Apple is quietly conquering the local small business sector

The company's products offer advantages such as longer battery life, seamless integration and compatibility with other software. And with finance and rental programmes, price is less of a barrier.

- By Lindsey Schutters

Small businesses are ditching the familiar for Apple's integrated ecosystem, driven not by brand loyalty, but by the calculus of downtime and the quiet promise of technology that just works.

After a month of living with the iOS 26 beta software program on the excellent iPhone 16e - Apple's previous newest phone - my conclusion is that user experience (UX) design still matters, artificial intelligence (AI) chatbots need work and phones should definitely not fold - but that's maybe just me.

What's not just a me thing, however, is the quiet revolution happening in South African small and medium enterprises (SMMEs). Linda van der Nest, chief commercial officer at iStore, is paid to watch technology adoption patterns, and she says she's witnessing something remarkable: SMMEs are switching to Mac, and it's not about showing off the logo at your local coffee spot. It's about the bottom line.

"There's no longer this fear that it won't be compatible [with business software]," Van der Nest explains to Daily Maverick. "What we're seeing is ease of use... you don't need an IT guy. There's a real cost of ownership benefit and significantly lower downtime."

When Van der Nest says lower downtime, she means battery life - which was the productivity silver bullet in the Apple Silicon revolution. For businesses operating on tight margins, this hits differently, and the true cost of technology becomes crystal clear. The shift Van der Nest describes isn't just a trend; it's a strategic business decision reflecting a move towards operational resilience of AI workloads and time away from a wall plug.

This local pattern is reinforced by global data, particularly among younger users who now dominate the emerging workforce. In the US, the under-35 demographic overwhelmingly prefers iPhones and Macs. This could partly be about brand loyalty or status, but it's also about an integrated ecosystem becoming a baseline expectation for productivity.