There’s plenty of evidence to suggest that Apple intends to replace the whole cable TV industry with Internet-delivered subscription television. But the best predictor is the fact that replacing broken content consumption is just what Apple does.
Apple will kill cable TV. Here’s how.
The “CEO of the Decade” is no longer CEO.
After the initial shock, a general impulse seems to have seized commenters, which is to reassure everyone that everything will be OK.
“Apple will do amazingly well without Steve Jobs,” says Slate’s Farhad Manjoo.
PC World‘s Tony Bradley says we shouldn’t panic, because “Apple Is Still Apple.”
“Apple will continue to shine without Jobs at the helm,” says Seeking Alpha‘s Carl Howe.
Why? Because Apple “is more than Steve Jobs,” according to Christina Rexrode of the Associated Press.
All these headlines are technically true, but add up to wishful thinking that masks the larger truth. Yes, Apple is more than Steve Jobs.” But Apple without Steve Jobs is less than Apple with him. A lot less.
HP announced this week that it would spin off its PC division as a separate company and terminate its Palm hardware business. The software platform that runs Palm phones and tablets may be licensed in the same way that Android is. But HP is getting out of the PC and mobile computing hardware racket.
How did the industry’s number-one PC maker, and long-time leader in mobile computing come to the decision to exit those businesses?
Did Apple kill HP’s PC, phone and tablet businesses?
The answer is: What, are you kidding?
Most of Apple’s money comes from recently invented gadgets. More than two-thirds of Apple’s revenue comes from product types that didn’t even exist five years ago (iPhone and iPad). And 78% of Apple’s income is made by products unimaginable just ten years ago (throw in iPod and iTunes).
That means, in order to stay on the same growth curve in the current decade, Apple will have to invent product categories as new as the iPod, iPhone and iPad were, right?
Wrong.
The new products were part of a killer strategy Apple came up with in 1997. Apple will dominate the future by sticking to the strategy, not by trying to invent more product categories.
Apple is mixed up in all kinds of patent issues. As a result, the company has been accused of unfairly trying to kill Google’s Android platform, and of being a “patent troll.”
But such criticism is misplaced. First, the accusations are false. Second, the real blame should be reserved for the US Congress, which has the power to fix our broken patent system, but year after year fails to do so.
A casual observer might be forgiven for thinking that to Apple, Google is Enemy #1. Apple’s most profitable (and therefore important) businesses center on the iPhone and iPad. The most serious competitors in both these product categories run on Google’s Android platform.
The belief that Google is the enemy makes intuitive sense on two counts. First, when you, the gadget-happy user, chooses a device, you may consider an iPhone or an Android device side-by-side. Clearly, you’re choosing between them, and Apple and Google are competing against each other for your business. Likewise for a tablet.
Second, we’ve all been trained to think of technology platforms as the main battlefield for industry control and dominance. Long-time Apple fans still feel the burn of the Windows-Mac wars, which in fact continue to this day.
But this user perspective masks the business reality, which is that there is far less head-to-head competition between Apple and Google than you might think.
I’ve been in denial for a while, but it hit me so hard yesterday that I finally have to admit it: I’m an Apple fanboy. Once you hear my story, you’ll agree that if it can happen to me, it can happen to anyone.
Look around in Google’s new social network, Google+. You’ll see Apple design DNA everywhere. The clean, white space. The knowing and careful attention to typography type, shade and spacing. The icons are beautiful in a simple, balanced, Apple kind of way.
The coolest feature on the whole site, the “circle editor,” was in fact designed primarily by the same guy who was a lead designer on the original Macintosh.
Google+ presents itself as a social network that competes with Facebook. But once you use it, you realize that it’s an uber-communication device that can replace all forms of online communication, from blogging and micro-blogging to chatting, texting and e-mail. Talk about thinking different.
Google also took a page from the Apple playbook about entering late into a market that’s mature, but seriously flawed, and succeeding in that market by fixing what’s broken on the products of competitors. Think cell phones. When Apple announced its entry into the handset market in 2007, I thought it was too late for them to catch up to the dominant players, including Nokia, Palm, RIM and others. Apple caught up with and clobbered these former leaders by identifying what was seriously flawed with their products and making a product without those flaws. And this is exactly what Google is doing with Google+.
It’s clear that after many fits and starts, Google has finally built an awesome social network, in part by learning from Apple.
But what can Apple learn from Google+?
Remember the old “killer app” concept? The idea is that an application becomes so desirable that it guarantees massive sales of the hardware platform it runs on.
The Wikipedia has the best definition I’ve seen: A killer app is “any computer program that is so necessary or desirable that it proves the core value of some larger technology, such as computer hardware, gaming console, software, or an operating system. A killer app can substantially increase sales of the platform on which it runs.”
The best examples are VisiCalc on the Apple II and Lotus 1-2-3 for the IBM PC. Don’t laugh. Without those early “killer apps,” you may never have even heard of the Mac or Windows. (“Cult of Commodore,” anyone?)
