I hadn’t seen it until just yesterday, but this video from 1997 is perhaps my favourite Steve Jobs video ever. It is the most casual, and shows him thinking on his feet, answering some tricky questions with perfect answers. What was striking about it, though, is how much everything he talks about lines up with what Apple has actually done since 1997. I wasn’t sure what Rhapsody was, but it was an operating system Apple acquired when it bought NeXT, and it became the initial foundation for OS X. This video was filmed about 1 year after acquiring Rhapsody, and 1 year before announcing OS X. Aside from what Steve says about embracing “Apple Clone makers” (i.e. generic mac hardware made by companies other than Apple), everything was spot-on. His enthusiasm for “connectedness” cannot be overstated.
At one point he talked about how he had computers Apple, at NeXT, at Pixar, and at home. He said he could walk up to any one of them and login, and all his files and media would appear (from the network) as if they were local. He said that in 7 years of using that system he never once backed up his computer, and he never once lost any data — because there were server guys taking care of all that for him. The user experience was fantastic, and he really wished everyone could have that experience with their own computers, not just in a big corporate environment.
I think he might finally achieve that with iCloud. It would definitely explain the need for a super-huge mega-data-warehouse.
Your files could be accessed on your iPhone, iPad, home Mac, and work Mac, all without having to manage anything; no syncing process. It would make the MacBook Air’s measly 64GB of storage infinitely expandable without upgrading; you store it all in the cloud. More importantly, it means Apple wouldn’t have to keep upping the (expensive) local storage on their iOS devices. As long as you have a network connection, you only need a fast local cache, not a fast local disk.
Apple could (finally) start selling iOS devices for much cheaper. Sure, they’ll load apps a little slower, but they’ll be waaay cheaper. Maybe 50% cheaper. The pro versions can still have large local disks, but the iPhone mini or nano won’t need to. It also means your Apple TV could automatically hook into and display all your media, from wherever you are.
We’re not just talking about files, though…
There’s talk that any apps you’ve purchased through the AppStore will also automatically load up. I assume that their icons would appear, and if you attempted to launch them, they would download the entire app, and open it. Then, when you logout, all your files and apps are wiped from that computer (if it is a public computer).
Hotel chains could buy iMacs for every room, and when you sit down and login, everything you need is right there waiting for you. Schools could buy loads of iPads and distribute them to students each day. All their files would always be there, even if it was a different iPad each day.
A lot of people I know are conflicted; should I buy an iMac or Mac Pro and sacrifice portability for performance, or should I get a Mac Mini + MacBook Air and have a bit of both, or should I just get a MacBook Pro, or ??? If you could login to your iCloud account and always have all your data available, then you could have a MacPro at work and a MacPro at home, and always have all your stuff in a high performance environment. Problem solved, and non-portable Mac sales skyrocket.
Will portable Mac sales suffer? A bit, but that’s ok. For one thing, non-portable Macs have higher profit margins. For another, people who want true portability will always want true portability. Lastly, people who need to work offline or in disconnected areas will always need portables with big fast local disks.
Ok, enough vision stuff. On to the predictions:
What do I think we’ll actually get?
OS X Lion
- FaceTime 1.5
- Mac AppStore 1.5
- MediaStream
- all the other stuff we already know about: launchpad, mission control, autosave, autoresume, quick shutdown/startup
- There’s been lots of debate & fury over it being download-only. I say, don’t worry. I’m sure you can buy a copy on disc, BUT YOU WON’T NEED TO. You’ll download it via the Mac AppStore, and it will ask you where it should create a partition to store itself. That partition could be on your internal disc, an external, or even a USB thumbdrive. If you ever need to restore or do a fresh install, you can do it using that partition. If you accidentally delete the partition, you can re-download Lion from the Mac AppStore for free at any time. Dell has been giving its customers Windows on a recovery partition for years, often not giving the user any Windows disc. I’m sure Apple can make it work, and make it work better.
iOS 5
- revamped notifications
- deep twitter integration
- much of iTunes functionality is moved into iCloud, making iTunes a much smaller app again (finally)
iCloud
- music in the cloud (only music purchased through iTunes) that does not require uploading
- Smart SyncLists (like smart playlists, for auto-syncing certain files with certain devices)
- free if you’re a student (get them hooked with a free product, charge them later when they graduate). Affordable for everyone else (less than $10/month). Includes not only secure storage, but free realtime backups, and streaming media. If you’re not a student, it will cost about $50/year, or will be free for 2 years if you purchase OS X Lion for $129.
What do I *hope* we’ll get (but don’t expect)?
- universal login & syncing mentioned above (it seems huge enough to be part of OS11, not an update to OS X)
- control your Mac from your iPad, and when you do, all apps open in full-screen mode, and Launchpad replaces the dock (this is why Lion supports multiple simultaneous users
- you can be using your Mac while your partner is also using it, through his/her iPad). This could potentially drive sales of both iPads AND non-portable high performance Macs.
- GameCenter (LameCenter?) updates
- extensive voice control through a partnership with Nuance
- a great web API for iCloud (if HTML5 really is a first-class citizen on iOS, this could happen)
- continue using Google Maps, but overlay custom data from acquisitions of poly9 & placebase
- MobileMe dies OR gets “Music” and “Videos” tabs, or a “Media” tab.
- CloudGenius could inject tracks i don’t own into my stream, allowing me to 1-click buy them after hearing them once.
- Steve said no new hardware, but he didn’t say no refreshed hardware. Rumours of new TimeCapsules & Airport Extremes are plentiful (switch them to A5 processors & iOS). Some think you’ll no longer need a computer to use an iOS device – a TimeCapsule or even just an iCloud account might be enough. Apple TV could also be bumped up to the A5 processor so it can handle 1080p content. The Mac Mini could finally get Sandy Bridge processors, too. If the iCloud is really huge, we could also see an iPhone that is just like the iPhone4, but with much much less local storage and a lower price. Who knows?
- all my music should appear in the cloud, including stuff I didn’t purchase from Apple. Instead, Apple will pay the Music Labels a portion of iCloud revenue for every track that is played, regardless of the source of that music. This would be the first time that the Music Labels would stand to make a profit *directly* from pirated music. It might work something like this: 1B tracks were played this month, by 100M iCloud users, each of whom paid $10 for this month of iCloud access. 50% of the cost of iCloud is for music streaming. Apple keeps its 30%, so 70% of that 50% of revenue goes to the labels. 10% of the 1B tracks played were owned by Sony, so Sony gets a cheque for 10% of 70% of 50% of iCloud revenue for the month. 100M * $10 = $1B * 50% = $500M * 70% = $350M * 10% = $35,000,000 straight to Sony, per month, and they didn’t have to create and distribute any physical goods, or process any transactions, or have any staff.
Extremely Not Likely But Interesting:
- to really screw with Microsoft & ChromeOS, Apple could give Lion away for free. It has enough money, and it would get the benefit of having most people ditch their legacy versions of OSX (at least, everyone on intel processors would). It would hurt Microsoft, which makes about half its revenue from its operating system. Plus, it could kill Google’s Chrome OS before it ever gained any traction at all.
