Analysts pleased by Apple's decisions

Apple CEO Steve Jobs showed off many features of the new iPhone 4 and the company's iOS 4 on Monday at its Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC). The announcements and features led industry analysts to conclude that Apple is making some very wise decisions.

"Apple's claim to fame is making great technology accessible to the masses and they have done an amazing job with that," Van Baker, vice president of Industry Research at Gartner, told CNET. "They are making some really smart decisions."

Those decisions may give Apple the edge as its battle with Google over mobile market share continues to heat up. In fact, Monday's announcements convinced another analyst that Apple is fully prepared for this platform war.

At the D8 Conference, Steve Jobs said he didn't know that Apple was in a platform war with Microsoft in the 1980s and '90s, but that has clearly changed this time around.

"Someone certainly realized they are in a platform war now," said Michael Gartenberg, a partner at research firm, Altimeter Group. "Google is the competition now, for ads and the platform."

Google had a big week at the end of May, announcing a slew of new products and initiatives that could have stolen Apple's WWDC thunder, but Gartenberg said that didn't happen.

"Apple upped the game and put a lot of pressure on its competitors," Gartenberg said. "Android just doesn't seems as polished or complete as what Apple is offering."

Piper Jaffray senior research analyst Gene Munster said the combination of iPhone 4 and iOS 4 will see Apple continue to push itself above its competitors because they are giving consumers functionality that is typically associated with computers and not mobile phones.

"The gee-whiz feature of iPhone 4 is FaceTime (videochat), adding yet another feature which historically was tied to a personal computer," Munster wrote in a note to clients on Monday. "iPhone 4 also adds an HD video camera, iMovie for the iPhone, and the ability to run multiple apps at the same time, collectively creating an integrated experience that used to require multiple devices. The bottom line is the iPhone is taking unit and dollar share from other device categories."

It's that integration that has become key for Apple in the platform war with Google. By making the hardware, the operating system, and some of the key apps that go on the iPhone, Apple is able to influence every aspect of iPhone cycle, a point that was not lost on analysts on Monday.