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Easy for me to download a different app. Not easy for me to get everyone I communicate with to download a different app.

I don't see the laziness lock in working nearly as effectively for something outside of messaging.


Coca Cola would like to have a word with you.

These models respond differently and have their own "personality". Even in coding, there are people who swear by one model over the other. I know engineers who just stick with Claude and could not care to try Codex. For them, if it's not broken, why fix it?


> Even in coding, there are people who swear by one model over the other

I just swear at the models. =P But jokes aside, I liked Claude Code and found it a big productivity boost for a month or two. Then the honeymoon phase slowly ended and I realized how much of its code I was rewriting myself. I don't use assistants anymore except to summarize changes for commit messages or PRs (and then I rewrite those summaries).


Not sure how many developers are like me, but I am very open to Claude, very open to Gemini, open to open source models (including gpt-oss), but am very reluctant to use frontier OpenAI models. The Microsoft distrust runs extremely deep, the browser authentication dance demanded of users for ChatGPT was the most extreme of the major frontier models, and early OpenAI API service stability was absolutely terrible. Llama had my back back then.


This is is no way dismissing your concern but I think this reinforces my point about branding. Whether or not Microsoft is handling AI in a responsible way, we don't trust them due to their poor practices on Window.


Apple is a two sided market between developers and users. OpenAI has not succeeded in building this so far.


When unstructured human language is the bulk of your interface, it takes effort to contrive any vendor lock-in that doesn't approach zero.

The same doesn't go for traditional, structured software ecosystems, which can afford to coast for a lot longer.


Sorry - being dim - I don't get that.


Apple has offered products with little value over competitors for a long time now, but they still get to command a large premium on their products because "the vibes are right".

When engineers analyze things they look at the specs, stats, and metrics. When consumers analyze things they look at what others are doing, feel for vibes, roll into the convenience, and stick with the familiar.


> Apple has offered products with little value over competitors

I'm genuinely surprised by this comment.

For example, I thought there was universal sentiment that apple silicon / M-series computers are pretty unmatched.


The overwhelming volume of Apples sales comes from people who wouldn't notice if their device was running 2016 level hardware.


If software didn't keep getting worse this might be true but the average consumer notices if their computer is slow or dies too quickly.


It's sad how hardware improves leaps every year but software still does the same things but slower.


But competitors do the same


> The overwhelming volume of Apples sales comes from people who wouldn't notice if their device was running 2016 level hardware.

How could we possibly know this? This is just an argument from elitism, as though the plebes should be happy playing Farmville on their gateway computers, while us haughty developers sit in our ivory towers and herald in the end of the anthropocene using machines we can actually appreciate.


> How could we possibly know this?

They make a good point. Apple's most-popular device is a smartphone that doesn't handle workloads any heavier than Snapchat or Instagram. The value prop of the iPhone is not rooted in the performance or battery life (as Liquid Glass showed us) but just the branding.

Apple makes more money selling iPhone accessories than they make selling Macs. The desktop market share isn't going up, the Mac's lifeline is depreciation of old hardware to force Mac owners into the upgrade cycle: https://gs.statcounter.com/os-market-share/desktop/worldwide...


> They make a good point. Apple's most-popular device is a smartphone that doesn't handle workloads any heavier than Snapchat or Instagram. The value prop of the iPhone is not rooted in the performance or battery life (as Liquid Glass showed us) but just the branding.

It's not a good point, it's an assumption based on elitism, just like your assumption that nobody is doing anything other than Snapchat or Instagram on their phones, or that they're only buying an iPhone because of the branding and not also the performance and battery life. In your head, what do you think the average iPhone user looks like? Are they drooling simpletons?

> Apple makes more money selling iPhone accessories than they make selling Macs. You look at the desktop market share in 2026 and it's very apparent that the Mac's regular upgrade cycle is driving Apple's sales, not direct competition: https://gs.statcounter.com/os-market-share/desktop/worldwide...

