Apple is slipping back into it’s me-too hardware niche position. That’s why Apple is pushing this big brother, services approach.
Help me out here... Apple is fundamentally a "system" manufacturer -- integrated hardware and software that are designed to work together as a (largely closed) system. Apple makes their money from the hardware aspect. The software "comes with the hardware", which is why you can't find successful Mac clones (yeah, I know about Hackintoshes).
So what is all this about a "big brother, services approach"? That sounds more like the direction Microsoft is taking, "Windows As A Service" and playing footsie with the NSA... (*cough*) not that there's anything wrong with that (*cough*).