The day "computers" in Apple died

Today was a pretty impressive day for Apple.  Steve announced yet another product that won't ship for months.  It's a very impressive non-shipping product, but it's not shipping.  I have been through a lot of non-shipping Apple products.  The most memorable was the G5 Xserve, but there were many others since Steve came back and promised to never announce another product that wasn't available for shipment.

I actually can't say I blame Steve, the stockholders and the Apple faithful definitely needed a tasty meal and the iPhone was it.  The next course is the hard one.   

I am not claiming any great prognostication ability, but it was nice to be on record in the Guardian as saying the following.

I am 99% confident we will see an Apple phone, with enhanced music capabilities and maybe a few computing features such as email and contacts synchronisation with Macs or through .Mac.

I'm not surprised it's running OS X, but until we see what the product can do in actual user's hands, I'll try to keep a little healthy skepticism so I don't buy a gadget for which I have no need.  I am a somewhat reluctant cell phone user.  These days at the ripe old age of almost 58, I'm more excited by Dell's announcement of a low cost large flat screen than I am by Apple technological triumph to be.  I prefer lots of screen real estate.

Part of me wishes that Steve had made the phone a six or seven megapixel camera and then I might have been able to justify it.  Maybe that will come.

At this point, I'm a little sad to see "Computer" no longer a part of Apple's name.  I suppose it was a change that was long overdue.  Somehow it reminds of the time when the plug was pulled on the Apple IIe, the computer the customers wouldn't stop buying.

Let hope the Macs never get to that point, or long before they do Apple releases OS X to the other hardware manufacturers.  The more I see of Steve's strategy of proprietary hardware to lock in Apple users and profits, the less I think we'll ever see a legitimate copy of OS X running on a Dell.  Still with Apple, you never know what Steve is going to pull out of the hat.

If you are interested in email like I am, today I posted a detailed article, "Email Services for Businesses."

Comments

[John Muir]

Cheer up, what is an iPod or an iPhone other than a thoroughly well designed little computer anyway? I think what we're seeing isn't so much Apple move away from computers and out into the big bad world, but the world moving *towards* computers in places we've never used them before ... and therefore right into Apple's hands.

Changing the name is a signal that Apple don't just make desktops and laptops anymore. But don't worry, they're a computer company. It's the word computer that's being changed.

The day Apple stops making Macs is the day their whole strategy and empire falls apart. I couldn't see the iPhone that we were amazed by yesterday being the product of a company without its heart firmly in interface perfection. After all, it was Steve who pulled out the old line about to make good software you must also make hardware.

In my view Apple's strategy to bring their skills to bear in as large a market as possible is going very well right now. Roughly Drafted have a series of essays about it and I largely agree with the analysis:
http://www.roughlydrafted.com/RD/Q4.06/DA6A2295-3E77-4EC8-BBE2-167F9A174B90.html