The liquidation of Apple is not only a sign of the end of the company's era, but also a reflection of the smartphone's fall from a beloved gadget to a common commodity.

One day in early 2008, my friend excitedly showed me the new phone in his hand. He loaded a website, handed the phone across the table, and I curiously swiped the screen to browse the page. Although the speed was a bit slow and the operation was not very smooth, the sense of reality was astonishing. "Look, this is the future," he said excitedly, "I have the internet on my phone."

At that moment, I felt as if a fragile yet great thing was slipping through my fingers. I knew it would be ubiquitous in the near future, but at that moment, it still seemed so out of reach. And indeed, it was the case, although the change was not immediate. In the early days, although the iPhone was powerful and fascinating, it did not dominate the market. I still used a BlackBerry Curve phone until 2012. At that time, the market was filled with various brands of phones, such as Nokia, Motorola, HTC, Palm, each with its own characteristics. However, over time, they seemed to be gradually replaced by the same device - the iPhone.

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Even with just a slight touch of mobile technology, one could feel the unique energy radiated by the new iPhone launch. These launches not only attracted the attention of industry insiders but also caught the eye of the general public. They truly became the "big events" people talked about, making everyone stop and take notice.

However, as time went on, this atmosphere gradually changed. Last fall, after several weeks of intensive testing of the iPhone 15 Pro, the outside world's view of the iPhone had become, "They are just phones."

Although Apple has always tried to make us believe that its products are different, the reality is cruel: the iPhone is, after all, just a phone. For most people - even those who sell them all day - the release of a new phone has become a common and necessary event, no longer an exciting big event. Buying a new phone is more like upgrading the washing machine at home, ordinary and necessary.

The phone has become as indispensable in our lives as household appliances, an inevitable trend. For consumers, this may not be a problem; however, for Apple, a company that mainly relies on the iPhone to earn huge profits, this is undoubtedly a huge challenge. Although Apple has been trying to expand its product line for many years, the iPhone remains its most important cash cow. Apple has a strong desire for us to believe that the brand name on the phone is crucial.

In order to maintain its market position, Apple has taken various measures to strengthen users' dependence on its ecosystem. However, these efforts now seem to be at risk of collapse.Time flies, and people have moved away from the amazement and shock brought by the first iPhone. This is not just a change in feeling, but also a true reflection of market data. According to the authoritative report from IDC, smartphone sales have shown a downward trend for six out of the past seven years. Among them, the improvement of device durability is seen as an important reason for the decline in sales. Nowadays, almost every flagship phone, including Apple's product line, has full waterproofing capabilities, which means that the phone can be safe even when it encounters accidents such as freshwater immersion. However, my 2016 iPhone SE was not immune, which also made me deeply realize the importance of improving device durability.

IDC's report also points out some more hidden factors: "extended replacement cycles." This leads people into the discussion of the field of perception. Nowadays, people are no longer as eager to change their phones every few years as they used to be. In the early days, there were obvious shortcomings in many aspects of smartphones: short battery life, unsatisfactory camera effects, limited processor performance, and high-quality mobile games were an unattainable dream. However, as time went on, these problems have been greatly improved and have become less and less significant.

As one of the top three revenue companies in the United States, Apple's unique position lies in the fact that it is the only company on these lists that makes huge profits mainly by manufacturing and selling mobile phones. When the smartphone market declines, the impact on Apple is particularly significant, while giants like Amazon and Walmart can cope with market changes relatively calmly.

Therefore, for many years, Apple has been actively looking for other ways to make money to reduce its over-reliance on iPhone sales. To a large extent, it has been successful, especially in the expansion of service areas such as the App Store and Apple Music. However, despite this, the iPhone is still the main source of wealth for Apple. According to Apple's financial report for the first quarter of the fiscal year 2024, the net sales in the three months ending on December 30, 2023, reached an astonishing $119.6 billion, of which the iPhone contributed as much as $69.7 billion. In contrast, the service business, as the second largest business department, only contributed $23 billion.

In the early days, the iPhone won the reputation of being a platform for perfecting new concepts with its excellent performance and novel functions, rather than just being a pioneer. Although it was not the first mobile phone to achieve face unlocking, high refresh rate screens, or telephoto cameras, users trusted it and believed that it could stably implement these novel technologies, even if they were not satisfactory at the beginning. However, as Apple continues to accumulate proprietary functions and services in its closed ecosystem, such as the App Store, iMessage, FaceTime, Apple Wallet, etc., and consolidates its leading position in the US market, a clear fact emerges: Apple is resistant to anything that may threaten its position.

This attitude has become particularly obvious after the successful launch of Apple's products, and the company has taken a series of defensive measures. Take iMessage as an example, which quickly gained user favor after its launch in 2011, and by 2012 the number of users had reached 140 million. However, by 2013, the demand for cross-platform compatibility became increasingly prominent, and seamless communication became an urgent expectation for users, rather than the chaotic switching between green and blue bubbles, and between text messages and non-text messages. This is not just a problem that Android users want to integrate, more importantly, preventing Android users from using iMessage brings a worse and less secure experience for iOS users.

