Apple Cuts Cord, Brings "Post-PC World" Closer
One of the most significant announcements that Apple made at its Worldwide Developers Conference was that iOS devices were going to have their cords cut. Up to now, users of the iPod touch, iPhone, and iPad have needed have needed to connect their new devices to a Mac or PC and then activate them via iTunes. But with the release of iOS 5 this fall, those devices can be used right out of the box, with no need for iTunes to be part of the experience.
Sun, June 19, 2011
Macworld — One of the most significant announcements that Apple (AAPL) made at its Worldwide Developers Conference was that iOS devices were going to have their cords cut. Up to now, users of the iPod touch, iPhone, and iPad have needed have needed to connect their new devices to a Mac or PC and then activate them via iTunes. But with the release of iOS 5 this fall, those devices can be used right out of the box, with no need for iTunes to be part of the experience.
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Then there’s Steve Jobs’s comment that the Macintosh has now been demoted to “just another device” that’s no longer the “hub of the consumer digital experience.” Instead, the hub is data stored on the Internet, in “the cloud.” What it all adds up to is this: Apple is pushing the Post-PC era forward in a big way, and there’s going to be a lot of fallout.
In 1984, the Mac was groundbreaking. It was the first PC to be envisioned not as a personal computer per se, but rather as a computing appliance. While the Mac never quite became the appliance Apple had hoped it would be, iOS devices have filled that niche perfectly. Those devices have opened up the computing experience to a whole new class of user.
These are people who would never have thought of using any kind of personal computer, but are perfectly at home with the iOS experience. The idea that Apple can (and will) sell devices like iPad to homes and users who have no PCs is extremely important. Once again, Apple is challenging the fundamental premise of computer technology and pushing the computer even further toward being an appliance.
A few months back, I wrote a column about how Steve Jobs’s statement about us living in a “post-PC world” didn’t mean we were living in a world without PCs. I still fundamentally believe that’s going to be the case.
Apple’s announcement and vision, expressed by Jobs at WWDC, changes the equation as to what role the PC will play in the future, and how users will interact with their devices. With a new set of cloud-based services to allow application purchase history, management of music through an online service, and added synchronization among devices, Apple has united its ecosystem and its long-term vision into a coherent whole. While the Mac has been demoted, iOS has been promoted to a new level of prominence.
