Thursday, June 24, 2010

The Apple Roadmap: What Steve Jobs doesn't want Microsoft to figure out

After attempting to "win" the Operating System war for decades, here's how Steve Jobs and Apple will finally get their OS on your desktop.

"... an iPod, a phone, an Internet communications device... an iPod, a phone, an Internet communications device... an iPod... are you getting it?".  These were Steve Jobs exact words from the 2007 WDC keynote, supposedly introducing three new devices which turned out to be one device, the iPhone.

Though it was a clever way to introduce the all-in-one device, what Steve Jobs will never tell you in a keynote is the premeditated collision course that the Mac OS X and iPhone OS are on in an attempt to persuade tens of millions of iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad users to migrate from their Windows-based PC to a Mac on the desktop.  If this was Jobs' strategy since the introduction of the iPod, you would have to agree that it's brilliant!

I for one was and still am a Windows PC user because it's all I've ever used for computing.  I used to laugh at my sisters Mac because the mouse only had one button... how the heck am I supposed to "right-click" with one button!  I vowed never to touch a Mac.  That said, as much as I disliked Apple, I was willing to give this great new portable music player called the iPod a try.  Given my satisfaction with the iPod, I had to give Apple's next great device a try when they reinvented the the phone.  It was the best mobile device on the market.  As I became accustomed to downloading music, video, apps, etc. onto my iPhone and iPod Touch, along came another game changer, the iPad.  The iPad uses the same iPhone OS operating system and at the 2010 WDC conference Steve Jobs announced that they would be removing the "Phone" from the name and now the operating system would be known as iOS which would power the iPhone, the iPod Touch, the iPad and most likely any other mobile device introduced by Apple in the future.  That got me to thinking, though Apple was swallowing up market share in the mobile computing category, they still trailed the the desktop and laptop market by a large share to Windows-based PCs.

That's when the light went on and I started to see the big picture... the collision between the Mac OS and iOS.  Apple recently said they sold their 100-millionth mobile device (iPhone, iPod Touch, iPad) and we can safely assume that a very large percentage of these customers are Windows PC users since Microsoft still has over 90% of the desktop market.  Recently, Apple has been very quiet as to their Mac OS as all the focus has been on the iPhone OS or iOS.  My gut feeling tells me that we will see a major update to Mac OS X in the future that will be directly tied to iOS and the iTunes ecosystem.  The future Mac OS will have a lot of the same functionality and usability as the iPhone and iPad but with desktop-class power and storage.

I am actually one of those consumers who owns an iPod, iPhone and iPad but have never owned a Mac.  If the Mac OS resembles iOS in the future, tens of millions of iPod, iPhone, iPad and iWhatever users will already know how to use the iOS operating system and there's a good chance they will consider purchasing a Mac for the desktop over a Windows PC for the first time.

This is how Steve Jobs and Apple will finally get their Mac OS on your desktop.  What do you think?... would love to hear your thoughts!

Colin Bhowmik, Digital Marketing Consultant, Open Rate
colinbhowmik@openrate.ca
http://www.openrate.ca/

1 comment:

  1. Here's another example of the collision course between Mac OS and iOSX. Apple has files for patents on a desktop touchscreen device.

    The Mother Lode: Welcome to the iMac Touch
    http://www.patentlyapple.com/patently-apple/2010/08/the-mother-lode-welcome-to-the-imac-touch.html

    Hoping to see more comments on this interesting topic!

    ReplyDelete