This day and age specs and features aren’t everything a phone has. When you buy a phone you are essentially tying yourself down to a particular ecosystem and this is exactly what companies want to sell.
“Can I get an ecosystem please?”
“Right away sir, would you like a phone with it?”
A little personal experience to put things in perspective…
Back in 2006 I got my first actual personal gadget – a 30GB iPod. Opening the box was a treat. I didn’t know anything about the clickwheel back then so I frantically kept pressing all the buttons. I later figured it out thanks to the Quick Start Guide. Four years, 1000 songs and 90 videos later I am neck-deep in Apple’s ecosystem.I didn’t mind, iTunes was great for managing music and though it was pointless when I had 10 songs, it became my lifeline when I crossed 100. At this point of time I got my iPhone 3GS. Since I had already setup iTunes, getting my iPhone up to speed was a breeze. Today I manage my music, songs, video, apps, podcasts, books and photos all through iTunes since both of my precious(sss)’ are Apple products. Quite recently, Apple blessed India by expanding it’s Music and Movie store into the country. One couldn’t resist buying a ton of tracks.
Did Apple succeed in tying me down to their service? Hell yeah. Here’s some of the many things I’ll have to do in case I buy an Android phone in the near future…
- Transfer all my contacts.
- Transfer all my calendar events.
- Setup a new device. In case of an iPhone my preferences are backed up so I don’t have to bother.
- Transfer/setup other auxiliary items such as notes, alarms, reminders.
- This is a big one, transfer my entire library, 7GB of it!
- Transfer all my photos and videos. Massive data.
Inconvenient right? But here’s a list of items/data I’ll lose during the migration…
- ALL OF MY HISTORY. Browsing history, call history, SMS history, chat history (WhatsApp), etc.
- App purchases. All the money spent on apps goes down the drain.
- In-app data. Notes made on Clear, high-score set on Temple Run, friends beaten on Game Centre.
- Small data points such as play counts in iTunes, Groups joined in WhatsApp and a hundred others.
Migrating from one ecosystem to another is inherently difficult and prohibitive. Mission accomplished. Users will need huge motivation to migrate from one platform to another. I’ve often considered migrating to Android but all this ‘transfer’ business puts me off.
And companies love this. Once you’re a part of their world you find it extremely hard to leave. For instance, back at WWDC 2010; the unveiling of the iPhone 4, Steve Jobs promised to make FaceTime video calls an open source industry standard. What happened? Technical glitch?
Apple simply realised what a competitive advantage they had with FaceTime and chose to keep this edge to themselves.
Would you buy an iPhone just because of FaceTime? Probably not. But once you’ve owned an iPhone and used FaceTime for over 2 years would you stick to the iOS ecosystem? Most likely yes.
And bam! They got you. Ecosystems do not cooperate and exchange data with each other, they are created with the purpose of tying you in. Sure, there are apps and services that help migration that do that but it won’t be as simple as just signing into iCloud and getting all you data and preferences in a jiffy.
So remember, if you’re buying a smartphone put a lot of thought into the ecosystem you’re getting into. Chances are that you might have to stick to the ecosystem for a long long time.