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"it wasn’t hard to envision a future Apple that (A) didn’t sell Macs and (B) was at least as successful as Apple circa 2010." I think that's exactly wrong. Mac

"it wasn’t hard to envision a future Apple that (A) didn’t sell Macs and (B) was at least as successful as Apple circa 2010." I think that's exactly wrong. Macs are already the trucks in his earlier analogy. Apple only sells 5% of computers, but they're the highest-priced 5%, so they make an outsized portion of the market's revenues on them. The iPad doesn't disrupt high-end notebooks and desktops one bit. It disrupts the low-end, the $600 Dell and HPs that make up the bulk of sales by volume (but which are really little more than loss leaders for the manufacturers). Even if tablets get to, say, 75% of the market, it will mostly disrupt cheap PCs. If most of those tablets are iPads (debatable, but certainly not impossible) Apple will make a hell of a lot of money. Apple would seem to think this way as well. Otherwise they wouldn't introduce a $500 product that disrupted their $2,000 products, especially when they think that nobody else will make a compelling tablet if they don't.

mortenjorck 16y ago
You get it. This isn't the same as 1984 for one simple reason: Mac apps weren't built in an SDK on Apple IIs. They were built on Macs. The MacBook and iMac will simply enter the space currently occupied by the Mac Pro.
- rythie 16y ago
  People are already talking about using the iPad itself to do development, it does after all support a VGA out and bluetooth keyboard already. It would enable a whole new generation of developers on the platform who can't afford a Mac mini in addition to the iPad.
  - tomjen3 16y ago
    It would be pretty cool, as it would make iPad development easier but that would mean Apple would have to give up its tight grip on the device, which I very much doubt will ever happen.
    - rythie 16y ago
      Well Google will surely do it first. I've already edited code using my iPod touch, via a SSH client - it was slow because of the small screen and on screen keyboard, but I had to fix an error on the live site and had no computer to hand. I think you could easily code a whole site with VGA out and keyboard on a iPhone 4. Which could then be used from the device itself.
- gthank 16y ago
  Actually, Mac development required a Lisa for quite some time.
rythie 16y ago
This is disruptive technology at work http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disruptive_technology http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disruptive_technology Apple's iPad at first looks like a toy that only competes with low-end $600 Dell or HP, but it will acquire a high resolution screen, camera, faster CPU, better software and become easier to use than a real mac and more flexible. There was time when Mac and PCs were thought of as junk to most scientists because they'd have a high end Sun or SGI workstation costing 5-10x as much that was a lot more powerful. However that market is gone now and realistically the top end computer is now a Mac Pro. What happened was cheap PCs acquired over time all the features of the Sun and SGI workstations. Apple doesn't want to do this, but the high end Macs aren't going to last forever as a market (and it's already small) and if they don't do it, someone else will (probably Google).
- mattmaroon 16y ago
  There's more to disruption than mere hardware. Apple's tight control of the OS severely limits functionality and prevents it from being the truck. Apple is not known for giving up control. What a computer can do is not limited by hardware anymore, the iPad could run full on Windows or OSX I'd suspect.
  - ugh 16y ago
    There will be others playing this game. (But they won’t run “full” Windows or OS X. That has failed every time it has been tried in the last ten years. Ask Microsoft.)
    - mattmaroon 16y ago
      The HP Slate will run Windows 7. For most of the past ten years, a processor that could run full Windows with reasonable power consumption did not exist. They do now. Previous tablets were based around handwriting processing, which was also terrible.
      - skalpelis 16y ago
troystribling 16y ago
People seem to be associating the apparent neglect of Macs at the WWDC, the marketing focus on the iOS products and the delay in OSX 10.7 as the beginning of a phase out of the platform. It is most likely just a focus of scarce company resources on launching the new product line.
- jonhohle 16y ago
  How can an unannounced product (10.7) be delayed? from what i recall, Apple has never even mentioned OS X 10.7 in any capacity.
- scrod 16y ago
  Compared to just a couple of years ago, Apple is investing noticeably less in this year's WWDC. There are fewer sessions overall, fewer "evangelists" to introduce sessions and take questions, and fewer services for attendees. They aren't even providing discs with software anymore. Aside from the number of attendees, it seems very sparse in other respects. I don't know why that is — could it be that Apple just doesn't have much that's new to present at this time, and/or that many of the engineers are occupied at the moment? This is my hope, because neglecting to build and maintain a strong developer community would be a grave mistake that I hope Apple's executives aren't actually stupid enough to make.
- deleted 16y ago
  [deleted]

