Apple has to keep updating their products to keep up with the technology “Joneses”, but to their credit, they do not obsolete their old products by building an ecosystem where OS updates will work on both new and older devices.
Try updating your Samsung Galaxy S2 to Android’s new Jellybean? The Galaxy S2, at the time this article was published, has no official way of updating the software to the latest and greatest.
However what is really significant about this seven month product upgrade cycle, is that Apple can now beat the
fast-followers and OEMs of this world at their own game. This, in my humble opinion, is a huge breakthrough that many pundits have missed. Especially when Apple does not technically own their factory and outsources all their manufacturing.
Think about it for a moment?
A fast follower strategy basically takes a winning product, makes the specifications 10-20% better or cheaper, and then gets it out very quick (on an average of 6-8 months). With this speed up in Apple’s development cycle, when a fast follower gets a product out, they are already obsolete as Apple not only has a the next one out, but a new model that is likely 100% better then their predecessor. (Apple claims that the iPad 4 is 2x faster than the iPad 3).