I tried to paint the big picture of the Apple concept…

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Click on the pic to get a bigger image!

This is a mindmap that tries to cover all the Apple products and services. I won’t say that it’s complete, but it gives an impression of how many things that are part of the total Apple concept. Even if I know about all this – I have just put everything down from my memory, I have never seen such an overall picture of what Apple is and I think it’s impressing. (And I have forgot some things, I’m already starting to recall what should have been on the map as well…)

When you think about it, someone can get interested in buying an Apple device for so many different reasons. Maybe you get curious when you see someone use ApplePay? Maybe you wonder how reading e-books works? Maybe you just need a new computer? Maybe someone took a photo with her iPhone and you are surprised by the good result? Maybe you see how a broadcasted TV-show is filmed with iPhones and you think ”Can they do that?” Maybe you drive a excavator and report your jobs on an iPad? Maybe your kid brings home his iPad with e-books, apps and instructions from his teacher and you are amazed of how well it works?

No matter what your reason is: once you start to appreciate Apple, you get curious about what more there is.

Some people judge Apple from using just one device or the market for just one device. I want to remind everyone about how big the world of Apple is. Compare with Microsoft, Google or Amazon and they offer just fragments of what Apple offer to the market. That’s why Apple keep on making progress, it’s almost a bit scary when you look at it like this.

New times mean new ways to do things, so of course, one day someone will start to build up a new concept for how we do things and one day Apple will be history. But I think that Apple will keep on being a huge company to count on for at least ten more years and I wouldn’t get surprised if they can hang on even longer than that, because, a certain way to innovate is in Apple’s DNA. Could they go on for ever? Who knows…?

 

Apple’s big system has many entrances

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You always need a reason to buy something or start to use a new technique. When I bought my first MacPlus computer it was just to get something more modern than a typewriter – hey, it was 1989 and we didn’t even know about the internet.

Soon I found out that I also could use Macs to draw and paint digitally and that was huge for me, but it didn’t matter to most people. When I discovered Fractal Painter in combination with Wacom’s digital pen, it gave me so much joy. However, this was not something that made everyone buy a Mac or even a computer.

I think Internet was the first big entrance to the world of computers for people in general, but not many of them bought Macs. Many believed that Macs were toys and maybe just useful for creative people – oh, how wrong they were! They didn’t even realize that Microsoft Windows was a bad and ugly copy of the MacOS…

The next big entrance was music, or rather, the possibility to carry music with you in a small, cool device called iPod. I still remember when my daughter borrowed her dads iPod and her class mates wonder how big the memory was and she said 15GB and they laughed at her, believing that she said 15 MB, so she had to repeat it: 15 Gigabyte. Then they understood. Wow! Her coolness factor sky rocketed at once.

The iPod became a big success for Apple and it also meant that they sold music on iTunes. A legal and easy way to pay for digital music. So music combined with the coolness factor was now the big entrance for many to the Apple world.

Then Apple launched the iPhone. Hallelujah, jackpot! Everyone, I say, everyone around me bought an iPhone. This time it was not something for kids or young people, this time it was a tool that many CEOs found to be useful and of course, also employees and iPhone became the norm of mobiles. As we know, other companies tried to produce smartphones as well, but they are all iPhone wannabes. I remember, for example, when a man from a newspaper apologized that he had to use an HTC smartphone, because of the company’s policy. He was not happy.

The iPhone has changed so much in how we solve our daily tasks. We use it as a telephone, but it’s also a tool for email, internet and even reading, taking notes and much more. In fact, one of the features that totally has change our behavior is the camera. It has changed the camera market. The average person doesn’t need to buy a camera today because the iPhone’s camera is so good!

The next thing was the iPad. It didn’t become as successful as the iPhone, but still, very successful and it changed the way we work, study and entertain ourselves, even when we travel. It sure became an entrance to the Apple system for many.

By this time we became used to buying not only music, but also apps and e-books via Apple. One Apple ID and we get access to so many digital items and services. One category are the bank apps, which are very useful.

Today there are so many ways that Apple makes our lives easier to handle and for every way that people discover, no matter which entrance they used, they will become more curious about the rest of the Apple devices. This has lead to that Apple sell more Macs, even though other companies see declining sales of computers.

This autumn Apple released Apple Pay which might be the next really big entrance to the Apple world. It’s such an easy and safe way to pay that I think it will set the norm for what people expect.

Next year Apple Pay will continue to grow and it will get a boost when the Apple Watch is launched. The Apple Watch will also become a huge entrance to the Apple system. Many have already learned about health bracelets, but as usual, when Apple adds health features to a device, they do it so much smarter and cooler than the others. The Apple Watch will be used for so many things. Health is one big reason to buy the Apple Watch, but imagine the coolness and simplicity when you can pay with just tapping on your Apple Watch!

And, I haven’t even mentioned how much cash Apple Pay will bring to Apple…

Once you start to use an Apple device, it’s very likely that you will continue to buy more devices from Apple, which means that you will buy more digital items or services and then you will start to use Apple Pay when you buy other things. To think about this almost makes me dizzy… Imagine how much you buy at AppStore, iTunes and iBookStore, add everything you will be able to buy in your local stores or online – paying with Apple Pay. Is this the future, that almost everything we buy will go through Apple’s system for transactions? If that becomes the daily reality, Apple will have so many streams of money flowing to them.

And I will still use Apple because I think their devices and services are outstanding.

I think the best way to get some money back from Apple is to buy Apple shares. It’s like a variation of ”if you can’t beat them, join them!”, except, I don’t want to beat Apple. I want to be a happy citizen in the Apple Global Country. As long as Apple keep on doing good. And that’s the danger in all this: the moment Apple starts to do something evil, then this system will fall apart, because we are all in the system because of our free will. We can still choose other products and services outside the Apple system. But we don’t.

We enter the door to Apple and very few of us leave, once we have discovered what Apple can do for us. As long as they keep on making our lives better, we will stay.

How to become an iTunes Partner as a Content Provider, Part 2…

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In February TWO years ago I wrote about ”How to become an iTunes Partner as a Content Provider, Part 1…” I didn’t figure out how to do it by then, but in the beginning of January I finally managed to get an EIN for my company.

I’m sorry to say that Apple gave no useful information about how to get an EIN from IRS. I learned how to do it from a Swedish blogger and it turns out that the best way is to call the IRS and not try to use the on-line option to fill in the registration.

I know English pretty well, but I’m not familiar with the bureaucratic vocabulary so I was very nervous when I called IRS. It’s not easy to spell everything on the phone and especially not when you have a Swedish company named ”Stenstroms Information & Marknadsforing HB”. That’s 38 letters I had to spell out loud for the woman at IRS. And it didn’t help when I tried to be helpful and she said ”No, now we’re going to this MY way!” Ooops?

BUT I did get my EIN directly in the phone and 3-4 weeks later we finally got it on paper too, all the way from USA.

We tried to register as an Apple Content Provider directly when I got the EIN on the phone, but it wasn’t properly registered all the way by then and we couldn’t go through the application until we had got this letter. Since January 28th we are Apple Content Providers! Hooray! 
However, you might want to sell stuff through Amazon as well and now we found that they have better information on how to do everything – so, if you found this blogpost because you want to publish your own books, you will probably learn a lot from Amazon.

We haven’t finished our first book yet, but we are about to and more books will follow. So, I can’t yet tell you what it’s like to actually upload and sell books through iBook Store or Amazon.