Having good information system is an essential aspect in evaluating a company’s goals and market standing. By understanding and improving its strategies in aligning itself to the dynamic trends and changes occurring in the market place, a company will be able to maximize the value and benefits of information as an important asset in gaining competitive advantage over other industries of its kind. Information is a useful tool in understanding the need of clients or customers and other sources. It enables a company to achieve its goals and expectations based on market trends, product development and its service capabilities. Information enables us to make well-informed decisions in doing the right thing and taking the right direction.
Apple, according to Bulik (2008) has its advantage over other companies due to its commitment to innovation. During its first ventures in emerging with Apple computers, the company rose to success. However with power struggles among its executives and its failure to keep with market demands, it lose its competitive edge. In 1998, having newly purchased the company, Next Inc. (Linzmayer, 2004), Apple hit the market with its new innovation, the iMac transforming the Apple company’s position in the market. As Apple came up with new and better products, such as the iPod and iTunes, Apple was named and exemplified as the best company with its innovation and breakthroughs in an increasingly competitive market world wide. Apple has learnt from its past experiences of success and failure. By evaluating and realigning its strategies to meet specific needs of consumers, Apple now has become a giant producer of innovative products and services. Thus, Apple is still committed to its vision of “bringing the best personal computing experience to students, educators, creative professionals and consumers around the world through its innovative hardware, software and Internet offerings” (Apple, Inc., 2012).
The development of Information technology (IT) has greatly changed how businesses operate. Existing organization cultures and implementation of business strategies may have influence on the use of Information Technology in the company however the influence of IT on organizations has greater impact. IT significantly contributes to identifying effective strategic options for creating better opportunities and addressing issues of businesses. IT enables managers to gain better insight into the developments of their business operations in a wider environment.
For years, Apple’s success has remained unsurpassed despite the emergence of other competitive brands in the market. Like other companies, Apple has also faced issues however the business strategy of the company has much to do with information technology. With the use of information, it knows how to respond and approach various issues and situations. Interacting with customers is greatly valuable for Apple. Information technology provides the company more cost effective ways of bringing diverse customers closer from around the world. The feedback on experiences and expectations from customers are important information in keeping Apple above the rest of its competitors. The company has equally benefitted from IT’s contribution to information flow among them, their customers and suppliers and how it has provided faster developments of more open and innovative cultures in launching their products and generating sales (Chaffey & Wood, 2005).
On iOS, the two main database storages used by developers are Core Data and SQLite. These technologies have their advantages and disadvantages depending on the amount and type of data you need to store and manage. Core Data is a model-layer framework for loading and saving data as well as working with data while it is in memory of the device. The most significant aspect that Core Data provides is object graph management. Core Data is a very flexible technology with few components and simple setup. These components when put together make up the Core Data Stack comprising of two main parts. The first part is the Object Graph Management where the application’s model layer is found. Each managed object is tied to their respective context. Therefore, each managed object knows its context while each context knows the object it is managing. The second part of the stack is where persistency occurs. In this part, Core Data reads and writes from and to the file system. There is this so-called persistent store coordinator assigned to a particular persistent store. This store interacts with the SQLite database in the file system.
Meanwhile, SQLite3 is version 3 of SQLite’s SQL-based relational database management system (RDMS), specially selected by Apple to provide local data storage on their mobile products. SQLite is currently the most widely-used database worldwide. It is popularly used because of its open source code, low resource footprint. Unlike most Database Management Systems (DBMS), it does not rely on any installed services (Eggert & Florian, 2015). If you intend to work with more data along with large notes and other attributes, loading all these amount of data in your device’s memory, a good option would be to use SQLite. Using core data is another option but with simple data having different attributes would produce some conflicts in the system. Core data is a good choice if data is not a read-only and if user data needed to be synced across other devices.
Although Core data has its complexities, the advantages of Core Data is that: 1)It can store data in it’s own Binary, or SQLite storage format, 2) It can serialize objects, 3) It works at a much higher level than using SQLite directly, and 4) As long as it is not a RDBMS data can actually be stored directly Apple, 2006). Using the right storage memory depends on what needs to be done or executed. Core Data is the optimal method available. It is able to manage a potentially very large graph of objects and allowing an application to work with a graph that can not entirely fit into memory by faulting objects in and out of memory when needed. Core Data also manages constraints on properties and relationships and maintains reference integrity by keeping links consistent as they go forward and backward while being added or removed to and from a relationship. Interestingly, iCloud is integrated with Core Data. iCloud is a cloud service for conveniently managing data from any location. Instructions are simply provided for Core Data to create an iCloud-enabled persistent store. Core Data takes care of keeping your apps updated and informing users if their data containers need to be changed by posting notifications (Apple Inc., 2014).
References
Apple Inc. (2006). Developing With Core Data. Retrieved from http://developer.apple.com/macosx/coredata.html
Apple Inc. (2012). www.apple.com.
Apple Inc. (2015). iCloud Programming Guide for Core Data. Retrieved from https://developer.apple.com/library/ios/documentation/DataManagement/Conceptual/UsingCoreDataWithiCloudPG/Introduction/Introduction.html
Bulik, B. S. (June 2008). Apple’s iPhone steals marketing thunder from iPod . Advertising Age, p.4-55, Retrieved on November 30, 2009.
Chaffey, D., & Wood, S. (2005). Business Information Management, Improving Performance Using Information Systems. London: Financial Times/Prentice Hall.
Eggert, D. & Florian, K. (2015 December). Core Data. Create Space Independent Publishing Platform.
Linzmayer, O. (2004). Apple Confidential 2.0: The Definitive History of the World’s Most Colorful Company. San Francisco, California: No Starch Press.
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