WWDC expected to highlight Apple's focus on being better, not first to market
Apple is not usually the first company to introduce a product or service, but takes its time to ensure it's better than the competition -- a view that one prominent Wall Street analyst expects to be the defining characteristic of this today's Worldwide Developers Conference keynote.
Mark Moskowitz with J.P. Morgan Research said in a note to investors Monday that Apple has entered the MP3 player, smartphone and tablet markets after other vendors. The difference is, Apple has managed to create a better user experience than the competition.
"At WWDC 2011, we expect this differentiation to be highlighted with both the new iOS 5 (Apple's mobile operating system) and Mac OS X Lion," he wrote. "Also, the iCloud will be the latest iteration of Apple coming to market after others, but again, with a better experience."
A major component of iCloud will be media streaming capabilities to mobile devices like Macs, iPhones and iPads. But compared to already-available music streaming services from Google and Amazon, Apple's iCloud will have "much greater support from the content providers," Moskowitz noted.
"We think that this competitive advantage will help Apple separate its cloud offering from the pack when compared to nascent offerings from Amazon and Google," he said. "While details on iCloud are limited, we expect the service to build off of Apple's MobileMe platform, which provides email and remote storage for users who pay $100 per year."
To that end, iCloud will "disrupt" how users view storage. Apple's push this direction began last year, Moskowitz argues, with its cloud-centric Apple TV packing minimum internal storage space.
"This approach has prepared users for a cloud world, whereby the user does not need to possess/manage all of the data locally," he said. "We think that the next off-shoot will be that future PC offerings will rely more on SSDs, not HDDs.
"So much of internal storage in PCs supports music, video and photo content. If iCloud serves as primary storage for this data, then PC's internal storage will not require as much capacity, particularly in notebook PCs."
Finally, Moskowitz also reiterated the belief that the next iPhone will launch later this summer with the same form factor as the existing iPhone 4. He believes that the fifth-generation model will be a "world phone" with both GSM and CDMA radios built in to one model.
He expects Apple's sixth-generation iPhone, arriving in 2012, to support for high-speed fourth-generation long-term evolution networks of carriers like AT&T and Verizon in the U.S. By waiting to introduce a 4G LTE phone, Moskowitz said Apple will be able to address issues with network technology and battery life.
Finally, Moskowitz expects Apple to issue a "quick blurb" during Monday's WWDC keynote to state that issues with the availability of its hot-selling iPad 2 have been addressed. Chief Operating Officer Tim Cook characterized iPad 2 supply issues as "the mother of all backlogs" during his company's quarterly earnings conference call in April, but since then, availability of the device has improved.
Mark Moskowitz with J.P. Morgan Research said in a note to investors Monday that Apple has entered the MP3 player, smartphone and tablet markets after other vendors. The difference is, Apple has managed to create a better user experience than the competition.
"At WWDC 2011, we expect this differentiation to be highlighted with both the new iOS 5 (Apple's mobile operating system) and Mac OS X Lion," he wrote. "Also, the iCloud will be the latest iteration of Apple coming to market after others, but again, with a better experience."
A major component of iCloud will be media streaming capabilities to mobile devices like Macs, iPhones and iPads. But compared to already-available music streaming services from Google and Amazon, Apple's iCloud will have "much greater support from the content providers," Moskowitz noted.
"We think that this competitive advantage will help Apple separate its cloud offering from the pack when compared to nascent offerings from Amazon and Google," he said. "While details on iCloud are limited, we expect the service to build off of Apple's MobileMe platform, which provides email and remote storage for users who pay $100 per year."
To that end, iCloud will "disrupt" how users view storage. Apple's push this direction began last year, Moskowitz argues, with its cloud-centric Apple TV packing minimum internal storage space.
"This approach has prepared users for a cloud world, whereby the user does not need to possess/manage all of the data locally," he said. "We think that the next off-shoot will be that future PC offerings will rely more on SSDs, not HDDs.
"So much of internal storage in PCs supports music, video and photo content. If iCloud serves as primary storage for this data, then PC's internal storage will not require as much capacity, particularly in notebook PCs."
Finally, Moskowitz also reiterated the belief that the next iPhone will launch later this summer with the same form factor as the existing iPhone 4. He believes that the fifth-generation model will be a "world phone" with both GSM and CDMA radios built in to one model.
He expects Apple's sixth-generation iPhone, arriving in 2012, to support for high-speed fourth-generation long-term evolution networks of carriers like AT&T and Verizon in the U.S. By waiting to introduce a 4G LTE phone, Moskowitz said Apple will be able to address issues with network technology and battery life.
Finally, Moskowitz expects Apple to issue a "quick blurb" during Monday's WWDC keynote to state that issues with the availability of its hot-selling iPad 2 have been addressed. Chief Operating Officer Tim Cook characterized iPad 2 supply issues as "the mother of all backlogs" during his company's quarterly earnings conference call in April, but since then, availability of the device has improved.
Comments
"So much of internal storage in PCs supports music, video and photo content. If iCloud serves as primary storage for this data, then PC's internal storage will not require as much capacity, particularly in notebook PCs."
