<story><title>Demoted</title><url>http://daringfireball.net/2011/06/demoted</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>kenjackson</author><text>Gruber is repeating the obvious, but in a convoluted way.&lt;p&gt;Apple is about selling HW.  Google is about selling ads.&lt;p&gt;That&apos;s it.  Everything else falls from that.&lt;p&gt;Google&apos;s goal is to commodotize HW, and I this is, at least theoretically, doable.  Apple can&apos;t really commodotize ads, at least in no way I can think of.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>tedunangst</author><text>The past is not always a good predictor of the future, but I think 10 years ago most people would have said that PC hardware &lt;i&gt;was&lt;/i&gt; commoditized.  You had your choice of a beige box running Windows from HP/Dell/Gateway.  Apple has done a pretty good uncommoditizing it.</text></comment>
<story><title>Demoted</title><url>http://daringfireball.net/2011/06/demoted</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>kenjackson</author><text>Gruber is repeating the obvious, but in a convoluted way.&lt;p&gt;Apple is about selling HW.  Google is about selling ads.&lt;p&gt;That&apos;s it.  Everything else falls from that.&lt;p&gt;Google&apos;s goal is to commodotize HW, and I this is, at least theoretically, doable.  Apple can&apos;t really commodotize ads, at least in no way I can think of.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>ChrisLTD</author><text>Exactly. A lot of Apple&apos;s big announcements today were about features that create lock-in. Your music is tied to a $25 iTunes subscriptions; your reading list, email, calendar, to do list, and office documents are tied to iCloud; they even want your text messaging tied to your iOS devices. Then there&apos;s all those apps you bought on the Mac and iOS App Stores that you&apos;ll never be able to transfer to another system.&lt;p&gt;If you start using enough of these new features, switching away to Android, WebOS or Windows will be a nightmare.</text></comment>