Tuesday, June 7, 2011

Apple : Opinion: The future is iOS, not Mac OS X

Apple : Opinion: The future is iOS, not Mac OS X

Opinion: The future is iOS, not Mac OS X

Posted: 07 Jun 2011 08:03 AM PDT

The WWDC keynote was ostensibly an equally balanced affair, with Apple providing insight into the near future of two equally important operating systems: Mac OS X for Apple computers, and iOS for Apple portable systems.

However, on closer inspection, it's clear that the two systems are no longer afforded equal billing. In fact, the word 'Mac' was rarely mentioned with regard to the desktop operating system and Apple CEO Steve Jobs was clear about Macs effectively being 'relegated' to becoming 'just another device' that can happily work with Apple's new cloud service, iCloud.

It's too soon to say that Apple is about to knife Mac OS X and mount its big cat heads on the Cupertino HQ's walls, while iOS looks on nonchalantly.

But it is clear that Apple sees its future as being increasingly away from its history in traditional personal computing.

Jobs himself said as much when he recently spoke of the post-PC era, and with iOS 5, Apple's making good on that claim. iOS 5 in combination with Apple's iCloud service finally detaches the iPhone, iPod touch and iPad from its oddly symbiotic relationship with iTunes on a Mac or PC.

Come this autumn, new devices won't need iTunes to activate at all, nor even to share and restore data. Instead, you'll take your device out of the box and set it up wirelessly; you'll then have the option, if you've previously used an iOS device, of restoring data from iCloud.

And iCloud also hugely changes working with documents on iOS, making it simple to store content and push it to various devices.

So far, so Dropbox, you might be thinking (and, to some extent, that's fair enough), but the point is that iOS devices and the apps installed on them can now be rid of iTunes, Macs and PCs entirely.

They will by the end of 2011 truly be independent devices, with increasingly powerful and capable apps running on a system largely devoid of the complexity of computing platforms bogged down by years of history.

Lion's share

When it comes to what Apple is now officially branding 'OS X Lion' - note the lack of 'Mac' in that title - it's perhaps telling that the majority of new standout features aren't extensions of the Mac experience; instead, they're attempts to make the Mac more like iOS.

Bar Mission Control, which is akin to Exposé and Spaces being smashed together with a hammer, you get Launchpad (the iOS springboard), full-screen apps (like on iOS), a Mac App Store (which will even include the only means of installing Lion, which itself is effectively afforded 'app' status), a streamlined Mail, far more emphasis on multi-touch gestures, auto-save and app resume.

The take-home here is that OS X is increasingly becoming a transitional operating system, in part to get consumers hooked on the iOS way of doing things, sending them to where Apple really wants them: iOS devices.

Counter arguments typically centre on the pro space: you can't run Photoshop on an iPad (although you can bet Adobe's working on that, if it has any sense) and you need a Mac for high-end video, audio and programming work.

But that doesn't help the platform's future; instead, we're looking at the Mac eventually existing in an increasingly niche 'workhorse' space, right up until iOS devices are 'powerful' enough to take over high-end tasks, too.

With Apple iterating iOS devices and iOS itself surprisingly quickly, this switchover may come sooner than you think, and it's likely that this year's WWDC keynote is the tipping point - the date people will look back on as the moment Apple 'cut the cord', let iOS off on its own adventures, and started the gradual long-term decline of the Mac in favour of its touchscreen-based offspring.

Gary Marshall: How iTunes Match hopes to stop you switching to Google Music

Posted: 07 Jun 2011 02:35 AM PDT

If you wanted to describe the online reaction to iTunes Match in one word, that word would be "yarrrrr".

By scanning your library and syncing legitimate AAC files when it finds a match, some said, iTunes was effectively offering money laundering for music: chuck your torrented, low bitrate tunes in one end and get your shiny legal 256Kbps AACs out of the other.

It's a pirate party mix!

I don't think that's how it's going to pan out.

First and foremost, if you're a huge torrenter then you're not going to suddenly start paying for a service that syncs all the stuff you weren't willing to pay money to acquire in the first place. iTunes Match isn't hugely expensive, but it's still cash.

Secondly, if you're a huge torrenter then you'll be thoroughly unimpressed by the prospects of 256Kbps AACs anyway. You need to be a pretty poor pirate to end up with low-bitrate rips when everything's a 320Kbps MP3 or a FLAC file - the quality upgrade's more relevant to those of us who were ripping our CDs in the days when MP3 player storage was still a problem and bitrates were a trade-off between good-enough quality and small-enough files.

And thirdly, Apple doesn't care anyway. It's got other digital fish to fry.

Your music matters

I don't doubt that some people will use iTunes Match to sync music they didn't buy, but it's not as if that represents a lost sale for anyone: they've had the songs before iTunes Match came along, and all iTunes Match is doing is helping to move them about a bit. It's hardly facilitating piracy.

What it is doing, though, is encouraging inertia. Inertia keeps everything Apple, and keeps you buying Apple hardware. Inertia is why Apple's announced iMessage, a chat system that bypasses SMS charges but only works with Apple kit, and it's why Apple's introduced iTunes Match.

Apps are an example of inertia. I've spent so much money on iOS apps, and come to rely on so many of them, that Apple would have to do something unspeakably evil such as shoot my dog before I'd jump ship to a rival OS.

Many of the apps I like aren't available on other OSes, but even if they were the sheer cost of buying them again and setting everything up just-so keeps me on iDevices.

It's the same with cloud music. When Google and Amazon announced their cloud lockers, I quickly checked my iTunes library size, did a few sums and honked with derision.

You want me to upload all of that? It simply isn't practical on a DSL line unless you've got weeks to spare and an understanding ISP.

I suspect that by offering to match what's in your library rather than upload it, Apple's prevented a lot of people dumping iTunes for Google or Amazon's cloud lockers. And once it's got you, the sheer size of your library and the thought of having to upload the lot of it will keep you loyal.

That's assuming, of course, that cloud music is ready for prime time. I'm not sure it is - especially over here where network coverage is crappy and unlimited mobile internet is nothing of the sort. iTunes Match may have a 25,000 song limit, but I can promise you that your fair usage allowance is much, much smaller.

Posted by at

No comments:

Post a Comment

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)