Apple Computer No More
Steve Jobs, CEO and Chairman of Apple, made a number of announcements at today's Macworld Expo in San Francisco, including the much-hyped and undeniably cool iPhone and the fulfillment of "iTV" which will now be called Apple TV. Both of these products have the potential for making billions of dollars for the company.
But I was just as interested in what Jobs didn't introduce during his keynote speech: no new software or hardware related to the Mac. In fact, at the end of his speech (as reported by Macworld), he announced that Apple Computer was dropping "Computer" from its name and would henceforth be known as Apple Inc.
I suppose this was inevitable, and it seems to confirm what has become increasingly obvious over the past couple of years: Apple see its future as being one that is much less dependent upon personal computers, at least in their traditional forms.
I'm sure we'll continue to see the Mac platform evolve and advance, but the really exciting stuff will be coming from the other divisions of Apple. I can't argue with the wisdom of this approach. Now that Macs use Intel chips and can run Windows, the hardware portion of the "personal computer" has is becoming more and more like a commodity, with one platform essentially indistinguishable from the other. (The operating systems engender a different debate.)
The big question is whether Apple is responding to some kind of sea change in consumer electronics...or if it's driving it (as it did with the iPod). I'd like to think it's the latter. Given Apple's historical creativity and competence, its vision could be great news for all of us, Mac users or not.
Heh. Serendipity at it's finest. As I was hitting post on my previous (and still admittedly lame) comment, my dad im'd me the following link
Maybe I do need to investigate Mac more carefully.
Or go buy some white lipstick.
Posted by: beth at January 9, 2007 02:56 PMStyle has never been near the top of my list of good reasons to choose a particular computer or operating system.
Usability, security, reliability...those are different issues entirely.
Posted by: Eric at January 9, 2007 03:11 PMi've been checking on the new iPhone on the apple website, and there's no doubt about it: that thing is stinkin bad.
Posted by: kyle at January 9, 2007 03:34 PMUm, that's good, right? (I can't keep up with the kids' lingo nowadays.)
It does make my relatively new Razr look old and busted, that's for sure.
Posted by: Eric at January 9, 2007 03:40 PMyeah, bad as in good. :-) have you watched the video of his keynote speech. it's pretty amazing.
Posted by: kyle at January 9, 2007 10:03 PMYeah, nobody ever thought of using a touchscreen on a cell phone before Steve Jobs. "
(For those of you new to the touchscreen phone because Steve decided to make release one, it's been standard on the Palm Treo for four or five years. For those of you new to the touchscreen...see US Robotics Palm Pilot.)
Posted by: Scott Chaffin at January 10, 2007 10:03 PMSo, the touchscreen is the only thing about this device that stands out in your mind...and it's cause for derision.
Interesting.
Posted by: Eric at January 10, 2007 10:16 PMI'm deriding Brother Jobs and his "nobody ever invented nothing before me" attitude, not the phone itself. The clip I saw of his introductory speech, he made it pretty clear that this was the first phone that didn't need a stylus, and the crowd was appropriately thunderstuck. I've not looked at the phone itself very closely, but from what I've read, it copies a lot of what already exists in many different smartphones.
Now, here's the subversive thing. I think getting OSX onto that itsy-bitsy platform is sheer coding genius. It'll be fun to see what apps port to it. My personal hope is that it could slip into a docking station with a full size keyboard and monitor, and be your only kom-pew-tor. I've been wanting that since the USR Palm Pilot. That would be revolutionary. That would get me to switch to a Macintosh.
Posted by: Scott Chaffin at January 11, 2007 08:14 AMYeah, I like that vision. And, I'm pretty sure that's the end game for Apple with the iPhone, although the vision is probably ahead of the technology (or, perhaps more appropriate, the economics) at this point.
Posted by: Eric at January 11, 2007 08:47 AMAbout the publisher
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I suspect it's really more that they wanted to grab up the name before Gwenneth Paltrow thought of it.
(Ok, that looks lamer than it sounded in my head. But, well, it's just that kind of day. And really, I don't have a whole lot else to give you on the Apple thing. I mean, I like 'em, but I never was an adopter...I just kinda admired them from afar, much like I admired those kids in high school who had the guts to dress goth - I thought it looked cool, but could never bring myself to go there personally.)
Posted by: beth at January 9, 2007 02:53 PM