Apple Inc. Management project

Apple Inc. has stakes in several areas of technology including PCs, tablets, cell phones, portable media devices, and digital music distribution. There are threats from each area that Apple has to constantly monitor and overcome. Apple uses its own OS and on its own hardware which has both advantages and disadvantages. Since Apple has more control using this method their products are high-quality or sometimes referred to as premium. However there is less room for customization and the consequences can be seen on several of their product lines. One example is in the wireless market, where new cell phones are being released frequently. Apple has the iPhone and the iOS which are only updated once a year. Meanwhile there is another highly popular OS called Android and is developed by Google and given away for free. Several cell phone manufactures then create phones and use the Android OS which can be customized by the manufacture or simply left the way it is. With different manufactures, Android based phones are released more frequently and have different features which give consumers a variety of options. Features that are a direct threat to the iPhone include increased screen size, removable storage, and more options for customization. The latest iPhones always start at $199 USD with a 2-year contract and a similar Android phone is about the same. One major issue is the fact that the $199 version has 16GB of storage and for more storage (32GB) you have to pay an additional $100 and another $100 on top of that if you want more (64GB). While similar Android phones have an option to add extra memory through a microSD slot and the chips cost much less than $100. The latest iPhone, the iPhone 5 just had a screen upgrade from 3.5’’, which all other iPhones have had, to 4’’ while Android phones manufactured by HTC, Samsung, and others have