Who else is doing what they're doing? No other consumer hardware company goes top-to-bottom from the software to the chip, and no other company has such a cohesive ecosystem. Google EOLs a product once a week, Microsoft is making some nice stuff these days, but is nowhere near the same experience ("Windows is like a bundle of drivers", as in the article).

There is value to being prescriptive over their platform. It gives them skin in the game to make things good; they are much less willing to just blame a vendor.