What point are you trying to make here? People like the iPhone, the iPhone makes a shitload of money, so therefore people who have Macs don't appreciate the hardware? Or what?

Also, StatCounter is not an accurate website:

https://daringfireball.net/2026/01/ios_26_adoption_rate_is_n...

https://daringfireball.net/2026/02/apple_releases_ios_26_ado...


Almost nobody is doing anything other than Snapchat or Instagram on their iPhones. That's the point, "the overwhelming volume of Apple sales" was the original claim and they're absolutely right. Compare every single Apple product on volume and you will not approach the volume of iPhones being sold. Even cult-classic product lines like the Mac cannot hold a candle in comparison to Airpods sales volume.

If the iPhone was a branded Android device, then sure, maybe this would be an elitist argument. But the iPhone is a proprietary platform with a locked-down browser, locked-down store, locked-down GPU drivers and OTA updates that decide how long your battery lasts. It is not elitist to point out that Apple customers by-and-large ignore these facts, it's the objective circumstances of the smartphone market.


iPhones are some sci-fi magic computers. It's incredible how powerful they are.

Most smartphones are.


Be that as it may, I can guarantee you with complete confidence that 90% of iPhone owners are not engaged in heavy workloads.

The overwhelming majority of people just don't notice.


> For example, I thought there was universal sentiment that apple silicon / M-series computers are pretty unmatched.

5 years ago, sure, but the x86 world has come a long way since Apple dumped Intel. I'd certainly take a 2026 Intel machine over something with an M1-M3.


I think the point was supposed to be default apps in an OS, similar to default search engine.. What I am missing is that OpenAI is in no way that default. Every OS, browser, etc should be able to find a more profitable default than sending someone to OpenAI.


Apple is one of the very few companies committed to (hardware) quality. They make sure their entry level models are very decent. You can't buy a apple product that is complete shite.

Yes, the software side is getting worse in recent years but is it at least slightly better than the competition for average consumers.

Plus being a tech monopolist they can offer a whole ecosystem of software and hardware that works great with each other. So the value proposition is greater than the sum of its parts.

That is the problem with OpenAI, they have only one thing. Google can bleed money all day long and they don't need to care because they have other profitable business ventures.

The way to make money with LLMs is to either be technically superior which only works short term until the competition catches up or create a monopoly. The second option is dead in the water with the advent of the Chinese models. I guess they can lobby to have them banned and create a cartel with their other US based competitors. Otherwise they are screwed. That is why they are allowing military use of their model now. They need that sweet government money to survive. Also they keep talking about AGI so the government gets scared about the Chinese reaching it first and supports them. Complete scam.


it's a very different world when you switch from an iphone to an android phone or vice versa. However, Claude.ai and chatgpt.com are not very different at all. If one has ads and the other does not, it's easy to switch.


>> Apple has offered products with little value over competitors

My Pixel dropped connections unexpectedly. The battery would barely last till end of day.

Apple hardware is simply better value for the money


There's this thing called power of defaults.

If a setting is default, if an app is presented on the front they'll continue to use it as it is. The crowd here always overestimates how competent/interested the general public are in these things.

99.9% (source: my life) of users never even open the second level of the settings app. 99% don't even open the settings app. They don't know how much they can even change or care.

iPhones auto surfacing airpods to pair with was not for convenience it was a necessity. People don't know how to pair with bluetooth. Now android does it as well.

There's a generation that grew up with appliances that accounted for their mistakes rather than failing. There's no need to learn or understand how something works.


Sure defaults are extremely powerful - but that's rather my point - where is the default that OpenAI controls?

Google, Apple, Samsung, Microsoft ( and various Chinese companies ) etc are largely are in control of defaults - via devices and browsers.

Perhaps in Github copilot ( via MS ) - but software developers are not typical consumers.

Perhaps Sam and johnnies new assistant thing will transform the market - but until that ships it's vapour ware.


Yes this was not relevant to the main topic of openai. I'm just responding to the statement made by the parent comment.


You’re comparing a single app with an entire ecosystem and app marketplace. Poor comparison.




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