> THE SHIFT
MATT BOLTON is worried that Apple’s stance on app store changes have meant that it’s become a follower, not a leader
Microsoft’s stance will turn its Store into the world’s foremost… no, I can’t even finish.
OVER THE TIME I’ve been following Apple, it’s always (ish) been skating to where the digital platform puck is going, even in ways that were controversial. Take its refusal to support Flash. It was a drawn–out battle of wills, but Apple not only prevailed, it was proved to have taken the more forward–thinking stance all along. In less controversial examples, it always wanted to remove DRM from the iTunes music store, and was one of the first stores to do so. It stood firm that its iTunes movies store should give free upgrades to higher qualities, which reportedly caused a rift between it and Disney — but Disney now offers its movies the way Apple wanted them. Even MobileMe was really a precursor to Google Suite and other cloud– connected ecosystems. It just didn’t work very well.