Despite its continued conflict with the EU government over its tax arrangements, Apple appears optimistic about its future. The company has created a cult following of consumers who are intensely loyal to Apple products. Apple’s products are meant to offer superior solutions to those of competitors. In one of Apple’s newest offerings, the company is taking its forays in the music industry further. For instance, Apple acquired Beats Electronics for

$3 billion. Beats Electronics is the company behind the popular Beats by Dre headphones and other co-branded electronics featuring Beats speaker systems, such as laptops. This purchase comes after Apple launched iCloud, a service enabling consumers to create and listen to their music collections without having to upload individual songs. While Google and Amazon offer similar music storage services, Apple has more songs at its disposal with iTunes and its record label agreements. In 2015 Apple began selling the Apple Watch, a wearable computing device that functions as an extension of the iPhone. Wearable devices, often called “smartwatches,” seem to be the new direction in innovation. Many of Apple’s competitors, like Samsung and companies targeting fitness enthusiasts, have extensive lines of wearable devices that sync with various operating systems and mobile platforms. Apple is designing products to continue expanding its customer base and remain relevant in the industry. Seizing on these opportunities can increase Apple’s share of the smartphone, smartwatch, and tablet consumer electronics markets.

Apple has its share of threats. It constantly faces lawsuits from various competitors over alleged intellectual property violations. Additionally, although Apple’s aggressive stance helped protect its intellectual property, its tight hold over its products and secrets could be disadvantageous as well. Google, for instance, has a more open-source approach.

It has shown great support for the open-source movement, which advocates opening software and software codes in order to secure more input from outside sources. Although this openness increases the risks of intellectual property theft, it allows for innovation to occur more rapidly because of additional collaboration. This software strategy has helped Google compete with Apple; Android phones hold a nearly equal market share with Apple’s iPhones and surpass Apple iPhones in certain countries. Apple may eventually need to reexamine whether its closed system is the best way to compete.......

Questions:-

1. Explain how Apple’s philosophy and organizational culture have impacted how it handles ethical decisions.
2. Why is Apple’s industry so competitive and how could this affect the ethical risks in Apple’s operations?
3. How do you think Apple has handled the various ethical issues that it has faced in the past?