All the Companies Apple Dinged Today
This afternoon among Apple's many upgrades and updates, the company announced a bunch of features that other companies are trying to build into businesses. already existed via other non-Apple services.
.This afternoon among Apple's many upgrades and updates, the company announced a bunch of Apple branded features, that already existed via other non-Apple services. Apple has always liked the idea of keeping its loyal users within Apple-land as much as possible, so it's no surprise that many of the iOS 6 and Mountain Lion features do just that, offering an iVersion of an already existent product. As using Apple compatible stuff is much easier than not, we foresee near death or at least pain and suffering for these companies.
Dropbox
What it does: Dropbox was a cloud service before Apple iCloud. With Dropbox users can share and store files over the Internet, a.k.a in the cloud.
Why it's now obsolete: With Apple's fuller iCloud integration in Mountain Lion, users don't really need a separate cloud service, do they? Apple has had iCloud for awhile now, which works a lot like Dropbox. But the latest iCloud Documents upgrade will have the just-works elements of syncing Messages, Reminders, Notes, Pages, Numbers and Keynote.
Is it hurting already? Dropbox has seen this move coming for awhile, as Apple made the iCloud announcement a few months ago. So, Dropbox has been at work on features it thinks will keep people on the service. A few weeks ago, it began offering a sharing tool that lets people share with just a link, making the service ever-easier to use. It has also started concentrating on its non-iOS partnerships. Just today, Dropbox announced it now offers streaming video sharing in its Android app. A few months ago, it made a deal with HTC, offering phone buyers 25GB of free storage for two years.
Growl
What it does: It's a notification system, which flashes little mesages on your screen to let you know what is happening in various applications you can't see.
Why it is now obsolete: Apple has its own notification system built into Mountain Lion, which takes everything Growl does and integrates it into your computer in a prettier way. Instead of putting the notifications right on the screen, Apple's notifications hide behind a sidebar.
Is it hurting already? Just after the Apple announcement, the official Growl account tweeted out the following defensive tactic: "OS X developers that want to support more than just 10.8 notifications really need to implement Growl support." Growl is pointing out that it supports more applications than Apple's Mountain Lion notification center. And it's being a little cloy. When someone asked whether Growl had figured out a way to get non-native Apple apps into the new Notification Center, they tweeted, "We can't until 10.8 is released to the public. :),"
Garmin
What it does: Garmin is a device, which directs the directionless using GPS software. A voice recording offers detailed directions, telling a driver when to turn and rerouting when that user has gotten lost.
Why it is now obsolete: Apple now has turn-by-turn directions dictated by Siri as a part of its new Apple Maps. Why buy a completely separate device, if Siri will do it for you now? Though, we wonder if Siri will reroute automatically.
Is it hurting already? Following Apple's announcement, Garmin's stock ended the day down almost 9 percent. That's actually not as bad as it hurt following Google's maps announcement, when it ended the day down 16 percent. Either way, investors think the company is going to have a hard time selling GPS devices to iPhone owners. "Several tens of millions of iPhones have overnight become full-fledged GPS devices," Yair Reiner, an analyst for Oppenheimer told CNN Money's Hibah Yousuf. TomTom, another GPS service, looks like it fared a little better, as it partnered with Apple for its new Maps service.
1Password
What it does: It's a service that lets users store their passwords over the cloud, all in one place.
Why it is now obsolete: Apple's new Passbook feature kind of does the same thing, providing a one-stop shop for Fandango tickets, Amtrak passes and other sites. It's not exactly a service for storing one's password, but it eliminates the need for this type of service as it provides a hub for a lot of places for which people use 1Password.
Is it hurting already? 1Password seems cheery on Twitter. In Apple developer circles they call it "getting Sherlocked" when Apple announces that its built-in software will start doing something that a third-party company has been selling. (It comes from this.) 1Password seems to think they dodged the bullet, tweeting, "I think Apple just Lestraded us." We're not well acquainted enough with the Arthur Conan Doyle series to explain that one, though.