History of Apple Inc./Disadvantages of closed hardware

Apple's closed system gave Apple a monopoly on hardware. This let Apple charge far more for its gear than it could have in a competitive market (some disagree -- see the apple overprcing myth). The closed model has other major advantages; Apple could make major changes to its designs, for instance.

But it also resulted in, possibly, smaller market share and correspondingly smaller incentives for suppliers to compete and improve their products. While Intel, AMD, and Cyrix competed to make cheaper and faster CPUs, Apple's sole CPU supplier, Motorola, produced mediocre products.

Notable platform lessons: supporting an integrated system is far easier than supporting a product of assembled parts from different vendors.