iPod is what put them on their stratospheric trajectory. Any company with that product and that execution at that point in time could have achieved the same outcome.
iPod-iPhone wasn't a pivot, but it was different than everything that came before. It opened up a massive new market and made them who they are today. They struck gold: right time, right place, right mindset.
Android owes their huge level of success to entering the market at the same time. From that they were able to establish their duopoly. Microsoft, Blackberry, Palm, and Nokia took too long and got forever shut out.
Timing matters. Holding a captive audience with low churn also matters (even if keeping the jail cell locked is one of the techniques used to accomplish it).
But back to my earlier point - if everything wasn't so incompatible with everything else, we'd see a market that supports more than just two players.
Yes, and it's extra painful that most "apps" on the "App Store" are just thin wrappers around web technologies anyway. You have to have an iPhone[1] or Android because you "have to use the app" for lots of things from mobile food ordering to ticket purchasing -- and yet most of these apps have little to no native code, and despite our phones being 100x more powerful, these apps are more laggy than a BlackBerry or Sidekick app was, because they're bloated beyond belief.
[1] From my experience, even Android is an iffy choice in America, because 99% of the execs here who allocate the resources in companies use iOS, so they don't mind when the Android app is barely usable. This is a peculiarity of the US though, elsewhere Android is considered equal or greater in importance.
iPod-iPhone wasn't a pivot, but it was different than everything that came before. It opened up a massive new market and made them who they are today. They struck gold: right time, right place, right mindset.
Android owes their huge level of success to entering the market at the same time. From that they were able to establish their duopoly. Microsoft, Blackberry, Palm, and Nokia took too long and got forever shut out.
Timing matters. Holding a captive audience with low churn also matters (even if keeping the jail cell locked is one of the techniques used to accomplish it).
But back to my earlier point - if everything wasn't so incompatible with everything else, we'd see a market that supports more than just two players.