Quick Takes: Apple's Ecosystem Explained, Crumb-Resistant MacBook Keyboards, and More

In addition to our standalone articles covering the latest Apple news and rumors at MacRumors, this Quick Takes column provides a bite-sized recap of other headlines about Apple and its competitors on weekdays.

Friday, March 9

Apple's ecosystem explained: YouTube tech reviewer Marques Brownlee explains why Apple's ecosystem of products and services is so strong. He also advises against becoming too locked into just one ecosystem.


Commentary: A good example of the strength of Apple's ecosystem is iMessage and its coveted blue message bubbles, which have essentially become a status symbol. As silly as it may sound, there are a countless number of tweets that mock green bubbles, which is the color Apple uses to display standard text messages.

AAPL sets all-time high closing price of $179.98: The previous record was $179.26, set on January 18, 2018. Apple's overall all-time high remains $180.62, set during intraday trading on February 28, 2018. AAPL has been on the rise since bottoming out at $150.24 on February 9 amid a wider stock market selloff.

Commentary: Apple shares have technically traded for higher prices, but today's record high factors in multiple stock splits, including a 7-for-1 split in 2014. Apple's market cap now hovers around the $915 billion mark.

wwdc sj keynote tim cook
Timing of Apple's rumored March event: Apple typically invites the media to its special events roughly 10 to 12 days beforehand, so if there is a March event on its agenda, then we'll likely hear about it soon.

Commentary: The big question is whether Apple will hold a media event or make its announcements via press releases as it did last year. Rumored products that could debut this month include a new iPhone SE, lower-priced 9.7-inch iPad and MacBook Air models, and the AirPower charging mat, along with iOS 11.3.

Other Reading:

For more Apple news and rumors coverage, visit our Front Page, Mac Blog, and iOS Blog. Also visit our forums to join in the discussion.

Popular Stories

iPhone 17 Pro Blue Feature Tighter Crop

iPhone 17 Pro Launching in Three Months With These 12 New Features

Saturday June 14, 2025 5:45 pm PDT by
The iPhone 17 Pro and iPhone 17 Pro Max are three months away, and there are plenty of rumors about the devices. Below, we recap key changes rumored for the iPhone 17 Pro models as of June 2025:Aluminum frame: iPhone 17 Pro models are rumored to have an aluminum frame, whereas the iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 16 Pro models have a titanium frame, and the iPhone X through iPhone 14 Pro have a...
iPadOS 26 App Windowing

Apple Explains Why iPads Don't Just Run macOS

Friday June 13, 2025 7:46 am PDT by
iPadOS 26 allows iPads to function much more like Macs, with a new app windowing system, a swipe-down menu bar at the top of the screen, and more. However, Apple has stopped short of allowing iPads to run macOS, and it has now explained why. In an interview this week with Swiss tech journalist Rafael Zeier, Apple's software engineering chief Craig Federighi said that iPadOS 26's new Mac-like ...
iphone 16 pro models 1

17 Reasons to Wait for the iPhone 17

Thursday June 12, 2025 8:58 am PDT by
Apple's iPhone development roadmap runs several years into the future and the company is continually working with suppliers on several successive iPhone models simultaneously, which is why we often get rumored features months ahead of launch. The iPhone 17 series is no different, and we already have a good idea of what to expect from Apple's 2025 smartphone lineup. If you skipped the iPhone...
Logitech Logo Feature

Logitech Announces Two New Accessories for WWDC

Friday June 13, 2025 7:22 am PDT by
Alongside WWDC this week, Logitech announced notable new accessories for the iPad and Apple Vision Pro. The Logitech Muse is a spatially-tracked stylus developed for use with the Apple Vision Pro. Introduced during the WWDC 2025 keynote address, Muse is intended to support the next generation of spatial computing workflows enabled by visionOS 26. The device incorporates six degrees of...
iOS 26 Screens

Here Are All the iOS 26 Features That Require iPhone 15 Pro or Newer

Thursday June 12, 2025 4:53 am PDT by
With iOS 26, Apple has introduced some major changes to the iPhone experience, headlined by the new Liquid Glass redesign that's available across all compatible devices. However, several of the update's features are exclusive to iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 16 models, since they rely on Apple Intelligence. The following features are powered by on-device large language models and machine...
CarPlay Liquid Glass Dark

Apple to Let iPhone Users Watch Videos on CarPlay Screen While Parked

Thursday June 12, 2025 6:16 am PDT by
Apple this week announced that iPhone users will soon be able to watch videos right on the CarPlay screen in supported vehicles. iPhone users will be able to wirelessly stream videos to the CarPlay screen using AirPlay, according to Apple. For safety reasons, video playback will only be available when the vehicle is parked, to prevent distracted driving. The connected iPhone will be able to...
iOS 26 on Three iPhones

