Apple, a globally renowned tech company, is building a very strong ecosystem lock for its consumers. One thing that’s been clear about Apple’s philosophy of doing business is that it doesn’t want its customers to just keep one Apple gadget, but all of them. The company has been trying to do it in several ways for the last decade. But with the announcements in the recent WWDC 2022 (World Wide Developers Conference), it is clear that Apple’s ecosystem is going to come with a stronger lock than ever.
How is Apple Forcing Customers to Stay Within its Ecosystem?
Apple recently announced new versions of iOS, macOS, watchOS, and iPadOS. With the macOS, Apple announced a continuity feature. With this, users will be able to turn their iPhones into external webcams. Note that they can’t do this with any smartphone but iPhone. Then, Apple announced Passkeys. It is an advanced authentication system which aims to replace passwords. So, if you have Safari across devices, you don’t need to enter a password each time you are trying to access something that is protected. You can just use Passkeys to authenticate the login from any Apple device. Suppose you want to login inside the Safari on Mac; you can authenticate the process by using Touch ID or Face ID on your iPhone. Apple said, “Passkeys are a replacement for passwords that are designed to provide websites and apps a password-less sign-in experience that is both more convenient and more secure.” Passwords are prone to phishing, but Passkeys will change the game and make the experience for iOS, macOS, and iPadOS users more secure. Then, you have the iPadOS, which looks so much more like the macOS now. This is something that we will talk about some other day. But with the new macOS and iPadOS, sharing screens is going to be more fun as users can connect the two with a cable. Apple has also updated the Messages app, which will now allow users to leverage SharePlay for watching content with their loved ones and also chat in real-time. Only iPhone users can do this. This is just the top layer of things. Over the years, Apple has brilliantly executed its plans of building an ecosystem that would push a user to purchase other Apple products as well. The success of the over-expensive Apple Watch is the correct example of that.
