Think buying all news apps is a pain? Try buying a new car. For years, the switching costs involved in changing from one handset to another was little more than an hour’s wait — you know, for that painfully slow contact transfer procedure to finish up over Bluetooth. Phones made calls, sent texts, and if you were lucky, treated users to a game of Snake. Today, things are far different. The ecosystem war isn’t a new one. I’ve long since argued that Apple’s greatest weapon was its ability to foresee the value of entrenchment long before its primary rivals. Buying an iPhone isn’t just buying a cellular device from a company in Cupertino; it’s buying into an entire ecosystem —



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