I’ve been thinking a lot more about yesterday’s thoughts, and it occurred to me I’ve maybe been thinking about it all wrong. I’ve been into computers since about 1986 when I gained control over a Commodore 64 at work. On that machine, I learned BASIC, and a while later bought my first computer, a Commodore Amiga 500. Got into programming on that even more, and dug the demo scene, though only as an observer, not a hacker. My first PC was home built from a friend’s spare parts, and I built every desktop pc I ever had after that, carefully picking out the best motherboard, CPU, memory and all components one by one. For me, using a computer has always meant programming, hacking, diving into the internals.
But the reality is, for most computer users these days, it’s not about that at all. Today, for most users, “computers” are in reality simply consumer entertainment devices. They simply let people connect to friends via email, IM, and various social networks, play some games, listen to music and watch videos. This is why the iPhone is so popular. It does all that wonderfully. This is why the iPad is so successful. This is why I never got the iPad. I kept looking at it as a computer. I couldn’t figure out how you could do anything productive on it. And it always made me laugh to see people hook up their little stands and keyboards to their iPads to try to pretend it was a real computer. But taken as a personal communication and entertainment device, and realizing that that is all most users want or care about, it makes total sense.
Virtually everything shown in yesterday’s presentation points in this same direction. iLife, the App Store, the new Mac Book Airs. It’s all about consumer devices. As I mentioned in a comment to yesterday’s post, a closed environment app store in that situation makes total sense.
What concerns me in this scenario though, is where does that leave serious computer users and programmers? There are no new Mac Book Pros, no new Mac desktop machines. The big item was the new Air, a lighter, smaller, more underpowered, understoraged, overpriced device, again ideal for consumer communication and entertainment. I guess the days of yearning for the faster CPU, bigger hard drive, and more memory are over. It’s all about weight, thickness, and battery life.
My view now is that maybe we’ll see a split in the OS, with a more walled garden app store-centric model optimized for MB Air type devices, kind of iOS on steroids, and another more full featured, full OS designed to run on some hopefully some new MB Pros with more horsepower, for the power users. Again, wild speculation.
I think you´re pretty right there, though i mean your conclusion, not the short part before it that contradicts with it =)
I mean your conclusion is that we´ll probably see this dual streams split going, so the pro/ designer/ developer market on one side and the consumer market on the other side.
Own targeted hardware and software for different usage needs.
I totally agree with that, its happening and will show even more boldly in the future.
What i see different is: I don´t think there´s a reason to worry that the pro machines and all that comes with them might go away. Reasonable worry: they might become more expensive as that becomes more of a “niche” thing. But they just can´t go away, cause, you know, all that consumable content has to be created by someone on something =)
Apple´s most recent presentation was labelled to be about the mac, but really, as you pointed out, it was about the consumer mac. I imagine Apple could go over to having even more target tailored presentations in the future, and likely one of those could then also be about the developer/designer/pro centric stuff and there they could unveil a new mac book pro etc.
Seems like the Mac is becoming an oversized Nintendo DS. Developers will need to be approved and use special hardware and software to write apps for it.
not all macs, but yeah, some of em.
Right now mostly the macbook air and more so the iPad of course.
The iMac will probably still be the in between device, usable and attractive for both “end consumer” aswell as “designer/ developer” groups, get more of the iPad stuff added on top though. The macbook pro and mac pro get the stuff brought over from the iOS devices added, too with the OS upgrade, but yeah, the parts, other functionality and pricing would over time automatically make consume focus oriented people opt for the other devices instead.
of course, as I’ve always said, the iPad is the only – and most ideal – computer my mum will ever need. She isn’t gonna accidentally click on the browser hidden behind iphoto while she’s trying to write an email and get confused why her half written email has disappeared. The same way you don’t have low-level access to the computer that controls the ABS in your car. And the serious developers? Well OSX is still built on a unix kernel, hack away! I doubt we’ll see a split OS, if anything the OS’s are converging. And we already saw recently a new batch of Mac Pros (12core) and MB Pros (i7).
It seems to me the Mac App Store is what the iOS App Store *should have been in the first place*. A place for Apple approved apps, those that are guaranteed (almost) to not crash, not have bugs, perform as they advertise etc. And for these apps Apple provides a very simple unified deliver/payment/upgrade process (in which they also happen to make a few buck. It’s a symbiotic relationship). Any apps outside of these, instead of being banned off the platform altogether (as on the iOS store), can be downloaded / bought through other means.