mortenjorck 16y ago

You get it. This isn't the same as 1984 for one simple reason: Mac apps weren't built in an SDK on Apple IIs. They were built on Macs. The MacBook and iMac will simply enter the space currently occupied by the Mac Pro.

rythie 16y ago
People are already talking about using the iPad itself to do development, it does after all support a VGA out and bluetooth keyboard already. It would enable a whole new generation of developers on the platform who can't afford a Mac mini in addition to the iPad.
- tomjen3 16y ago
  It would be pretty cool, as it would make iPad development easier but that would mean Apple would have to give up its tight grip on the device, which I very much doubt will ever happen.
  - rythie 16y ago
    Well Google will surely do it first. I've already edited code using my iPod touch, via a SSH client - it was slow because of the small screen and on screen keyboard, but I had to fix an error on the live site and had no computer to hand. I think you could easily code a whole site with VGA out and keyboard on a iPhone 4. Which could then be used from the device itself.
gthank 16y ago
Actually, Mac development required a Lisa for quite some time.

rythie 16y ago

This is disruptive technology at work http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disruptive_technology http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disruptive_technology Apple's iPad at first looks like a toy that only competes with low-end $600 Dell or HP, but it will acquire a high resolution screen, camera, faster CPU, better software and become easier to use than a real mac and more flexible. There was time when Mac and PCs were thought of as junk to most scientists because they'd have a high end Sun or SGI workstation costing 5-10x as much that was a lot more powerful. However that market is gone now and realistically the top end computer is now a Mac Pro. What happened was cheap PCs acquired over time all the features of the Sun and SGI workstations. Apple doesn't want to do this, but the high end Macs aren't going to last forever as a market (and it's already small) and if they don't do it, someone else will (probably Google).

mattmaroon 16y ago
There's more to disruption than mere hardware. Apple's tight control of the OS severely limits functionality and prevents it from being the truck. Apple is not known for giving up control. What a computer can do is not limited by hardware anymore, the iPad could run full on Windows or OSX I'd suspect.
- ugh 16y ago
  There will be others playing this game. (But they won’t run “full” Windows or OS X. That has failed every time it has been tried in the last ten years. Ask Microsoft.)
  - mattmaroon 16y ago
    The HP Slate will run Windows 7. For most of the past ten years, a processor that could run full Windows with reasonable power consumption did not exist. They do now. Previous tablets were based around handwriting processing, which was also terrible.
    - skalpelis 16y ago

troystribling 16y ago

People seem to be associating the apparent neglect of Macs at the WWDC, the marketing focus on the iOS products and the delay in OSX 10.7 as the beginning of a phase out of the platform. It is most likely just a focus of scarce company resources on launching the new product line.

jonhohle 16y ago
How can an unannounced product (10.7) be delayed? from what i recall, Apple has never even mentioned OS X 10.7 in any capacity.
scrod 16y ago
Compared to just a couple of years ago, Apple is investing noticeably less in this year's WWDC. There are fewer sessions overall, fewer "evangelists" to introduce sessions and take questions, and fewer services for attendees. They aren't even providing discs with software anymore. Aside from the number of attendees, it seems very sparse in other respects. I don't know why that is — could it be that Apple just doesn't have much that's new to present at this time, and/or that many of the engineers are occupied at the moment? This is my hope, because neglecting to build and maintain a strong developer community would be a grave mistake that I hope Apple's executives aren't actually stupid enough to make.
deleted 16y ago
[deleted]