“The analysts who follow Apple seemed to understand what the traders who drove Apple’s shares down $5.40 (1.57%) Monday did not: The hundreds of improvements in its software ecosystem — big and small — that Apple announced Monday will, in the long run, sell more devices, convert more customers, and make more money for the company than the new iPhone some were apparently still expecting Steve Jobs to pull out of his sleeve,” Philip Elmer-DeWitt reports for Fortune.
RBC Capital’s Mike Abramsky: No Surprises, but Possible Game Changer… By ‘cutting the cord’ to the PC, Apple may expand its addressable device market by 4x, addressing the ~3B handset users who have a phone — but not a PC. We believe we may see new devices in time, based off iCloud services. As we expected, Apple did not unveil a new iPhone at WWDC; however, we continue to expect iPhone5 in September
Piper Jaffray’s Gene Munster: Bottom line is that Apple is increasing the likelihood that consumers buy multiple Apple devices. What’s new is that Apple will be giving away iCloud for free (we had expected it to be priced between $25-$99 a year). This will allow Apple devices to automatically share contacts, calendars, messages, photos, apps, and music purchased on iTunes; sharing non iTunes music will cost $25 a year. (As a point of reference, Amazon’s Cloud drive could cost up to $200 a year.) Also, Apple made it easier for consumers to have an iPad or iPhone as their primary computing device because a computer is no longer needed to set up an iPad or iPhone.
More analysts’ reactions and price targets in the full article here.
And as Steve Jobs said:
No other developer can do it….
Developer= competitor
What competitor?….
It’s gonna take time for everything Apple announced yesterday to soak in…especially for so-called “analysts.”
I agree. I still haven’t figured it all out yet either.
No kidding – like trying to drink from a fire hose.
At the very end when Steve went through that hyper tour of the NC server farm and said “we’re ready”, it drove home the reason they built that huge facility with enough property to double it in future. I thought that was a very poinient moment in the overall presentation.
“The truth is in the cloud”
RBC’s Mike Abramsky is a RIM astroturfer. Anything good he has to say about Apple is through the side of his mouth and only then grudgingly.
No surprises that the dunces in the film studios weren’t included. I bet they’re trying their best to avoid the obvious and common sense roadmap that Jobs has laid out for them.
These iCloud services look elegant and pragmatic. The iCloud API is an invitation for developers to bring out iPad versions of desktop Apps and vice versa. A great move on Apple’s part to keep each platform complementing each other.
Can’t wait for Lion too.
OS X + iOS is a formidable force.
I’ve been saying the last 25 years that the best computer is the one that you do not see (numerous information appliances) and the cloud adds that final piece to the puzzle.
The iTunes Match is a big deal. For $25 a year that’s huge. Effectively I’m saving $74 since I had mobileme and getting tons more services.
Question: Are you paying $25 for the right to auto sync your ripped/matched music for one year? Or can you not pay and manually sync and still listen to it. It seems a little cloudy;-}
I guess I don’t understand why anyone would pay Apple/Labels for the rights to music that they have already purchased via CD unless it’s just for the privilege of auto syncing amongst multiple iOS devices. $25 a year adds up, no?
$25 is for the service of syncing non-itunes music over the cloud. You don’t have to get it. You can always sync the old fashion way with a cord.
Mr. X I think you nailed it, but it’s going to take some time for us all to absorb what just happened.
Does anyone know what will happen to websites created in iWeb and hosted on the current mobileme?
I’m expecting (hoping for) a new iLife in the Fall. If so, they’ll explain iWeb then.
I recently received a notice from Apple that as of June 30 mobileme, as we know it, will cease to exist.
I too received the Apple Mobile Me email. Great. I just wonder if we will have the opportunity to create new email addresses. I still use Mac.com which will remain but will there be a cloud.com too?
I thought the same, I’ve got an hotmail account, and a gmail as well. But I’d like to get a apple account. My friends and family already have at least an apple device. I used my hotmail account just for messenger, now I’m using Skype [the new messenger by the way, Microsoft bought it], but slowly we’re switching over to FaceTime and in a near future to iMessenger. I hope as well as happened with FaceTime we’ll get an iMessenger for Mac, that would be great. Seriously, if I’m able to get an apple email address, I won’t need the other guys any longer.
You’ve misread your mail — that date is June 30th, 2012, over a year’s grace period in order to accommodate the Fall arrival of the iCloud services and for smoothing migration.
Again – 2 0 1 2
I can’t wait for an article stating “Apple gives Mobile Me customers only one month notice”. Haha. I know it’s coming! And probably today!
This is why Apple has 60+ billion in cash so they can give away iCloud services and sell the latest and greatest operating system for $30. Feel sad for MSFT. NOT! What must they be thinking?
Cutting the cord means my wife’s grand parents will get iPads, they have never used computers but already learned how to use the iPad.
Apple made the iCloud service free for the very simple reason that there’s no other way to ensure that all Apple customers have the same experience with Apple’s new cloud-centric approach to personal computing.
“Piper Jaffray’s Gene Munster: Bottom line is that Apple is increasing the likelihood that consumers buy multiple Apple devices. ”
Munster makes a very good point that I have not seen other analysts discuss. Google can do that same for Android, but cannot drive any particular hardware sales. We can predict, though, that the Google/Android cloud will run into problems due to fragmentation. This is particularly important because if you by Apple hardware, it is just going to work (a point of emphasis in the keynote). If you go with Android, you will have to be sure that the hardware you are buying supports all the functions you want and, even then, it may not “just work”. It may not be a final decision maker on hardware, but it could become an important component of that decision.
On a related note, it is true that iCloud and the services therein are not “revolutionary”. Nearly every feature has been done before. That misses the point, much like all the checklist driven reviews of tech devices do on iPad and iPhone. Yes, you can cobble together these functions with apps and work arounds, etc. But in the seamless integration that Apple is claiming, they are enabling everyone to use these features without thinking about it. We shall see how it turns out, but this is where their expertise and control of the entire system, hardware and software, gives them a very good chance to pull it off.