Apple’s Convergence

Nothing big or earth-shaking here. Just (un)common sense, if you think about it. Apple has always been about cutting-edge technology, but for the purpose of creating the perfect product with the perfect human interface. It (almost) never goes out the door until it is absolutely perfect (at the time it was created).

This is why, after so long a time, Apple’s computers and iPods are becoming mainstream stuff and gathering ever increasing marketshare.

Which means that now, more and more people are able to predict where Apple’s products are going, and be pretty much on the nose about what is coming in the next keynote.

If you noticed, there was a lot of press about all the new iPods and the iPhone, and all of it rumors, to be sure. And most of it was spot-on accurate.

So? What is the reason for this? Are people, notably journalists, are becoming smarter? Not likely. It has to do more with product cycles, you see.

When any product is within its product life cycle, incremental improvements are predictable – smaller size, longer battery life, larger drives or solidstate memory, etc. Features such as better screen resolution and software improvements also trickle-down to cheaper models as well.

Apple seems to be well within this normal phase of its most excellent products, just as most any company would (like to) be.

But, since Apple also has one of the largest, best financed R&D divisions of any company, this sudden gift of prediction we all have gotten will be of little use in prognosticating completely new products to come.

We all have our favorite future toys, don’t we? To a large extent, some of us got a few of them today – a wide screen iPod with WiFi, and a video Nano. Sweet.

The rest of us have to wait a while, before there comes a small Mac Touch Tablet, or a wireless AppleTV/Mac mini broadcasting content to all our monitors and televisions.

I have wondered aloud on this forum before about a solid state, driveless MacBook. That future may be closer than we think.

I also wonder when there will only be one kind of Mac – one that replaces both the desktop and the laptop both with computing power and portability. Time will tell. Such new products are new directions, and have little to do with today’s cutting edge, world-class Apple products, just revealed this morning.

Comments?

Regards,
Roger Born