…and to give some context, i’m no fanboi http://memo.tv/search/node/rejected
I had largely the same initial reaction to that news as you, Keith. In talking with some co-workers I also realized the same thing: I am not the audience for this new store (for the most part). As a developer, I will always want to dig up crazy open source projects or tinker in amongst the guts of the OS. However, when I look at my parents, who got their first Mac last Christmas, this kind of thing would be perfect for them. My dad isn’t going to go look up MacUpdate.com to try to find an app that does something he wants. He’s either going to call me or go without. This could be a boon for developers who create great apps that some people will never know about because the current ecosystem isn’t set up to appeal to those people. Granted, I think Apple’s 30% in this environment is outrageous and should be more like 10%. I definitely think it will be challenging for developers to work outside of the system if they choose to (think indie music vs big record label), but I certainly don’t see Apple abandoning their core operating system tenants and hardware. After 4.5 years with an aging MacbookPro, I just bought a new 27″ iMac. It is a power-house! Flash CS5 runs like a dream on it, it has Parallels loaded with Windows 7, and when I get the chance to stretch my legs in Unity on it I’m sure it will blow me away. While it doesn’t get all the fancy press and “oohs and ahhs”, Apple won’t stop making their workhouse machines. When they do, it will be the end of them.
I think Microsoft has applied a similar kind of “simplication” to Windows over the years, trying to make it appeal more to non-tech people. Every time a Windows feature is obscured from view (such as making me click an extra time to go into my Program Files or Windows folders because “you might break something!”), I roll my eyes and mutter a curse at the non-savvy people who are the reason for that change. I’m sure there will be things in 10.7 that make me think the same thing, but I’ll work around it and get used to it.
As a side note on Apple’s influence, I attended a Windows Phone 7 developer event yesterday. For all the touting of how a WP7 is going to be “person-centric” and “revolutionary”, they have taken just about every cue for how to create an app ecosystem from Apple. Same membership price, same revenue share, same approval time and criteria, same types of advertising options, and a worse deal for people who want to make free apps (after the first 5 you release, you’ll pay $20 a pop for the privilege). The main thing Microsoft has going for it are the fantastic tools, which you’ve already created a couple of great posts on. It’ll be very interesting to see how it plays out.
Re-reading my post, I’d like to apologize for the number of sentences I ended with prepositions. My aforementioned parents would be ashamed.
hmmmm, I’m not sure if I got your point. You just reminds me one day I was in a plane sitting beside a couple of pilots who were just travelling as normal passengers (they both work for the same airline I guess) and then on the middle of a chat one of these pilots said to the other: “I don’t like this plane”, “in this model they have introduced a *&^%$ which controls the spoilers 100% electronically”, “this plane just rely too much on electronics” “ahh, I definitely prefer the boeing 737-700, all its controls are hydraulic from the cabin”, “it flies with no electricity in an emergency”… and at that moment I was so happy because of I was about to watch a movie that was at the cinema just the week before (that chat was quite interesting, by the way).
this is sad but… people don’t care about how things work, they just press buttons and they will complaint if any of the buttons doesn’t do what they want, the biggest problem is when there is no one to complaint at. that’s why Linux is out of the boxing ring from my point of view.
Apple products are just one thing “EXPENSIVE” and if it’s expensive it means it’s cool because people who look great buy them, please! pay attention in absolutely all the Apple advertisements. now, about the Apple Store, we are just the feeders of it.
I almost switch to Mac once and when I was at the door of the Apple shop I put my hands on my head and I said… “Ho my god, what the hell I’m doing?”… I love Windows! I mean, there are people making devices for it in any garage in china and Windows will still work, awesomeee!
Dude, I really like your articles, and the things your write but let me ask you something, what’s the biggest hobby you have?
I agree again.
Don’t forget that in Jan Apple usually does the next one and that’s when they usually roll out the bigger boyz toys.
The before xmas releases usually are smaller more affordable items like ipod,ipad,iphone, air since they have a better chance at selling a lot more of those instead of new mac pro’s.
iPad release date was around April, iPhone 4´s around june, the iMac in july and then the iPod touch update was in september if i remember halfway right.
Apple usually updates each device type once per year, but yeah, there isn´t something like a “expensive stuff early on in year, more affordable things before christmas”, its more mixed than that meanwhile.
I feel like since moving to the live web broadcast presentation format and having a big audience for sure either way, Apple seems to be more into doing more and more presentations for specific device types, as they get ready and they feel its time for it.
