Apple & technologies

[Tech198]

From a business perspective, including Apple, it may be easier to just use someone else's technology in your own products. (eg Siri using Nuance.)

Yet, when it come to Apple maps, Apple develops their own maps application, while it probably gets the data from mapping services like TomTom, or others.... as well as their own.

WHy can't Apple do it all themselves ? I know its easier using other tech that's already out there, but if Apple can go head to to head with Google maps by making THEIR own app, and having their own cars for map views, why can't they do the same thing across the board with everything.. including DuckDuckGo, which is used by Apple, but its was not developed by Apple.

Apart from the whole privacy factor, what one company may share to the other issue. why else wouldn't Apple want to do this all themselves..

Hire people who used to work for said company, but don't use THEIR technology, Apple builds their own. and train new people how Apple's tech works. That way, Apple can build it to how *they* see fit.

 

[pdjudd]

Simple - Apple simply cannot and doesn’t actively want to be in every possible business - just important ones where they don’t want to rely to heavily on their competitors who are often heavily entrenched or often better. Apple prefers to be pretty laser focussed on the business that support their core products.

Simply put, they sometimes don’t want to do it themselves when they can accomplish the same end game with partnering with others that aren’t much of a threat. Take maps - Apple went on their own since Google was getting way too powerful and it was threatening their business. But mapping is a huge endeavor that Apple needs help from other companies - ones that Apple doesn’t feel threatened by and most importantly isn’t a competitor like Google is.

As far as search goes - there isn’t much reason for Apple to get into that game - there isn’t much money outside of Ads which Apple isn’t big on and the competitors are really entrenched and getting people to switch is very hard. Easier to partner with business that aren’t a threat to Apple especially when doing search on the web these days is really hard - Google just has too much of an entrenched advantage that it would be a waste for little gain.

 

[maflynn]

Yet, when it come to Apple maps, Apple develops their own maps application, while it probably gets the data from mapping services like TomTom, or others.... as well as their own

Remember Apple Maps was born out of frustration by Apple because Google kept updating their Maps application for Android but let the iOS version languish. They felt compelled to compete on a level playing field and felt Google was purposely dragging their feet.

WHy can't Apple do it all themselves ? I know its easier using other tech that's already out there

The answer is easy, they don't have the expertise to do that themselves. They hire out/subcontract or even buy a company because the internal teams does not have the knowledge to develop the application - or at least develop the app in a time frame that makes sense.