This morning, I have watched the WWDC Keynote Address online and one of the best part of the conference was the impressive graph showing the exponential growth of Mac OS X users.
No wonder Apple’s financial result for the second quarter this year has beaten the estimates set by analysts even when the current global recession is affecting lots of companies especially the technology industry. So how did Apple manage to win the heart of computer users? Can Apple still continue its exponential growth?
The answer is, of course, YES! Let’s find how and why.
Reason 1: Developers from over the world
All thanks to so hundreds of thousands of generous and helpful developers. Without them, the Mac World will not be a success. Every operating system must have support from application developers, and in order to achieve this, the system core, SDK or API must be useful for developers. Of course, be it the Mac OS X or iPhone OS, the SDK or API is always very simple and easy for programming. Besides that, Apple provides lots of tools for developing.
Apple encourages developers to build applications for the products and Apple Download and App Store are two typical examples. In Apple Download, every developer are able to publish their own applications for users to download and in return Apple helps the developers to promote them. In App Store, a developer can even earn some money from Apple directly, as the tech giant provides a complete solution for commercial applications. These factors encourages developers to ‘work’ for Apple to build applications as they can gained fame and make a profit by doing so.
With 1 million SDK downloads and 50,000 apps, iPhone and iPod Touch have gained a lot of market share in Mobile Phone and Media Player respectively. Their soaring popularity helps Apple significantly to promote other products, especially the Mac. User may switch to Mac because of the satisfication.
Reason 2: The most powerful core with the most user-friendly interface
Can you imagine how good is an OS with the combination of the most powerful core and the most user-friendly interface? Well, Mac OS X is surely one great example.
Mac OS X is based on UNIX (someone may say FreeBSD, also correct) and the security and powerful computing ability are undeniable. This base makes Mac OS X to become a very stable and reliable operating system just because Apple has made used of lots of Open Source technologies. Mac OS X is also pretty good at hardware compatibilities just like UNIX. The system core is definitely powerful.
On the other hand, you cannot ignore the impressive interface. Macintosh API includes a complete solution for 3D display, so it is quite easy for all developers to make applications with wonderful animations and effects. The interface is not only beautiful, but also user-friendly. Mac OS X is as simple as ABC, even kids can use it quite well, all operations under Macintosh is always like this. For beginners, Mac means easy to use; for professionals, Mac means high productivity. Apple is always working for users’ happiness and satisfication.
Reason 3: Users won’t experience difficult problems in computer systems
Apple builds both hardware and software, so if the system crashes (the probability is extremely low), the problem must be Apple’s. Users do not need to worry about problems when using, as Apple can solve all issues.
When my classmates have problems using their computers, they usually ask me for help and I have found a common denominator of these problems. That is, those who use Macintosh, they never need help from me, but those who use Windows, their problems can be solved by simply restarting or re-installing. Why Windows always have so many difficult and irritating problems?
If you have the experience in developing Windows applications, you may know that most of softwares require the changes in registry, lots of .ini files and .dlls. When the software is incompletely removed, there will be lots of waste information in registry and .ini files, and .dlls will be much more terrible as there may be arguments between different softwares which shares the same dll or API functions. However, in Macintosh, applications will only have the permission to write into itself unless you type your password for larger system softwares. They are native and green, you can simply delete the file and need not to worry much about the waste information. So lesser problems will be generated.
What’s more is that Macintosh is excellent when it comes to security. Millions of people have choosen Mac all because of the impressive security system it has. On the other hand, many users view Windows as a dangerous operating system.
Reason 4: Low Pricing
What do you think about the price of Mac? Expensive or cheap? In my own opinion, I find it very cheap. For PC, we must buy lots of softwares for work, as Windows provides nothing by default. On the other hand for Mac, everything is included when you purchase the Mac OS X. Mac + Mac OS X + iLife + iWork + Freewares are more than enough for most of users. Also, if you compare both operating systems carefully, you will find out that the hardware price is not very high now, only a little higher than PC.
Macs are worthy and valuable and the increases in productivity cannot be measured with a little money.
Conclusion
If my friend ever ask me for personal views about buying a computer, I would not hesitate to suggest him/her to purchase a Mac, not only because I am an avid Apple fan, but also, Mac is REALLY good! So I gave a positive answer to the question “Can Apple continue the exponential growth?”
There will be an increasing number of users switch from other operating systems to the user-friendly Mac OS X, and Snow Leopard may lead Apple to a faster growth. I believe Apple will dominate the market by overtaking US tech giant Microsoft probably less than a decade later.