Apple's new strategy

[Nimrad]

I've been thinking about what Apple will be doing next in its PC-department with this much focus on "post-PC"-devices lately. In my opinion Apple still thinks of iPad and iPhone as a peripheral to the Mac and not a successor. What will they do next? How will they "revolutionize"(to use Apple's words) their Macs?
I've boiled my hopes down to 3 points:

1. Apple bought Anobit for hundreds of millions. That's a LOT of money and one of the biggest investments Apple has made. What will they do with it for their desktops? My hopes are SUPER-fast SSDs in which they reserve for the OS only. Super-fast booting where they really take advantage of the strength that Apple has control over both software and hardware in which the competitors don't have that in the same way.

2. Retina displays. They did it for the iPad. They did it well in spite of what people thought of it being almost impossible to do.

3. iCloud. There's no doubt that Apple is investing enormous amounts of money into the cloud. Steve said that the PC is no longer the hub in which you sync your devices to. The hub is now the cloud in which you sync your devices and PCs up to the hub. In the future your phone, TV, iPad and PC will all know which episodes you've seen, how many pages you've read in your book etc etc. We're almost there now, but in the future there's more to come and I think it will be essential!


It all boils down to what they tried to do with OS X Lion. Take what made iOS so good and put it in OS X. They didn't do it extremely well, but the principles are still there. Fast booting and start-up for apps, hi-res screens and instant syncing.


My dream is a MacBook Air 11" with retina display, 4-5 GB SUPER fast SSD for the OS and 128GB SSD for storage. All in sync.

 

[miles01110]

In my opinion Apple still thinks of iPad and iPhone as a peripheral to the Mac and not a successor.

Well that is most certainly your opinion. Whether or not it fits well with reality is a different story. The iPhone and iPad make up the large majority of Apple's business, not the Mac.

 

[jasonvp]

The iPhone and iPad make up the large majority of Apple's business, not the Mac.

As we discussed in another thread elsewhere: new markets don't mean replacement markets. Just because the iPad/iPhone are helping Apple rake in bzillions, doesn't mean they're going to flush the Mac line up. It doesn't make sense to do so.

Do you expect Porsche to stop making their signature car: the 911? It'd be foolish to do so, wouldn't you say? In 2010 (2011 #s hard to come by), Porsche sold about 42K cars world-wide. Over half of those cars were made up of the Cayenne SUV (22K) and Panamera sedan (8K). The 911? It hit 7K units. Porsche saw a market they weren't in (SUVs and sedans) and jumped in, whole hog, with spectacular sales success.

But they haven't ignored their 911. Apple won't ignore its Mac.

jas

 

[miles01110]

Just because the iPad/iPhone are helping Apple rake in bzillions, doesn't mean they're going to flush the Mac line up. It doesn't make sense to do so.

Nobody said they were going to "flush" the Mac lineup. But it's clearly been relegated to a deserved second place behind the iOS line, and has been pretty much since they delayed Leopard for the iPhone's initial release.

 

[eawmp1]

Anobit was about protecting memory supply and intellectual property protection, nothing more.

 

[WhoisMedina]

Agree!!! If that Air comes out, I'll be extremely happy.

 

[jb1280]

In my opinion Apple still thinks of iPad and iPhone as a peripheral to the Mac and not a successor.

This is pretty much wrong.

Schiller last Wednesday: "Don't' let anyone ever tell you that you can't create on an iPad." These are standalone devices.

I think everybody is over-thinking this since the demotion of the Mac at WWDC. Whether it's an iOS device or an OS X device, everything now has a web browser, mail client, various other utility applications, iWork, and iLife. From Apple's perspective if you are looking for a computer between $199 and $829, there are iOS devices for you; if you are looking for a computer from $999 on up, there are OS X devices for you.

OS X is allowed to remain OS X, iOS is allowed to remain iOS, data syncs across iCloud, and like-functioning apps have similar UIs.

 

[snberk103]

Well that is most certainly your opinion. Whether or not it fits well with reality is a different story. The iPhone and iPad make up the large majority of Apple's business, not the Mac.

People still need to be able to create the content that they use their iOS devices to view.

One of the core Apple beliefs is that our tech devices should allow us to be creative... to merge the tech and the humanities (sorry, but I've just finished reading the Jobs bio.... even in print a bit of his RDF comes through).

Apple has never been about having any single product line make a profit - it's about combining different aspects to create a whole.

So - Macs are still necessary for people to create the content that they then buy iOS devices to use. You can create the content on the iOS devices.... but I think people and Apple will soon figure out that it is much easier to do so on a proper computer. Not because an iOS doesn't isn't capable... just that for heavy lifting people like having access to the complexities you get with a computer and that the iOS devices like to hide. imho, of course...