Hate iOS 26's Liquid Glass Design? Here's How to Tone It Down

Wednesday June 11, 2025 4:22 pm PDT by
iOS 26 features a whole new design material that Apple calls Liquid Glass, with a focus on transparency that lets the content on your display shine through the controls. If you're not a fan of the look, or are having trouble with readability, there is a step that you can take to make things more opaque without entirely losing out on the new look. Apple has multiple Accessibility options that ...
Mac Studio Feature

Apple Begins Selling Refurbished Mac Studio With M4 Max and M3 Ultra Chips at a Discount

Thursday June 12, 2025 10:14 am PDT by
Apple today added Mac Studio models with M4 Max and M3 Ultra chips to its online certified refurbished store in the United States, Canada, Japan, Singapore, and many European countries, for the first time since they were released in March. As usual for refurbished Macs, prices are discounted by approximately 15% compared to the equivalent new models on Apple's online store. Note that Apple's ...
iOS 26 Feature

Apple Seeds Revised iOS 26 Developer Beta to Fix Battery Issue

Friday June 13, 2025 10:15 am PDT by
Apple today provided developers with a revised version of the first iOS 26 beta for testing purposes. The update is only available for the iPhone 15 and iPhone 16 models, so if you're running iOS 26 on an iPhone 14 or earlier, you won't see the revised beta. Registered developers can download the new beta software through the Settings app on each device. The revised beta addresses an...

Top Rated Comments

Naraxus Avatar
95 months ago
Here's a wild idea Apple - Why don't you admit to your mistake and realize that the butterfly keyboards were an indulgence in Ive's ego (much like the Trash Can Mac was) and go back to the scissor keyswitches?
Score: 25 Votes (Like | Disagree)
I7guy Avatar
95 months ago
Interesting. Don’t get locked into one ecosystem. Does that include google?
Score: 17 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Analog Kid Avatar
95 months ago
I won't watch the YouTube video, but in general I think the benefits of using an integrated set of tools outweigh the fear of "lock in". You either take the pain all at once when you change from one ecosystem to another, or continuously over time in trying to make tools work together when they weren't meant to. I'll choose the former.
Score: 17 Votes (Like | Disagree)
sidewinder3000 Avatar
95 months ago
Marques Brownlee is a decent enough guy, and his general theory here seems alright, though it’s nothing we haven’t heard before. But I think some of the motivations that he attributes to a few things in this video are a little off.

First of all, he suggests that one of the goals Apple has every time they invent a new product is to gather more of your data, which is a bit specious. Apple sells products, not advertising, so a user’s data does not have the same sinister value for Apple that it does to Google and Amazon.

Secondly, the idea that Apple’s primary motivation is lock-in, rather than giving the user the best possible experience is a projection or speculation, not a fact. Apple didn’t invent the W1 chip to lock people into the ecosystem, they did it to make the wireless experience better and smoother because the existing Bluetooth and chip technologies in the marketplace couldn’t do what they wanted. This is true a lot of the time—Apple gets into businesses or areas where the current technology isn’t good enough. Texting sucked so they fixed it and made it better. But the reason they didn’t make Messages or FaceTime available for other formats first and foremost is that they don’t control the hardware and software of Android and other phone makers, (and there’s a lot of cheap hardware out there) so they cannot assure a high level customer experience the way they traditionally like to.

It all goes back to the early days when a lot of third party companies didn’t make hardware/software that was Mac compatible, so Jobs and Apple often had to roll up their sleeves and make some of their own hardware and software out of necessity, lest Mac buyers might be so underserved that they leave the platform.

Thirdly, and this cannot be emphasized enough, every other manufacturer out there would love to keep you in their ecosystem—they just aren’t as good at it!
Score: 16 Votes (Like | Disagree)
SeattleMoose Avatar
95 months ago
For all my needling of Apple, they deserve all the financial success they get. Apple sells useful products to people who want to buy them and bring more beauty/art/functionality to people's lives. Contrast this with a lot of companies that make money deceiving and outright shagging people (e.g. big banks and Google (YouTube censorship)). They remain the best at providing an integrated ecosystem...in spite of Siri.
Score: 13 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Baymowe335 Avatar
95 months ago
Crumb-resistant keyboard. I like the idea. :)
[doublepost=1520638561][/doublepost]Describing integrated features across different products as being "hooks," shows how ignorant or biased Marques Brownlee is.
He’s actually a terrible tech reviewer. I have no clue how he got so popular. He’s generic and super biased.
Score: 13 Votes (Like | Disagree)