I wouldn´t wonder if we see another macbook pro/ mac pro update within the next couple of months and hey, then its iPad and iPhone update time again soon, too.
What we’re seeing here is not so much a bifurcation or simplification, though there is a lot of specialization going on, as it is a “hardening” of the OS. (I use the term OS in a general sense here, not just Apple’s OS.) Hot rodders, professionals, and consumers _do_ have different needs, but one thing they all need (if not want) is a safer environment that works better and easier. And I don’t just mean for individual users, but something that can be operated easily and safety in and around _others_.
If current computers were automobiles, they would be bare engines mounted on a frame with open drive shafts and levers and gears everywhere. And every one would be driving around on poorly designed roads with no guard rails and no requirements for brakes. Inside the cars you’d have a poorly demarcated area to sit and little stickers posted everywhere warning you not to stick a finger or foot in while in operation. Learning to operate them would involve a mixture of idiosyncratic training, both formal and informal, and indoctrination into various brand loyalties (Hmm, maybe cars aren’t so different in _that_ respect…) While this can be fun, and exciting (too exciting sometimes) it isn’t a good way to run a transportation infrastructure.
Now, having said that, I would be much more comfortable if more vendors, users, and even (shudder) government were involved. Leaving everything up to one high interested party, even one with Steve Job’s impeccably good taste (I say that only a trace of irony) is not a great idea. The problem is that rest of the industry has been too short-sided, too hung up on past practices, and just too unimaginative to keep up. I haven’t seen a thing in their reactions the last couple of years that shows me that they even have a glimmer of a clue as to why Apple is stomping them in quality and user experience.
Would that it were otherwise. Steve Jobs, and by extension Apple, may be an elitist control freak, but he/they makes excellent product that does what I want, mostly, and does it well.
I think competition is good, but I also think that quality is good.
I can see a parallel between Apple’s products and HiFi brand Bang & Olufsen. B&O products have always been stylish and expensive, but real HiFi enthusiasts get much better bang for the buck from other makes. I ditched Apple as a development platform when it took them over a year to update their JDK/JRE from v1.1.x to Java 2. That their products are becoming “consumer devices” seems even more likely given the announcement that support for Java is going to be dropped. All the trendy developers using Eclipse on a Macbook Pro are going to have to find another brand to be loyal to. They’ve just posted their best ever quarterly sales figures of $20billion, so the next question is, who are they going to acquire? Anyone for a hostile takeover of Adobe??!
Yes. It’s all about consumers.
They don’t want to go searchin for a bigger hard drive or a faster cpu. They just want a thing that works and that doesn’t bother them.
iPads are great.
Keith,
You should watch (or re-watch) the Jobs/Gates conference at D5. With regards to post PC computers – they use the analogy of cars to trucks. In early agrarian society all cars were trucks. They had no modern conveniences but were impressive multi-use workhorses nonetheless. Now, only one in a hundred vehicles is a truck. The vast majority of consumers only need, want or benefit from a car. A truck is harder and less satisfying to use for simple tasks. But trucks are very much still a crucial part of our modern infrastructure. The situation is not mutually exclusive. As truck drivers ourselves, we’re naturally uneasy. But I’d me more uneasy if my grandmother had to drive a truck to pick up her groceries.
Connor
I think I agree with what you are thinking.
Future OS will be targeting for greater user, visual, audio, touch and interactive experience.
Mobile consumer devices will also be getting complex, like longer battery life, lighter, touch screen, ya.
Cheers.
It’s all a matter of perspective I suppose. We use Imacs during trade show presentations because they actually attract attention simply by looking pretty.
People came up to us just to check out the shiny apple ware, talk about it and then stayed for our elevator pitch. We never managed to do that with regular laptops.
Im 16. Maybe its because of this that I see things differently.
Its all just evolving. Computers are starting to fit more purposes, to fit the audience, but that doesent mean they are dropping out stuff: they are not changing but evolving.
All of this is just being added on top, not taking the rest away. The Mac Appstore will be another option, a big one, but it wont kill by any means the rest of developers and open source projects. It will be a great alternative for a vast majority of users and it will dominate a great part of the market, but dont expect the Mac to become some “useless” device.
People! Dont be afraid of change! I wonder if Ill be too when I reach your age :/
This is what makes this industry so beautyful. The fact it is always evolving, it will never remain the same. By this I mean not jsut evolving “Microsoft Style”, just adding to what already exists, but rather trying new stuff. Doing new stuff.
I dont see why to be alarmed at all for that…
You should all have a look at this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9046oXrm7f8