14 DAY TRIAL // The latest versions of iOS and macOS have been two crazy rollercoaster rides for Apple and its users, as they’ve been hit by an insanely high number of issues and security bugs, eventually forcing the company to reconsider its strategy and pay more attention to reliability and stability.
And it’s this software struggle the one that’s dragging down the company, top-rated Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo from KGI Securities says in a research note, as despite the hardware innovations, Cupertino had a really hard time keeping up with rivals.
One relevant example in Kuo’s note is Chinese phone maker OPPO which has managed to beat Apple in the augmented reality race despite the American firm having the lead and introducing the ARKit platform first.
“In several cases we have seen Apple lagging in software versus hardware development, which bodes badly for its innovation strategy of software and hardware integration,” Kuo was quoted as saying.
“Since the debut of the ARKit nearly a year ago, there has been no heavyweight AR application on iOS. Given that the AR version of Honour of Kings runs not only on the iPhone but also on OPPO's smartphone, Apple's first-mover advantage gap in AR has been significantly narrowed by OPPO.”
Apple can’t keep up with rivals
Kuo says that living proof of the way OPPO managed to compete against Apple is Honour of Kings, an AR-based game that runs not only on the iPhone, but also on more affordable OPPO smartphones. This made the title widely-adopted in China and now has more than 200 million players worldwide.
“We think Apple's endeavors in the AR field should have enabled it to offer AR applications popular with the market before the Android camp, including: (1) the announcement of ARKit, an AR development tool, ahead of Google; (2) customization of the SoC (including CPU and GPU); and (3) customization of the rear camera,” the analyst says.
Apple itself appears to be well aware of the fact that it’s been lagging in terms of software, and the company is believed to paying more focus to this side of its products. The next versions of iOS and macOS are expected to be particularly committed to delivering better stability and security in order to avoid the blunders that hit the platforms last year and which were said to be responsible for an en-masse migration to Android devices.