Right now, everyone thinks the iPad is successful, and it is. But the number of iPad users sill pales in comparison with, say, the number of Windows users or the number of Facebook users (each boasting well over half a billion users). As much as we love our iPads, we must admit that so far the tablet is an optional toy for rich young people. The iPad dominates tablets, but tablets are on the fringe. The iPad, and the tablet, have not yet found their “killer app.”
But they will. And soon. Both Google and Facebook are both about to release their first-ever iPad apps for social networking. And I think the experience will be so compelling that it will drive millions of new users to get iPads, just for social networking.
The iPhone turned 4 this week. And in that short amount of time, Apple’s smartphone has made a huge impact on the world as we know it. In fact, the iPhone is probably the most influential consumer electronics product ever made.
Here are the 12 ways iPhone has changed the world in only four years.
One of the design geniuses behind the original Macintosh software now works at Google, and led the team responsible for interaction design and implementation of the Google+ circle editor, according to a public post on — what else? — Google+.
Andy Hertzfeld “conceived, designed and implemented a compelling prototype for it almost single-handedly, and then wrote a fair percentage of the production javascript code with lots of help” from other Google engineers.
Hertzfeld’s post is meant to spread the credit around. But the truth is that the “circle editor” is the single coolest thing in Google+.
(Photo courtesy of the Computer History Museum)
The iPad is awesome. I love my iPad 2. I think it’s the single greatest mobile device ever sold. There’s just one problem: The iPad is a dandy fancy boy.
The iPad is for indoor use only, for the most part. Some of us want to go outside and take our iPads with us.
Apple needs to give its millions of users the option to fully integrate the iPad into their lives by making it safe for outdoor use.
Apple’s iOS is more profitable than Microsoft Windows. It has enabled Apple to sell more smartphone handsets than Nokia. And the tablet that runs iOS is responsible for 100% of the web traffic generated by tablets in Japan.
The iOS is already successful beyond all the predictions. But what’s really fascinating is that the platform is just barely getting started. The iOS is increasingly dominating mobile computing, just as mobile computing is taking over mainstream computing.
Here’s how Apple’s iOS will take over the world.
(Image courtesy of five-G)
You’ve no doubt seen this post suggesting that Apple could use its $70 billion in cash to buy the entire mobile phone industry. The idea is worth a chuckle, but buying the phone handset industry is neither desirable nor possible. Apple doesn’t want to sell Nokia phones, and regulators wouldn’t let the company buy, then close, all its competition.
No, instead Apple should use its billions to take over Hollywood.
Microsoft has been hawking pen-based tablets since 1991, when it first launched Windows for Pen Computing, a version of Windows with a pen interface layer. In 2002, the company introduced Windows XP Tablet PC Edition.
Although the Tablet PC has won a few fans over the years, Microsoft’s whole pen initiative didn’t succeed like Bill Gates always wanted it to. In fact, Microsoft’s approach to pen tablets is very much a product of Gates’ personal vision for how mobile computers should work. He’s always envisioned tablets that use a combination of handwriting recognition and voice recognition to replace the functionality of the keyboard and mouse.
The strength of Microsoft’s belief in this vision is pretty astounding, enabling the company to continue to support and promote the idea for 20 years without ever having what you might call a runaway success.
Gates was right about one thing: The functionality of keyboard and mouse would be replaced on tablets in a big way. And that’s starting to happen, thanks mainly to the iPad.
He was also right about predicting the widespread use of pens or styli on tablets. No, really!
We Apple watchers are forever reading whatever tea leaves are available to divine Apple’s intentions, vision and plans for the future. This is increasingly important because Apple’s products are not only growing across the board in market share, but those products are arguably the most influential in shaping the direction of the entire industry.
Steve Jobs’ presentation to the Cupertino City Council this week looked like a company CEO requesting approval for a construction project. But for Apple watchers, it was Christmas.
In Apple’s breathtaking plans for a spectacular new campus was revealed everything you really need to know about Apple – and the Apple-dominated future of consumer technology.
Here’s what Apple’s plans to build a giant spaceship campus tell us.
Evernote launched today a free new app designed entirely around the iPad 2’s Smart Cover. It’s called Evernote Peek.
The app is designed for learning and memorization, and works like flash cards. You point the app at some content in your Evernote account that you’d like to learn. Then the Smart Cover magic happens. Just lift up the first segment of the cover to see the question. Try to remember it, and lift up the next segment to see the answer. To move to the next question, just close the cover.
Evernote also gives you hints on how to best create notes to learn with the app. Brilliant.
I’ve been asking for four years who would be first to ship the future of computing, a real desktop tablet: Apple, Microsoft or Google?
The WIMP (windows, icons, menus and pointing devices) interface you’re using right now was invented during the Nixon administration. It’s old.
With the incredible success of the iPad, the world is definitely ready for the next evolutionary leap into the future, which will of course be desktop touch tablets. Google and Microsoft have already revealed how they’ll make their transitions. Yet Apple has revealed nothing. Will tomorrow be the day?
