With the release of the Apple “tablet”, or whatever it will be called, next week — Apple continues on the long road to becoming the next target of anti-trust law suits, and being a hated corporate entity. The fanboys and girls will never admit it, but the Apple ecosystem reeks of old school Microsoft control, with a more artistic flair, and a definite perfection in marketing, as well as ergonomics. We all know that Apple’s strategy, under Jobs’ tutelege, has been to control the hardware, and you can perfect the user experience.
Apple’s dominance with the Ipod, and the Iphone, indicates that this strategy has paid off, to the tune of billions, but has it gone too far? With the recent Apple “kiss off” of Google voice on its platform, and other anomalies in the iTunes app store approval process, there have been many questions about the kind of power that Apple wields, and are they here to just make money, or do they have a “do no evil” guiding principle? Ironically, Google’s attempt to put Google Voice, along side other great google offerings (now on the phone) is an illustration that Google continues to be a more philosophically open company. If Google did things like Apple, they would pull their apps from the iTunes App catalog, and substitute them with substandard versions, that would drive people towards android phones, to get their only satisfying Google experience. But alas, this is not the case.
The release of the Google Android Nexus One will be heralded, by the end of the decade, as the beginning of the end for cell phone company dominance, carrier dictatorships, and the general anti-competitive nature of mobile computing, and wireless broadband, in North America. Google is not perfect, but they are moving us more toward a world where you will be able to buy your phone hardware, and install the operating system YOU chose. Be it android, Symbian, WebOs, or anything else out there. Don’t hold your breath for any kind of cooperation for an independent Apple operating system. In the long run, you will see Apple fade off into the distance, as their huge share of the emerging smart phone computing market diminishes in a world where there are hundreds of models of handsets with android, and thousands of application developers, willing to build software for a truly independent system. Apple’s products are so beautifully elegant, they will always have a small, very profitable niche carved out for themselves– just as the do in the PC market. The world will be knocked on it’s ass, next week, when Apple announces their famed tablet, but that will soon wear off, as people realize that a well built competitors tablet, running windows 7 with multi-touch will address their needs for versatility, and cost effectiveness, in a much more satisfying manner.
Will I be buying an Apple Slate? Your damn right I will. I am a tech junkie, and Apple makes beautiful products. My wife has an Iphone, but I will cling on to my Android phone, yearning the the Nexus One in Canada, and the next great piece of Google hardware (actually HTC in the case of the Nexus). I also have more disposable income than many people. Apple expects to sell as many as 10 million in the first year. That will be breathtaking if it is true, and it probably will be. There is no doubt that they will usher in a new wave of media devices, e-book readers, whilst likely killing the formidable kindle (I just bought my wife one) in the process. To paraphrase the sometimes “belligerent” logic of Steve Ballmer, most of us are going to own e-readers in the future, it’s just that we are going to call them PC’s. Even in a tablet form factor, running Windows 7 Multi-Touch. To me, that is the perfect media device, with an open platform, where you can get your content where YOU choose. Install the Sony, Kindle, and other platform PC versions, and read away. Just don’t look for any Apple PC version, as that will be entirely proprietary, just like iTtunes with Music. Just ask a Palm Pre owner !
