode. The FBI took the device to Apple and demanded that they unlock it to assist in their investigation regarding the attack. Apple declined to assist the FBI because they believed it would be an invasion of privacy and that it would set a negative precedent regarding the safety of their consumer's data.

 Regardless of where you stood on the issue, it took a lot of courage for Apple to stand up to the government on such a case.

No matter how you choose to view Apple, they've given several reasons for people to, at the very least, respect them. Hopefully, this list helped to make some of those reasons just a little bit clearer.

"Design is not just what it looks like and feels like. Design is how it works."

–Steve Jobs (1955-2011)

On September 10, 2019 / Uncategorized