Apple’s iCloud service, expected to be unveiled next week, completes a perfect storm of features that could accelerate Apple’s growing dominance of computing and seriously undermine Google’s cloud strategy.
(Picture courtesy of FreakingNews.com)
Windows 7 was rude enough to crash catastrophically Friday, an hour before a column deadline. After 45 minutes of hopeful auto-repair, an error message unceremoniously notified me that, no, nothing will be repaired automatically today. “Would you like to shut down?” Um, no, I wouldn’t.
The only solution was to reformat the disk and rebuild the system — a procedure I’ve done maybe 50 times since first installing Windows 3.1 in the early 90s.
I’m thankful for Carbonite. As of this writing Tuesday, the online backup servive has been restoring my 172 gigabytes of data since Friday. So far it’s 22 percent done. I should be all restored up by July.
Sigh.
The failure took my column with it, of course. I had to re-write it on my iPad.
Which got me thinking about the future of Windows, a future looks bleak from the perspective of turning to an incredibly stable $500 appliance while my $2,000 PC restores itself after yet another crash.
The new “Apple Store 2.0” concept improves retail stores to make life better for customers. Apple bolted customized iPads to the tables next to products so you can get information, comparison shop, and even get help from a live human. Hmmm. Using iPads to improve stores. Great idea!
Now how about fixing the iPad App Store!
Don’t get me wrong. The current App Store is better than others in the industry. But so were Apple’s retail stores. Apple still improved those.
The biggest iPad App Store flaws fall into three categories. First, apps are not as “discoverable” as they should be. Second, the App Store seems overly optimized for bringing in revenue for Apple at the expense of user convenience. And third, arbitrary annoyances around downloading apps make the experience less appealing than it should be.
Rumors are circulating about a new design feature in the upcoming iPhone 5: An edge-to-edge screen.
The scuttlebutt originated a couple of months ago with a post on iDealsChina, and has been re-enforced by the appearance of a case for such a design on AliBaba, a disreputable online clearinghouse for buying cheap crap from China.
It all sounds pretty shady, but these kinds of sources predicted other Apple products in the past. Even more compelling is that the Wall Street Journal claims a source that has seen a prototype of such a design.
The rumor is either true or false. Who knows? Regardless, an edge-to-edge screen makes sense. If it’s possible to engineer, it’s likely to be built.
Here’s why: There is a fundamental tension in mobile design between minimum case size and maximum screen real estate. For the overall size of the phone or tablet: the smaller, the better. For the size of the screen: the bigger, the better.
Something’s gotta give.
Google announced this week the June 15 launch of its shiny new Chromebook product. People are comparing it to the Apple iPad, with some even saying the iPad doesn’t stand a chance.
The Chromebook is a laptop designed to run only browser-based applications. The idea is that nothing resides on the device. Everything is in the cloud. The Chromebook is cheap, gets great battery life, and because data resides in the cloud, idiot users can’t screw up.
Google co-founder Sergey Brin said that with PCs, “the complexity of managing your computer is really torturing users… It’s a flawed model fundamentally.”
True enough. What you didn’t hear anywhere in the Google announcement is the dreaded “i” word.
The iPad has already solved the problem for consumers that Brin talked about. And that’s the biggest reason Chromebook will fail.
If you can imagine an iPad the size of Apple’s largest iMac, with the iOS multi-touch interface plus the power of OS X, then you can imagine the next generation of computing.
You’ll use it tilted at an angle on your desk like a drafting table. Or, you’ll tilt it up for TV or presentations, or flat for using it as a table. Or you’ll use it as a coffee table or a kitchen counter top. The point is: You’ll use it.
Apple has a gazillion patents for their version of this technology. Microsoft has already promised a consumer version of Surface. The third generation of desktop computing (after command line and GUI generations) is coming.
But Google has already announced the operating system for their giant desktop multi-touch PC of the future.
My wife and I sat down at a nice restaurant last week. Our table was right next to a larger party of four adults and two young children — both girls under the age of 7 years old or so.
Each of the girls had her own iPad, and each iPad had some high-end noise-cancellation headphones plugged in. One girl was engrossed in a children’s movie, and the other was enjoying a series of apps designed for kids.
So of course I whipped out MY iPad and blogged about it.
Granted, this scene took place in Silicon Valley, where there’s no such thing as an inappropriate social context for consumer technology and, in fact, in the very town where Steve Wozniak lives (Los Gatos). Still, it was a remarkable scene, and one that will be repeated across the nation as the iPad phenomenon spreads.
Letting kids use or own iPads is controversial. Parents, teachers and others aren’t so sure about letting kids get sucked into yet another electronic diversion. Pilot programs at a few schools around the country to experiment with iPad-based learning tools are often met with criticism by parents and teachers alike.
Everybody’s asking: Are iPads healthy for children?
I’m here to tell you: That’s the wrong question.
