Apple's Post-PC World

[Jadzia]

Tools obviously won't become extinct, but the tools we get may not be good tools. Buying a computer on the basis of it being able to do X,Y&Z, is like buying a car on the basis of it being able to move you from A to B. That's probably your last concern when choosing which car to buy.

It's not always about function. Feeling is as important.

 

[Arrqh]

There may come a time when it's no longer commercially viable to make machines that serve that 10% minority.

Reduced demand --> reduced sales --> reduced production --> less benefit from mass production --> inflated prices --> product is less desirable --> product is harder to find in shops --> less people know about and understand the product --> product moves closer to extinction

Or whatever it is that this minority wants that isn't being served by most companies... and to be honest, I still have no idea what exactly this is... will simply become a niche product like all the other niche products out there.

On the other hand, if Apple is doing so well and everyone is just going to copy their philosophy or not be able to compete, you wouldn't have things like this going on:

 

[Guartho]

I'm sorry I thought this was a thread about devices that aren't traditional computers.

I guess I jumped the gun and assumed you were trotting out the old "Macs are just toys" line when you specifically said "shiny toys." and not Macs. My Mac does in fact have a matte finish. Shame on me.

 

[David cgc]

On the other hand, if Apple is doing so well and everyone is just going to copy their philosophy or not be able to compete, you wouldn't have things like this going on:

On the other-other hand, if Apple isn't the hot shit all the customers want and all the manufacturers want to be, you wouldn't see stuff like this, either.

 

[Arrqh]

On the other-other hand, if Apple isn't the hot shit all the customers want and all the manufacturers want to be, you wouldn't see stuff like this, either.

That's fairly meaningless considering that's a prototype that was never intended to go into the hands of consumers. Not to mention that there are Android phones that look more like that then they do the iPhone. But if you really wanted a before/after comparison you should take that contextless prototype and put it next to the HTC Dream which was the first retail device.

In any case, my point was not that Apple doesn't innovate or that they don't have an impact on the market as a whole, it was that companies that do things differently are clearly able to be successful in the marketplace, in some cases more so than Apple. The idea that Apple's philosophies behind their devices are going to take over the entire marketplace is not one supported by the facts. What a phone looks like is not nearly as important as, say, not being locked in to a walled garden.

 

[ST-One]

I have just seen that pic on another forum (mobileread):

Odd, that the only device that requires a PC for activation is the iPad...

 

[Charlie Kelly]

Or whatever it is that this minority wants that isn't being served by most companies... and to be honest, I still have no idea what exactly this is... will simply become a niche product like all the other niche products out there.

On the other hand, if Apple is doing so well and everyone is just going to copy their philosophy or not be able to compete, you wouldn't have things like this going on:

Aren't we repeating history a little bit? Didn't the rise of MS-DOS (and later Windows) come from (at least in part) the fact that Microsoft designed it to run on multiple hardware configurations allowing lots of different manufactures to build PCs to run it while Apple kept everything in house?

Charlie

 

[Arrqh]

Aren't we repeating history a little bit? Didn't the rise of MS-DOS (and later Windows) come from (at least in part) the fact that Microsoft designed it to run on multiple hardware configurations allowing lots of different manufactures to build PCs to run it while Apple kept everything in house?

Yup... Armdroid is starting to look like the new Wintel.

 

[Marc]

Or whatever it is that this minority wants that isn't being served by most companies... and to be honest, I still have no idea what exactly this is... will simply become a niche product like all the other niche products out there.

On the other hand, if Apple is doing so well and everyone is just going to copy their philosophy or not be able to compete, you wouldn't have things like this going on:

Aren't we repeating history a little bit? Didn't the rise of MS-DOS (and later Windows) come from (at least in part) the fact that Microsoft designed it to run on multiple hardware configurations allowing lots of different manufactures to build PCs to run it while Apple kept everything in house?

Charlie

Not really.

MS-DOS has always run on Intel and Intel Comptaible chips and those chips alone.

The Windows family has predominataly been been x86 chips as well.

Windows NT also ran on MIPS and Dec Alpha and PowerPC. This was courtesty of the HAL (Hardware abstractional layer) which mean you port the OS to non x86 patforms by charnging the hardware layer and leaving the everything above unchanged but this died when Windows 2000 came out.

Then Intel came out with the Itanium which was a true 64bit processor which saw support in Windows 2003 and 2008 and I believe Microsoft has indicated that 2008 R2 will be the last that supports Itaniium (which has become a very powerful processor).

The talk at the moment is that Microsoft will port Windows 8 to run on ARM processors (licenced varients are driving the latest Smartphones) though the last commerical available PC I know that used an ARM processor was the BBC Archimedes back in the late 80s.

 

[Charlie Kelly]

Not really.

MS-DOS has always run on Intel and Intel Comptaible chips and those chips alone.

