Preparation is underway at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, with workers busy slinging up a massive Apple banner heralding next week’s iPad 2 event.
Apple’s invite made no bones about the fact that the March 2nd event was all about the iPad 2, but the murals fronting the Yueba Buena conference center tend to foreshadow the content of the event pretty accurately. For example, the September 1st iPod event featured a guitar with an Apple logo.
So here’s the question: what do all of those colored dots foreshadow, given that this is an iPad 2 event? They could be touchpoints, but that would only seem to foreshadow the iPad 2 upping the previous generation’s display’s capacity for ten simultaneous touch points, which seems unlikely unless Apple envisions a rise in polydactylysm.
So what is it? The March 2nd invite does prominently feature an iPad, but says “Come see what 2011 will be the year of.” That means this is going to be about a lot more than the iPad 2 (which we know will be a modest update anyway). This is about what 2011 will hold for iOS.
Here’s my best guess: the dots represent nodes in the cloud, and on March 2nd, Apple’s finally going to unveil some of their cloud aspirations, starting with a radical overhaul of MobileMe.
What do you guys think? It’s a lot to take from a bunch of little dots, I know, but Apple never does anything without a reason. Those dots mean something. Leave us a comment with your best guess.
John Brownlee is a writer for Fast Company, and a contributing writer here at CoM. He has also written for Wired, Playboy, Boing Boing, Popular Mechanics, VentureBeat, and Gizmodo. He lives in Boston with his wife and two parakeets. You can follow him here on Twitter.
34 responses to “Why Apple’s March 2nd Event Mural Might Mean The Cloud Is On Its Way [Opinion]”
As long as it doesn’t mean that the iPAD will come in a rainbow of colors.
It seems you have connected the dots.
Or not.
1.) The last time they “UPDATED” MobileMe I lost my webstore and had to rebuild it!
2.) @ OStoMAC…”As long as it doesn’t mean that the iPAD will come in a rainbow of colors” HUH? Why not? Seems the damn things could use a bit of colour.
Not to be the spelling police, but isn’t it polydactylism?
Those look like the same color of dots Apple has been using to promote the iPods:
http://www.apple.com/ipod/
I think that since the dots look very much like those used to introduce the book “The Very Hungry Caterpiller” and that the apple in that book is the first type of fruit to be eaten by said caterpillar that this means Steve Jobs will be introduced by Eric Carle at the event, followed by them releasing a butterfly. I have several reliable sources in China to back this up in the supply chain.
I wouldn’t read into the dots too much. Not everything Apple does is a code.
That said, the remaining features of lala.com and the fact that many stores are reported out of Mobile Me boxes are stronger clues that something is up. And a lot of the rumors going around link into those missing features.
I think they will release a better idisk and gallery app, add in the streaming of itunes bought music (probably not the upload features from lala due to licensing) with a smaller fee streaming only ‘buy’ like lala had, all off the itunes web interface or a new app.
meld in iwork.com and perhaps some google docs like multi editor functions.
and lower the price. Either straight up or by creating tiers.
Oh and a new iweb ipad app for mobile blogging wouldn’t hurt either. Especially if it was HTML 5 based and they added some of the template fine tuning, search etc of folks like blogger and word press. They could silently release a Mac OS version in the MAS at the same time.
Shhhh don’t tell anyone about that.
Best part is that they are all being named after Celebs. I hear one of then a nice purple shade they are calling Bieber. The sparkly silver one is Gaga.
Purple one is for Bieber? SHUT YO MOUTH!
There is only one purple one — PRINCE!
Or maybe Grimace.
But Apple doesn’t sell low-end cheap stuff like McDonalds, so I’m going with Prince.
Considering the NC data center is going live this year and will be used for iTunes and MobileMe, I am hoping that the new iPad and iOS will provide support for iTunes in the cloud as well as MobileMe functionality for free. Easy file sharing via MobileMe and streaming iTunes content from the cloud would certainly be a strategic advantage for Apple.
Prince, who is Prince? Bieber is where it is.
I hear they are also going to make one that is pale white and sparkles in the sun. Call it the Twilight.
I think the “paintishness” of the dots has the same qualities as the iLife box. This could be forshadowing the whole iLife suite coming to iPad.
its simply the fingerprints of the rubber-pen used on ipads which are sold in many colours for those who have thick fingers and cant type on ipad keyboard – my hint! alexa from portugal
Well, they have stopped selling mobile me today, so maybe combined with the north carolina data centre coming online in spring, this could be it. A cloud based itunes and mobile me. And free mobile eat that. It makes sense if you think about it.
Interesting and useful post
The dots represent pixels. To the left of the Apple logo is the previous less dense display and to the right is the future is the very dense retina display due to the dots being very close together.
Not too sure what the don’t mean, they don’t necessarily have to mean anything. I hope they bring out new iWork. Why update iLife and just leave iWork?