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.
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.
- 2015: Thursday, February 26 invites → Monday, March 9 event
- 2016: Thursday, March 10 invites → Monday, March 21 event
- 2017: No event.
- 2018: Thursday, March 15 invites → Monday, March 26 event (?)
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:
- Swift is now the world's tenth most used programming language, tied with Objective-C, according to analyst firm RedMonk's analysis of GitHub and Stack Overflow data. Apple's open source programming language was released at WWDC in June 2014.
- Apple has applied to patent a crumb-resistant keyboard: The patent application describes a MacBook keyboard with mechanisms that prevent contaminant ingress, which is a fancy way of saying dirt and crumbs. This could involve the use of "brushes, wipers, or flaps" that block gaps around key caps.
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.
Top Rated Comments
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!