Apple's China Problem Redux

15 Jan 2019 • daringfireball.net

Apple does make great hardware — hardware so good that to some extent it sells itself. But the core of Apple’s platforms are the OS’s — the software, not the hardware. I’d much rather run MacOS on a ThinkPad and iOS on a Pixel phone than run Windows on a MacBook Pro and Android on an iPhone XS.

So true. A ThinkPad running official and supported OS X would be quite something.

If the appeal of iPhone in China is only or even just mostly about the hardware — because the software that matters is WeChat (or anything else that is cross-platform), not iOS and its native exclusive ecosystem — then China is never going to be a consistent market for Apple.

Sad, but I think this might be true. Going to be tougher for Apple in China than other places.