This is why Tim Cook is CEO: he was the architect of their supply chain strategy which basically ensured nobody could build a phone at the same level as Apple. But he took what was once a pure cost center for Apple and turned it into the engine of their dominance.

I can't say I've seen the same for customer support though. It's just not a strategic advantage in most industries because only a small percentage of your customers ever call in to support in the first place.

They gave this concept a lot of credit for turning themselves around from being a bottom of the barrel PC vendor to becoming a retail powerhouse in the early 2000s, before they were acquired by Gateway.

This isn't what I originally read, but there's an interesting publication here on the subject: http://www.pcic.merage.uci.edu/papers/2004/eMachines.pdf

But you're right, being such a critical component of Apple's supply chain has likely given Samsung inside knowledge of Apple's platforms. As a result, Apple has been diversifying their supply chain to avoid Samsung.

I don't know that plays into their dominance of the Android market though. Samsung was already the top consumer electronics brand in the world prior to the release of the iPhone, so it's not surprising that would carry over into mobile phones. It was certainly a factor, though probably not a large one.

[1] http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2014/06/building-android-a-40...

2005, 2 years before the iphone. And even called a smartphone in the review.

Touch screen keyboardless iphone clone, no. But smartphone, yes. Apple didn't invent this category, they just changed it.

When the iPhone launched, people like me [0] couldn't really understand it. I was a top five percentile earner in the UK, but still new to that bracket having only recently left uni. I was used to mobile phones being expensive at £400 commitment, £1800 (Uk price with minimum O2 exclusive contract) was unbelievable to me.

I made the mistake of looking at the original iPhone, and seeing something that was slow (no 3G), didn't have GPS (recently moved to London, I needed my GPS-maps!) and didn't support any third party applications. It was a joke. It sold buckets loads.

The problem was before that mobile apps were a limited affair. We had things like google maps on smartphones, but not much effort went in. We had a few games, but no one was really pushing serious money in that direction.

The iPhone became a fashion hit. It was the must have for the 20-something plus who could afford it, it was a status symbol because of price. Everything about it was worse than phones on the market, it took ages to make a call, writing a text took considerably longer. It simply didn't make sense as a phone.

However it became a platform. Companies from all walks of life, some who hadn't really bothered to have a website suddenly needed an 'App' for their marketing team to be happy. This created such gravity, people thought that Android would never be able to compete.

The internals of it were not really special at all, it was quite slow, the screen resolution awfully poor. It wasn't until the 4 addressed that last major concern I bought one.

[0] - http://forums.hexus.net/iphone-ios/110525-iphone-demo.html#p...

The iPhone wasn't a platform until it had significant consumer adoption anyway...the App Store didn't open until nearly a year after launch. It turns out that being a hot fashion accessory and status symbol is actually more important for consumer adoption than speed of calling or texting.

Compared to a regular non-smart phone it had enormous amounts of RAM and a hugely more powerful CPU, which enabled it to run a real web browser (as opposed to Opera Mini). It also allowed fancier apps in general, once they allowed them at all, but I think the browser was pretty much the killer app.

Compared to smartphones it got rid of the stylus. This made it less capable but a lot more convenient. Having to fiddle with the stylus every time you pull the phone out of your pocket was probably, I believe, one of the things that made most people reluctant to switch to smartphones.

Also, as far as I can tell, most phones in the US were pure garbage compared to what we had elsewhere, before the iPhone upset the control of the carriers and encouraged people to pay more. If the US market had looked more like Europe, perhaps the iPhone wouldn't have been seen as such a revolution.

Apple did introduce capacitive touch screens though, as far as I know, getting rid of the stylus. And they had a very attractive UI at launch. But not much was really new.

I highly recommend following http://www.asymco.com/ where Horace Deidu does lots of analysis on the industry, with focus on Apple. Heck he can fairly accurately predict future Apple sales because of the capital expenditures mentioned in the previous paragraph http://www.asymco.com/2015/02/10/how-many-ios-devices-didwil...

Really? "From 2016, {Samsung] the company will supply 80 percent of APs used in Apple devices"

http://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/news/tech/2014/11/133_168259...

Let's call Tim Cook out for what he is. A former Dell middle manager who happened to be working the supply chain when China opened up to the world. Otherwise there must be a million supply chain geniuses out there who have also figured out how to place orders using cheap labor...

[1]: https://medium.com/@BoltVC/no-you-cant-manufacture-that-like...

Back in the day when they were reselling AT&T DSL (which they are doing again, I hear), it was a big bonus to get AT&T DSL at the same price, but not have to deal with AT&T almost ever. Let a third party deal with that and provide better service for the same cost. Win.

Full Disclosure: I've worked at Sonic.net multiple times in the past, ranging from customer support when in college, to their operations and system administration department more recently. I have fond memories of it, and count it as one of the best places I've worked, but I'm not employed by them currently.

Customer service isn't a cost center. It's a value creator.

I have similar probably-irrationally-high opinions of In-N-Out Burger's operations.

I've had such excellent service for so many years that even when I have an objectively __terrible__ experience [0], I end up writing it completely off as a fluke, or an inexperienced or frazzled employee. I actually reflected on this the last time it happened, and even recognizing this I still think highly of their service.

They get customer service so right in so many directions that I almost feel bad exposing the rare instances that my visit hasn't been flawless.

0: Last week, in the same visit to the drive-through: "No, I didn't order those [3] shakes. I actually ordered two fries." They eventually got me the right things, and my burgers were right, but I've had that wrong too before. Almost never.

The yardstick for measuring the potency of a corporate culture is consistency over time.

Another issue about customer support is that it isn't glamorous and usually not encountered by the typical customer since they usually handle issues and exceptions rather than the visible product. When someone mentions a company, pictures of their product, their service, etc come to mind before a customer service experience, unless it is a negative one. Had a good experience? It's usually an, "Oh yeah..." moment, at the back of your head. Psychologically, customers don't use these positive experiences to judge a company. If they have a negative experience, then that company is the worst in the world...

Generally in B2B where the accounts your call center are responsible for "keeping happy" are worth 5 or 6 figures in revenue...tends to lead to a very different environment. Of course, at that point you aren't really paying $10/hr but are hiring "support engineers" with real salaries.

The only B2C one I can think of is Zappos.

My experience with them was the best customer support experience I have ever had. They were great. They were prompt, knowledgeable, and compassionate.

A while ago, I could walk in the store and get replacement parts on the spot. They've replaced my sister's broken computer when she was out of warranty without giving her a hard time.

Most recently I had a really esoteric thing where my Apple Developer account had my mom's name on it because it was linked to the phone I got from her... I dunno, anyways, I managed to get someone who manages developer accounts on the phone, even though I don't pay for the developer account, and they updated it for me and got it sorted out, with minimal friction, and only a small amount of time on the phone.

At one point, they decided to just give he customer whatever they wanted, except in cases of fraud or abuse, and they are fantastic now.

Apple's still like that, its why I buy their hardware.