The Windows family has predominataly been been x86 chips as well.

Windows NT also ran on MIPS and Dec Alpha and PowerPC. This was courtesty of the HAL (Hardware abstractional layer) which mean you port the OS to non x86 patforms by charnging the hardware layer and leaving the everything above unchanged but this died when Windows 2000 came out.

Then Intel came out with the Itanium which was a true 64bit processor which saw support in Windows 2003 and 2008 and I believe Microsoft has indicated that 2008 R2 will be the last that supports Itaniium (which has become a very powerful processor).

The talk at the moment is that Microsoft will port Windows 8 to run on ARM processors (licenced varients are driving the latest Smartphones) though the last commerical available PC I know that used an ARM processor was the BBC Archimedes back in the late 80s.

Yes but I meant that MS-DOS was designed to handle different hardware configurations from different manufacturers building their own x86 PCs. This was opposed to Apple (and other PC manufacturers at the time) keeping their OS for their own PCs.

Charlie

 

[Marc]

Not really.

MS-DOS has always run on Intel and Intel Comptaible chips and those chips alone.

The Windows family has predominataly been been x86 chips as well.

Windows NT also ran on MIPS and Dec Alpha and PowerPC. This was courtesty of the HAL (Hardware abstractional layer) which mean you port the OS to non x86 patforms by charnging the hardware layer and leaving the everything above unchanged but this died when Windows 2000 came out.

Then Intel came out with the Itanium which was a true 64bit processor which saw support in Windows 2003 and 2008 and I believe Microsoft has indicated that 2008 R2 will be the last that supports Itaniium (which has become a very powerful processor).

The talk at the moment is that Microsoft will port Windows 8 to run on ARM processors (licenced varients are driving the latest Smartphones) though the last commerical available PC I know that used an ARM processor was the BBC Archimedes back in the late 80s.

Yes but I meant that MS-DOS was designed to handle different hardware configurations from different manufacturers building their own x86 PCs. This was opposed to Apple (and other PC manufacturers at the time) keeping their OS for their own PCs.

Charlie

Okay I get you know - Microsoft's nice little cash cow at the time - "Porting" MS-DOS to run on other x86 hardware. I had an an NEC APC II which used an NEC chip (V30 iirc) that was x86 compatible but it wouldn't actually run IBM comptiable software. Microsoft did port of MS DOS for the NEC III as well as Word and Multiplan. It had a card caled a Software Library Expaner that allowed it to run IBM software (I played MS Flight Sim with it) and you booted with a different disk to activate it (SLE was basicall a second processor card and made use of the system's I/O).

 

[Flavius]

And that's a worry...

Why?

Over the past 10 years, computers have become mainstream. The customer base has changed, and business adapts to the needs of the majority. In time, MS and other companies may align themselves with the Apple philosophy, because it's where the money is.

A company that owns ~90% of the desktop market OS-wise is called a monopolist three times over. And what monopolists do is ignore the puny competition. Guess what MS is doing?

Now, what HP is doing - with HP still selling the most PC's - shipping their own OS next to Windows come next year for free - is a far more significant thread to MS than anything Apple could do, since the Win OS sales are largely financing everything else that MS does, including rumpelstilzchens salary.

 

[The Doctor]

Aren't we repeating history a little bit? Didn't the rise of MS-DOS (and later Windows) come from (at least in part) the fact that Microsoft designed it to run on multiple hardware configurations allowing lots of different manufactures to build PCs to run it while Apple kept everything in house?

Yup... Armdroid is starting to look like the new Wintel.

I don't buy it. The Mac was never, ever, as successful in its day as the iOS platform is now. It didn't have the marketshare in units, nor did it have the developer support. Android is swarming the market with phones, largely at the expense of RIM, Nokia and MS, by providing a 'good enough' experience but what we haven't seen (yet) is the kind of financial success for developers on Android that we see on iOS. Much like Nokia's dominance of the market a few years ago, marketshare doesn't mean squat if the developer community isn't there.

Now, I'm sure that the Android market will take off this year, particularly with the addition of Playstation branding and the excellent Tegra 2 platform, but I don't see the kind of collapse for iOS that afflicted the Mac. With the iPad taking off like crazy and the iPod touch regularly selling in similar numbers to the iPhone, iOS as a platform has a great future ahead of it. I have no doubt that Android will be the unit leader and that the woes that face developers trying to monetize on the Marketplace will be largely solved, but iOS will still be there as the platform with leading mindshare and solid unit share.

All of that is to the good, because iOS has gotten better in part because of the pressure from Android, and the converse is clearly true. Android wouldn't be where it is today without iOS as a target to chase and improve upon. I think that there's room in the mobile space for more than one 'dominant' player and I wouldn't be surprised to see the market look very much like it does now in a few years, with Android leading and iOS, RIM, MS and HP jockeying for position in marketshare.