Apple's Historical Competitive Advantages

 Apple’s historical competitive advantages

Since its birth in 1976, Apple has remained a forerunner in innovation and technology with a temptation that enthusiasts can hardly resist. From iMacs to iPads, this 35-year-old company has repeatedly created consumer frenzies with elegant innovative products. As they ramp up the next buzz over the new iPad 3, scheduled to hit the market in early 2012, we look at the last decade to unveil the brilliance that catapulted Apple back to the forefront.

By the late 1990’s Apple’s preliminary route to progress was running out of steam. The company’s exclusive strategy to designing both hardware and software restricted it to being a niche player and hindered its capability to remain competitive. In 2001, Apple started presenting a set of thriving new items and services. The iPod, iTunes, and iPhone, powered the organization to the top of the industry. However, the shift was not only a issue of product advancement but thinking in a different way was one of the Apple's advantages. Apple’s real achievements arrived from its capability to specify a usable business model for downloading digital music. The mixture of product innovation and business model innovation put Apple at the center of the market.

Apple introduced the first Macbook Pro armed with Intel processors in 2006. This was important because Intel was developing processors far beyond its competitors, which made this product line the best in its class. The year 2007 gave birth to the transformation of the mobile electronics industry, ushered in by the iPhone and iPod Touch. The iPhone forever changed the way we use cell phones. Not only is it a phone, but it can take photos, send text messages, act as a portable media player, browse the Web, check e-mail, and more. Both devices added a multitouch user interface to the classic iPod. It also was the first of the OS devices to access the iTunes Store wirelessly. The iPod touch and and iPhone share the same hardware and run the same OS, but the iPod touch lacked the phone and built-in camera.

In 2009 Apple released the iPhone 3GS. The 3GS does everything faster the than iPhone 3G. Other upgrades include 3-megapixel built-in camera, longer battery life, Multimedia Messaging Support (MMS), cut, copy and paste functionality, and turn-by-turn GPS. Summer of 2010 witnessed the release of the iPhone 4. Apple once again delivered an attractive device that continues an impressive legacy of product innovation. Faster processing, FaceTime video calling, multitasking, high definition video capturing (720p), and editing are all noteworthy improvements separating itself from competition.

In January 2010, Apple announced the iPad, which became an instant success and created a new category of mobile computing devices. The tablet PC was released in April 2010, was a tech marvel armed with an A4 processor, 256RAM, Bluetooth, and available