Microsoft’s investment in Apple was helpful for the world.

As an Apple user (and even an Apple investor), I'd rather that Apple went out of business back then. If we could re-roll the invention of the (mainstream) smartphone, maybe we'd get something other than two monopolistic companies controlling everything.

For instance, maybe if there were 4 strong vendors making the devices with diverse operating systems, native apps wouldn't have ever become important, and the Web platform would have gotten better sooner to fill that gap.

Or maybe it'd have ended up the same or worse. But I just don't think Apple being this dominant has been good for the world.

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tracker1 6 days ago | parent | next [-]

Or... we could still be using blackberry-like devices without much in the way of active/touch interface development at all. Or worse, the Windows CE or Palm with the pen things.

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magarnicle 6 days ago | parent | next [-]

Nah, the LG Prada phone would have taken over the world.

	▲	slater 6 days ago \| parent [-]
		I think you mean the Vertu! edit: god they're still around https://vertu.com/

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rhetocj23 6 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Lol exactly. That poster should quickly realise hes got it pretty good given the alternatives.

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xp84 5 days ago | parent [-]

Why? Was Steve Jobs literally the only human who was capable of seeing the massive unserved demand that existed back then?

Sidekick was amazing for its time, but only on one also-ran carrier. BlackBerry had great features like BBM (essentially iMessage) but underpowered for multimedia and more difficult to learn. If Apple was out of business, one or more companies would have made the billions on MP3 players that iPod made, and any of them could have branched into phones and made a splash the same way. Perhaps Sony, perhaps Microsoft. Microsoft eventually figured it out -- the only reason they failed was that they waited for both Apple and Android to become entrenched so in this timeline they could have been the second-mover, but unlike with Apple and Android, maybe neither MS nor Google would have automatically owned the US marketshare the way Apple does[1]. If that were the case, we may have competition, instead of the unhealthy thing we have where Apple just does whatever they want.

[1] https://gs.statcounter.com/vendor-market-share/mobile/united...

	▲	rhetocj23 5 days ago \| parent [-]
		With all due respect theres a simple answer to why Apple was destined to win the smartphone race - they had a 5 year lead over everyone else because they had the OS and touch interface tightly integrated. On top of that they managed to scale up the production of the glass necessary for the touch to work and partnered with a network provider to overcome the control network providers had over handset producers. They had such a lead that nobody was going to catch up and eat into their economic profits. Sure Samsung et al have captured marketshare, but not eaten into Apples economic profits. Whether you like it or not, this hard work, effort and creativity deserves to be rewarded - in the form of monopoly/oligopoly profits. Apple has shown itself to be very disciplined with its cash. That cannot be said of for Google, who instead of taking an endless stream of vanity projects, should return that cash back to shareholders.

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Lorin 6 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I still miss my KeyOne keyboard.

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ahartmetz 6 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

BB10 was the shit. Fantastic OS and (some models) a great hardware keyboard. But it was already a response to the iPhone, wouldn't have happened without...

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mrheosuper 6 days ago | parent | prev [-]

with focus on privacy and security? Sign me up.

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mensetmanusman 6 days ago | parent | prev [-]

Nope, we know exactly where it was headed. Phones controlled by carriers full of NFL ads.

	▲	xp84 5 days ago \| parent [-]
		There's nothing supernatural about Apple that meant only they could do something better than that shitty generation of devices. Remember, the portable consumer electronics market would certainly have other huge players if Apple hadn't existed to make the iPod. BlackBerry, Microsoft, and Sony come to mind. iPhone, based mainly on Apple's popularity from the iPod era, got a huge jump from that, and then the rush for native apps, which encourages consolidation, smothered every other company's competing devices (such as WebOS, BlackBerry 10, Windows Mobile) before they had a chance to compete. To be honest, Android may have met a similar fate if Apple had been able to negotiate a non-exclusive contract with Cingular/AT&T. My understanding though was that they had to give exclusivity as a bargaining chip to get all the then-unthinkable concessions, as yeah, every phone was full of garbage bloatware and festooned with logos.