I agree with this wholeheartedly. If iCloud takes hold in this way, sales of the lower end (64GB) MacBook Air could go through the roof.
"So much of internal storage in PCs supports music, video and photo content. If iCloud serves as primary storage for this data, then PC's internal storage will not require as much capacity, particularly in notebook PCs."
So people could store their video and pictures on Apple's servers and download it quickly back to their desktop?
If iCloud turns out to be iPorn, I would agree that it'll be a big hit.
But I still won't be using it.
Canadians can wait, and Ozzies and Kiwis.
Obviously I would not stream 100's of gigabytes of data each month, but if everything was streamed to my iPhone, iPad and my girlfriends MacBook we would use up a lot of data.
Free public wifi (where available) and spotty 3G connectivity when travelling would hardly make this a viable alternative to having the information on your device.
Maybe I'm just not getting it....
Since iCloud seems to depend on agreements with content owners, and content owners partition the world into tiny fiefdoms, I would suspect that the best iCloud features only work if you are resident in the US or have a US resident credit card registered with the US version of iTunes.
Canadians can wait, and Ozzies and Kiwis.
Lol, don't forget the Brits!
Hmmmm, I don't see how this would work out. Consider that on my iMac I have around 240gb or music and a further 185gb of movies, now if I was to decide to stream this content, as well as buy movies etc from the new iCloud service I would need to have super fast internet away from home (doubt that 3G would cut it) and an unlimited data usuage contract.
Obviously I would not stream 100's of gigabytes of data each month, but if everything was streamed to my iPhone, iPad and my girlfriends MacBook we would use up a lot of data.
Free public wifi (where available) and spotty 3G connectivity when travelling would hardly make this a viable alternative to having the information on your device.
Maybe I'm just not getting it....
Agreed.
But if you can store you movies, etc. on the Cloud to save disk space and then download them over the internet on your desktop box, that makes a little more sense.
I'd argue not as much sense as just buying a cheap external drive, but more sense than trying to download a movie over public wi-fi.
However I think it's highly unlikely that this would be the _focus_ of keynote. Apple rarely talks about the competition, although it's become more common recently. When they do talk, they tend to slam the competition rather than admit that the competition beat them to market.
At the very best, such a focus would be a self-inflicted, back-handed compliment.
Since iCloud seems to depend on agreements with content owners, and content owners partition the world into tiny fiefdoms, I would suspect that the best iCloud features only work if you are resident in the US or have a US resident credit card registered with the US version of iTunes.
Canadians can wait, and Ozzies and Kiwis.
iCloud may not be all about streaming music and movies. A free version of the service may allow for enhanced push email notifications, and over-the-air updating of iOS. Those kinds of cloud services wouldn't require country-by-country deals with content providers, and would be immediately available to everyone worldwide.
iCloud may not be all about streaming music and movies. A free version of the service may allow for enhanced push email notifications, and over-the-air updating of iOS. Those kinds of cloud services wouldn't require country-by-country deals with content providers, and would be immediately available to everyone worldwide.
I think that that is exactly what is going on. All the Mobile Me stuff for contacts, calendars etc will still be there, hopefully improved (especially the idisk and iweb stuff). The music etc is just an add on to improve the service. Perhaps also rolling iwork.com into this service as well (as it should have been from the start as a free component).
And I think that folks could be pleasantly surprised to find out that Apple has been thinking globally and already has some deals in place with more on the way very soon. Such as at least allowing 'cloud' access of things bought in the itunes store no matter where you are and what store it was bought from. And over the next month or two the rest of the deal will be worked out. According to my sources the 'store only' side of streaming will be free to users. It's only if you want to add outside purchases you have to pay. If that is true then I doubt that anyone not US is going to fuss about not having to pay for "half" the service, etc
Also, as for our analyst saying that this year Apple will focus on 'not first but best', sorry but they blew it. Apple has always focused on that as well as "better than we were before". They don't always name drop and might not here but anyone that knows their tech and watches the keynotes knows there are often 'state of the game' comments that are summed up with 'and that's okay but we've got a better way'
It's true others enter a market before Apple. In my experience so far, their products are better.
However I think it's highly unlikely that this would be the _focus_ of keynote. Apple rarely talks about the competition, although it's become more common recently. When they do talk, they tend to slam the competition rather than admit that the competition beat them to market.
At the very best, such a focus would be a self-inflicted, back-handed compliment.
I remember at the iOS3 preview event when they showed off cut-and-paste, they admitted that they weren't even close to being first, but said they were so far ahead of everybody else it wasn't going to matter. They were right.
At the iOS4 preview event, they admitted the same thing with multitasking. While I prefer the way iOS multitasks to Android, they jury is still out. Personally, I believe webOS does multitasking the best, then iOS. There just needs to be an easier way to switch back to apps than the current implementation.
I have to mention the bandwidth problem for all of this. The tech wizards like Jobs, Ellison, Gates, et al, probably have gigabit ethernet over fiber in their homes with direct connections to the internet. Heck, Jobs probably has a direct connection to that new server farm Apple just built. The rest of us mere mortals are stuck with 3-6 mbps connections downstream and 768 kbps upstream, now with data caps courtesy the pipe companies (telcos and cable tv. So we will be paying for 1) iCloud 2) content 3) access to the internet 4) exceeding our caps AND forced to watch ads out the wazoo to boot. I don't see any of this going gangbusters until the majority have real high speed connections and unlimited data plans.