Despite calls for Apple to open up cross-platform use of iMessage, the company is conservative about this internally. Apple executive Eddy Cue proposed launching an Android version of the iMessage app in 2016, but was opposed by Craig Federighi. Federighi bluntly stated in an internal email that the existence of iMessage on Android would only eliminate the obstacles for iPhone families to give their children Android phones. And Tim Cook is well known for holding a similar view, he believes that if you want to use iMessage with your family, you should "buy her an iPhone."

This strategy is reflected throughout the Apple ecosystem, whether it is FaceTime or watches, once you try to take Apple products out of its closed park, users will encounter many obstacles. Although we can speculate about Apple's motives for peripheral devices and services, when it comes to iMessage, its motives are not mysterious at all: Apple has blocked iMessage for ten years, precisely to maintain the loyalty of iOS users and maintain its closed ecosystem. Apple's executives have repeatedly expressed this point both internally and publicly.

Customer lock-in is just one aspect of the problems Apple faces, and the challenges faced by the platform itself and its developers cannot be ignored. Since its establishment, Apple has imposed strict control over its App Store, setting many restrictions on developers who develop apps for the platform, thereby making it an important pillar of the company's profits.

Once the App Store was launched in 2008, it established its core business model: Apple will charge a 30% commission from the sale of each app. As the company later added in-app purchase features, this model was further consolidated, requiring developers to use Apple's own payment processing system and also pay a 30% commission. This strategy has become more and more significant with the rapid expansion of the App Store, growing from the initial 500 apps to the current 1.8 million apps, bringing in more than $60 billion in revenue for Apple in 2020 alone.However, as app stores have grown increasingly influential, Apple's strict control measures have sparked more and more controversy and criticism. Developers complain that Apple's app review process lacks transparency and fairness, making it difficult for them to predict which apps will be approved for listing and which will be rejected. At the same time, developers have expressed dissatisfaction with the high commissions Apple extracts, although Apple later adjusted the cut for subscription fees, reducing it from 30% to 15% after the first year. However, for small developers, this fee remains a heavy burden.

In response to external criticism and questioning, Apple has adopted a more flexible and reactive strategy in recent years, introducing policy changes more frequently than in the early days, attempting to maintain platform control while addressing the concerns of developers and users. However, this strategy has led to a series of complex and confusing "fixes." Certain types of apps have experienced a shift from being banned to being quietly allowed in the app store, and the app store's policies have made services like Kindle and Netflix face difficulties on the iOS platform because they allow users to purchase subscriptions outside the app. Although Apple has provided exceptions for these apps, it has also sparked disputes among other developers trying to exploit this category.

Today's Apple inevitably reminds one of Microsoft in the 1990s. At that time, as the dominant player in the PC market, Microsoft also took various measures to maintain its position, including imposing restrictions on Windows to counter potential competitors. Microsoft successfully curbed the rise of Netscape by bundling its own web browser for free with its operating system; when it realized that Java could make it easier for software to migrate from Windows to other systems, Microsoft went so far as to undermine Sun's efforts and instructed its allies not to assist the company.

However, history has shown that relying solely on suppressing competitors and restricting platform openness to maintain market position is shortsighted. You can temporarily deal with competition by playing whack-a-mole or holding off barbarians at the gate, but this can only last for a short time. In the long run, an open, fair, and innovative platform is key to attracting developers, users, and maintaining competitiveness.

Apple's journey of reckoning began in the courtroom. In 2020, Epic Games filed a lawsuit against the fee model of Apple and Google's app stores, particularly targeting the 30% commission industry standard established by Apple. After the trial, the court ultimately supported Epic's claim, but on the condition that Apple must allow app developers to guide users to use payment methods other than Apple Pay. Subsequently, in 2022, the European Union introduced a series of regulations aimed at limiting the power of large technology companies, with Apple also on the list. Faced with external pressure, Apple has promised to support the RCS standard on the iPhone, an updated version of the SMS/MMS protocol that incorporates more features similar to iMessage.

However, Apple's challenges have not ended there. Last month, the U.S. Department of Justice officially filed an antitrust lawsuit against Apple, accusing it of illegal monopolistic practices in the operation of the smartphone market. Currently, this legal process has just begun, and the trial is expected to be quite lengthy, possibly lasting several years. Looking back at history, the U.S. Department of Justice's antitrust lawsuit against Microsoft began in 1998 and did not come to a close until 2007.

In response to the new EU policies, Apple has already begun to implement a series of reforms: adjusting the app store commission structure, opening up to third-party app stores, and adding a choice screen for users so that they can freely choose their preferred web browser. However, this may only be the beginning—app developers are dissatisfied with Apple's "malicious compliance" with the new rules under the DMA (Digital Markets Act), and European regulators are conducting an in-depth investigation. The challenges and scrutiny faced by Apple seem to continue to ferment in the future.