“The vision we have of Apple and its cloud plans is tantalizing: seamless access to all your files and multimedia content using your iPhone, iPad, iPod touch, Mac or other supported device. Be prepared for disappointment,” Jonny Evans reports for Computerworld.
“Even with Apple’s heap big data center, the mobile networks just aren’t ready to carry all this data,” Evans reports. “This makes it inevitable these services will be primarily Wi-Fi only It also means Apple will introduce its cloud-based services incrementally.”
Evans reports, “Apple has a huge data center in North Carolina and is creating other huge centers internationally. Leading its data center push, Apple has hired Kevin Timmons away from Microsoft. Apple is expected to offer iTunes services, video streaming, voice recognition and navigation services and enhanced Mobile Me services via the center. The latter may even include powerful new features to let you access your Home folder via the cloud. These all sound like great implementations, enabling users to access everything that most matters to them using their choice of Apple device. But network coverage will be the big bugbear…”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Here’s hoping that whatever Apple does, it’ll be nothing like their FUBAR MobileMess launch.
I guess even though it’s exciting to think of getting the whole kit & kaboodle all at once, it still makes sense to roll it up gradually. Give a really powerful first stage, knowing you can do more later, and see how well the service is received before you go to the next stage.
Or the conventional wisdom is maybe to just slap on the magic word ‘beta’ on it and all will be well. Fortunately or not, there’s nothing conventional left in Apple’s DNA, if there ever was any (even with the PepsiCo man on board).
I wish my iWeb would post hit counter. Did in the past, why not now. Please fix.
Ozy
@Ozy, it’s now 3. Please stop refreshing the page.
I agree it won’t work flawlessly for everyone, but maybe the market doesn’t know what it should be demanding from its ISPs yet.
Just as Apple forced cellular carriers to give up control, perhaps when people see that certain services are possible but don’t work well just because of the “pipes” then there will be cause for the average consumer to demand more of their infrastructure providers.
It begins with geeks like me (and probably you) but nothing really shifts in the market until the masses get itchy for something.
Apple changed the way people think about cell phones and with compelling software/services perhaps they can do it again with respect to bandwidth.
Years ago Microsoft thought the internet was a waste of time too and took a long time before including a browser with their OS. Even though we might not get 3G or 4G cell service like we get on wifi, it is coming.
I heard Bill Gates claim that Microsoft invented the Internet.
No surprise here. Networks have been and will continue to be the bottlenecks in this mobile media revolution. The demand for data, and lots of it, is far outstripping the ability to deliver.
Apple will probably get reamed for it’s new data center not being what people dreamed it would be – the panacea and ultimate answer to all their mobile media needs, with no breaks, delays, buffering, etc. ever needed again. And it won’t be that. It can’t be that.
… for “data” is actually mainly for through-put for WoW. Sure, there are people out there who need through-put for YouTube and the like, but most of us use less of it than we fear. The networks will throttle the top 1% abusers, giving the rest of us slightly better service in the process.
… that data center to run the iWork.com Beta? Or is that out of Cupertino?
Caution is the word, here. No, NO repeat of the MobileMe start-up mess. But … if the iWork.com Beta HAS been running out of there, that’s a gentle start!
I want cloud sync since my wife will never sync to her computer. In the post-PC era we need to remove the reliance on PCs for syncing and backup for our IPhones and IPads!
I agree. The only real threat to Apple in the tablet space would be if a company made a good one that did not need a “traditional” computer to function (I don’t count Windows tablets in this because they aren’t good).
Maybe that would harm Macbook/iMac sales in the short term, but in the long run it could make iOS the Windows of the next 15 years in terms of market share.
I think Apple’s calculation is that iOS will be “the Windows of the next 15 years in terms of market share”, without hurting their laptop and “traditional” computer sales
Tie the experience into also owning another $1,000 machine indefinitely and it will be a miscalculation.
Between the content providers and their DRM and the ISP’s and their stirrer-straw pipes and data caps, it’s a miracle you’re able to download a movie now. Apple’s got its work cut out for them.
The word “disappointment” is not appropriate here. No one has been led to expect anything in particular. A careful, incremental rollout of revolutionary new services will be just fine.
Apple’s cloud services are already at the core of a new now implemented revolutionary technical support system called VoicePass, which enables tracking and correlation of registered user’s entire history of cases and devices and is automatically routed by telephone #.
This is just the tip of the iceberg.
I really hope they start with sync services (calendar, contacts, etc.) and music. Hold off on video streaming until all kinks are worked out.
Guys, Its a case of HD tv’s selling 10 years before HD comes out. Fuk it must me frustrating to have such incredible forsight 10 years ahead of the aging /underperforming mobile networks we have around the world. You design a mobile strat that works yet your support that is crucial to the end user experience doesnt cut the mustard.
Ive got 4 macs here at home and on any given day a major update over the net costs me half of my data allowance. Go figure?
“But network coverage will be the big bugbear…”
Yeah, but this will push the envelope. The mobile companies will rake in money from the bottlenecked access, then will reinvest profits to adding bandwidth, which in turn will allow more money income. That’s how business is supposed to work. It’s going to be the ‘bleeding edge’ for awhile. But the incentive for business is to widen the data stream gates. Everyone benefits. The USA might just catch up with European bandwidth. Imagine that.
LTE-Advanced equipment is going to become available in the next couple of years. I’d love to see Apple invest some of their war chest doing a lightning rollout, and then show the world how data-led wide-area wireless should be done. I cannot overstate how much things with change with target rates of 100 Mbps (for mobile endpoints, and 1 Gbps for fixed endpoints).