Another year and another round of product updates from Apple. As usual there are a many new and exciting features some of which could be really useful.
Features such as Handoff, Instant Hotspot, Continuity, iCloud Drive and Apple Pay offer tangible benefits to productivity. However, some of these new features are unavailable on all but the newest of devices. For example, iCloud Drive requires iOS 8 and OS X Yosemite in order to work. Similarly, Apple Pay requires an iPhone 6 or an iPhone 6 Plus and Continuity requires Macs that were manufactured no earlier that 2012.
Apple product have built-in obsolescence, so what?
For some people, the desire to acquire an Apple product is as much about how it makes them feel as it is about its features. A fact that appears to have been lost on Apple as it has left some of its most ardent followers standing outside the door of the iOS 8 and Yosemite party.
By excluding some of it’s devices from useful features such as Apple Pay and Continuity, Apple risks alienating its customers and fragmenting its ecosystems. A situation that will create opportunities for competing platforms and manufacturers to exploit.
Should this happen the guys and girls at fruit-loop central will only have themselves to blame.