I agree with most of your post, except that I can't recall any Apple service that makes me sit through ads. Whether it's email, watching a movie from iTunes, listening to music. That's generally one of the reasons I pick Apple, is because I would rather pay them with my money instead of my identity to sit through "personalized" ads.
Didn't Amazon.com run into a problem with one of their Kindle books whereas they were forced to removed not only on the content on their Kindle site, but also on everyone's Kindle who purchased the content (I believe Amazon to everyone who purchased it).
Is this what we are facing right now?
So using the internet to access a central database isn't a viable option for large data sets like photos and videos, it simply takes to much time to row upstream.
But Apple is an appliance company and they already make Airport Extreme and TimeCapsule base stations that can be updated to support syncing services for large data sets on a local network and caching iOS updates for multiple devices. It is even possible that this is used to trickle large data sets upstream (but I wouldn't recommend that).
This makes sense because Apple can sell lots of extra boxes and by doing so solve most of the 'problems' iDevices currently have.
It also means that the 'thin client' idea for iDevices is nonsense.
J.
Seriously, this is an announcement? This sounds much more like leaked expectations management on the part of apple. Don't you think this Keynote has smelled more like "revolution" rather than "evolution?" We've been pretty good at reading the tea leaves lately with Apple and this one we are left with very little to go on except for a HUGE FREAKING server farm in NC, obscure content deals with Studios/Labels, and cryptic emails from Steve telling people to hang on for a better MobileMe experience.
Perhaps we are expecting the moon and are being told not to expect too much.
In my opinion, there is probably a huge, multi-keynote story to tell here, parts of which we will to wait for (remember how long we waited for video on an iPod?), and this is just the opening act.
I remember at the iOS3 preview event when they showed off cut-and-paste, they admitted that they weren't even close to being first, but said they were so far ahead of everybody else it wasn't going to matter. They were right.
Android still hasn't caught up to iOS 3.0. in regard to CCP.
Hmmmm, I don't see how this would work out. Consider that on my iMac I have around 240gb or music and a further 185gb of movies, now if I was to decide to stream this content, as well as buy movies etc from the new iCloud service I would need to have super fast internet away from home (doubt that 3G would cut it) and an unlimited data usuage contract.
Obviously I would not stream 100's of gigabytes of data each month, but if everything was streamed to my iPhone, iPad and my girlfriends MacBook we would use up a lot of data.
Free public wifi (where available) and spotty 3G connectivity when travelling would hardly make this a viable alternative to having the information on your device.
Maybe I'm just not getting it....
You're the perfect person for this service and you don't seem to realize. You have 185gb of movies, so obviously you can't fit all of that on your ios device. Let's say you're at a friends house and want to watch a movie on your ipad ( i realize you might not have an ipad, but this is an example). Since all of your movies are stored on icloud you could just call up your movie and stream it to watch. Just as if you were going to rent a movie from itunes. It would be even better if your friend had an ATV. When you start looking at it like that there are many possibilities where this would be very useful.
I don't think this will be a service for when you are in a cab for example. But when traveling and you are at the hotel, just use their wifi and stream any of your movies and/or music. To me it makes perfect sense. You will still be able to locally store everything you want like you do now, but for people like you with massive libraries you won't have to compromise so much. You just locally store a few playlists you know you want and the rest you stream or even better bring some songs from the cloud to your local storage while you are in wifi.
Personally, I would love this. I would always be apprehensive about leaving large numbers of my files with all my data on them in somebody else's hands...even a reliable player like Apple. But if I could access my data on my own Mac as if it were on the"cloud" that would really be cool.
This would also seem to allow full syncing of your mobile device with your Mac. No more syncing via iTunes...now you sync, stream, and access files to and from your Mac via iCloud.
MDCragg
I wonder if iCloud will allow you to connect to your Mac from your mobile device via the internet and "stream" your content from your own computer and not from some online storage. The fact that the server component is to be included in Lion seems to fall in line with this theory. It also seems to fall in line with the "Back to the Mac" mantra...when you're connecting via the cloud you're virtually going back to your Mac.
Personally, I would love this. I would always be apprehensive about leaving large numbers of my files with all my data on them in somebody else's hands...even a reliable player like Apple. But if I could access my data on my own Mac as if it were on the"cloud" that would really be cool.
This would also seem to allow full syncing of your mobile device with your Mac. No more syncing via iTunes...now you sync, stream, and access files to and from your Mac via iCloud.
MDCragg
You can already do this with several 3rd-party apps. I use StreamToMe to access the content from all the Macs in the house (6) including a Mini Media-Server with 2 2TeraByte Drives containing 900 videos, 11,000 songs and lots of photos.
StreamToMe is a $2.99 Universal App that runs on all iDevices and the Mac component, ServeToMe is free,
I have used id successfully over 3G (when I had spare bandwidth on my monthly iPad allotment).