Apple has always been a closed system. With its hardware, software, and peripheral devices, its enclosed system is starting to look like a great Persian walled garden. Its Mac sales are taking root.
The rise of Apple’s Mac PC line has had a lot to do with the success of the iPhone, more so now than ever.
Continuity
Last week, Apple released MAC OS X Yosemite to the public. With its Continuity feature, Yosemite has invited all iPhone owners to experience synergy between iPhones, iPads, and Macs, which is unrivaled with Android and Chromium, or Lumia and Windows.
An iPhone will detect when it is near a Mac, setup a personal hotspot on the fly, and transition between messages on the phone to the desktop. A user can, for example, finish writing an essay started on a tablet on a Mac, with a swipe of the finger.
Switching between applications on a smart phone or tablet to a PC has never been so easy, and Apple is sure to build on this in newer versions of the OS X; possibly by providing Continuity application program interfaces (API’s) for developers, “second screen” applications and synergy games could be just around the corner.
Program Developers
Developers are in a rush to develop for iOS. With Apple’s developers making more money than their counterparts on Google Play, Apple is the first stop for many mobile apps. Although there are rather elaborate ways to develop for iOS while not owning a Mac, those ways are rather cumbersome and usually not worth the effort.
The only way to develop for iOS is by developing on a Mac PC. So, many developers who traditionally developed on Windows are now switching to Macs. With the Mac mini being the most affordable Mac, many developers are flocking to this small-form-factor PC, which they can also use to develop for Android.
Multiple Operating System
As computers become more powerful with each cycle, many power users are running multiple OS’s on a single machine.
With the assistance of Boot Camp or VMWare Fusion users can install Windows on their Macs, but Macs come bundled with OS X; there is no off-the-shelf version of OS X, which would allow you to install it on a Windows PC.
Apple’s move from PowerPC microprocessors to Intel’s x86 processor in 2005 is looking more like a strategic strike by an army general in retrospect, aimed squarely at Windows PC makers.
As for whether or not Apple’s Mac PC will continue to make in-rounds on Hewlett-Packard, Dell, and the like, we'll have to wait and see. But it looks like its PC division is on the rise, and with each move, another chunk of the Windows PC market falls.
