“I have been an avid watcher of all things Apple since 1977 and have been following them professionally since 1981 when I came to Creative Strategies and became its first full-time PC analyst,” Tim Bajarin writes for PC Magazine. “Apple is a company that has had many ups and downs, but one thing is certain about it. It was on the leading edge with the Apple 2, the Mac, the iPod, the iPhone and the iPad. And with its new iCloud service, it is about to show the industry how to move from the PC era to the post-PC era by elegantly making the cloud the center of the new Apple driven universe.”
Bajarin writes, “I consider this one of Apple’s most important announcements of this young decade. Yes, the iPad is right up there with it, but it is the iCloud that I believe that will actually define Apple over the next 10 years. More importantly, it will be at the center of its future devices and services road map… Interestingly, while much of the device focus was on the Mac, iPod, iPhone, and iPad in last weeks launch, Apple also said that since Apple TV is iOS cloud-based as well, it will be able to become one of the devices that can receive your pictures and music and be kept in sync as part of your iCloud ecosystem. But if Apple has shifted its focus from the Mac or PC as the hub of our digital lifestyles to the cloud, then that means that it, at least in theory, could create a lot of other iOS-based devices that connect to and sync with the iCloud.”
Much more in the full article – recommended – here.
but what if icloud employees what to pussy out and join a moron union?
Yeah, that, along with the lawsuits, will finish off Apple for sure
There may be issues with ‘moron’ unions, but that’s the reason you have weekends off. You might trying reading a little history.
Those guys already have the weekend off (or some other two days of the week).
They ought to be glad they even have a job in this economy.
Unions have a proven value to society – to a point. If left unchecked, their leaders can be just as greedy as the worst corporation, and because of a general lack of business acumen, can drive companies into the ground because they (for the most part) have never run a business themselves. Just walk through the factory wastelands in Ohio, Michigan, etc. (to be fair, the Walmart mentality of I Want it All, I Deserve it All, and at the Cheapest Price is part of the equation as well). Why is the USA becoming a land of service employees? Because they don’t produce anything anymore. This bears close watching – people will want to leech off Apple’s success.
Imagine how high AAPL stock will be? Buy now! It is a bargain compared to ten years from now!!! My 401k will be 🙂
Go Apple!
To me this opinion just seems like a rehash of the excitement people had over cheap Linux-based Internet devices… I mean, really, “kitchen computers” and “car computers”? Hardly Apple’s style. iCloud or no iCloud, Apple isn’t suddenly going to reverse a decade of focussing their product line and go crazy making all sorts of special-purpose devices.
Agreed. They’re going after the living room. Imagine a subscription all-you-can-eat plan where you can watch any TV show or movie ever made, on demand. Have any song on iTunes streamed to you on demand. Heck, throw in video games, too. That is where I think they are going and the whole world will follow.
One question. How will all this streaming take place if Comcast et. al. keep throttling the pipe?
To predict domineering success doesnt make any sense. The idea looks good but it will all be in the implementation and how many use it effectively.
For me it should work well but will it drive more to the platform?
All this crooning about iCloud always conveniently forgets that our networks are already overburdened just trying to cope with the iPhone and iPad. Now add the iCloud and I see a huge trainwreck coming as networks buckle under the strain of so much more traffic.
What are you talking about? I have no trouble using a wide variety of online services via iPad, iPhone and MacBook all day long. Sure when a new service pops up, they often get hammered, but it’s brief and really not a reason to drive the concepts forward.
Whether you personally have trouble or not is irrelevant.If you are suggesting that syncing thousands of everyone’s songs, photos and movies on all their connected devices won’t add hugely to the load on the network, you should think again. iCloud is not a media server. Copies of all media files are stored on all devices. You may think iCloud’s effect on the network will be minimal. I disagree. More will be revealed.
Dial-up sucks, huh?
Meaning what, nerdo?
iCloud uses little bandwidth, and storage compared to other services. The updating of apps with delta, only the code that is different, downloads instead of full downloads. It updates the changes in documents, not reload the whole document. This uses less bandwidth and speeds up the process. This is not the thin client concept that Google and MS are using. The computing and storage stay on the device. The cloud keeps your data and sends it to other devices. This concept does not tax the ISPs as much, and keeps one from having to always be connected.
I think we can all agree that long-range vision and planning are Apple strong points. Therefore, if Apple has started iCloud in motion dependent on increased network bandwidth they have another surprise in line for the carriers. They could be setting it up so that the carriers cry out for relief and then Apple provides it with less worry of anti-competitive complaints. (please don’t throw me into that briar patch, said the rabbit;-)
Not to mention that Apple is rolling out the iCloud service just when many (if not all) providers are discontinuing unlimited data plans in favor of metered plans that are either woefully inadequate for iCloud use or else cost a fortune. How Apple plans to deal with these very inconvenient factors is anybody’s guess.
I think thats why they very deliberately did NOT make the cloud a streaming service, as everyone expected.
As I understand it, iCloud syncs over wifi, not 3G. That makes it essentially an asynchronous service. IOW if you change a doc and you’re on 3G, the sync will queue until you hit wifi again. If this is true, its a smart move on Apple’s part, and is another way that iCloud stands out form every other model out there.
My guess is one day Apple will offer internet and VOIP service, to remove the final impediment to a complete end-to-end solution for Apple and its consumers.
I still wager a half-dozen Apple satellites are in our future.
Is the age of the ‘Thin Client’ ‘pon us now?..
If the device simply becomes a screen to interact with remote data, then I’d say yes.
Yes, this has been discussed since the late-90’s and that was that Sun had. It was a great vision but the supporting technologies weren’t there and they just did a piss poor job in their execution when the dot com bubble burst. Apple positioned itself perfectly with iPod and iTunes around a decade ago to build the foundation of the ecosystem that really has no match.
I agree with what this guy is saying. Apple is in the business of selling hardware. It creates software and services to augment the value of said hardware. So, yes, I would not be surprised to see Time Capsule like product released that stores locally a lot of this cloud stuff, but does not need a Mac and can be used with an iPad, iPod Touch, Apple TV or iPhone, for example.
I understand you will be able to stream/download any iTunes purchased music, what about iTunes TV shows and movies?
I have over a thousand tv shows and movies purchased and stored on my home network, now when I travel I will transfer what I may want to watch on my iPad, would be great if I could travel with an ATV2. Is it possible or will that be something in the future
A good guess is that Apple is trying to get the movie studios to sign up for a similar program to the music program with iCloud. This would include the networks as well.