But back to this piece, here, which might have been more insightful than the NYT’s one or Beattie’s…
In hindsight, this piece was both prescient of what would actually happen and telling in what didn’t happen. The radio, Plays for Sure, and WiMAX parts didn’t pan out as planned, and that’s interesting. Apple’s content play has been both more ambitious and less impactful. The move against DRM might have been surprising. And it’s funny to think about 1GB SD cards as expensive… ;-)
But, in the abstract at least (and in Steve Jobs’s way to describing it), the iPhone has been this integrated communicating device about which people had been talking for years. So, good jobs in predicting it years in advance.

Any thoughts on the much-discussed idea of an Apple foray into the media center domain?

I surmise that iPods are popular in part because they’re very basic, simple things, which in general what most people want. Your article is interesting, but it’s written from the perspective of someone familiar with technology. You crave integration, because that’s what technology-savvy people tend to crave.

In my opinion, features are like fashions. One year, features are the big thing, and the next, it’s all about simple and straight-forward. This is represented like a bell-curve: as a new technology is assimilated and adopted into the mainstream, the level of desire for features goes up. We’re not very far into the whole “age of the portable music player”, but I think the fact that using computers in general has become so difficult is starting to bleed over into other technologies.

We’re sick of our computers crashing, and spam, and virII, and malware… and we just want stuff that works. The iPod represents this.

I’m not sure where Apple will take all of this next, and I think many of your ideas have a lot of merit… but I think things are going to get more and more straight-forward, rather than complex. Integration of other technologies (your “camera / mp3 player in one”) is inherently more complex, and while the technology leaders might use ’em, I wonder if the average person will.

Mike: This is a great article. You always manage to pull everything together in a lengthy, intelligent post. You’re staying in my RSS for a while.

We have corporate users and personal users with fundamentally different needs and desires. Furthermore, each group has its own vast subsets of users with different needs and desires. What will these devices do? The possibilities are almost unlimited and, as such, I doubt you’ll find a device that will have everything you want and deliver it as well as you want.

When I look at IT today, I still see massive integration issues within single corporations. Disparate content management systems. Silos of business groups that have need to be talking to one another but can’t or, at least, have difficulty. If bottom-line driven corporations can’t get their shit together, I can’t imagine what will be required for the mothership device to serve our needs.

You’re talking about a device as simple and intuitive to use as an iPod, but as flexible as a Treo to the Nth degree, with extreme battery life, unlimited (fast) connectivity, and no theoretical storage limitation, as well as the ability to offer (software and functionality wise) what you, I, and 1000s of other people with completely disparate concepts of the ideal device want it to do.

If you’re not talking about such a device, then surely you’re back to carrying multiple devices, for the same reason that I have a Blackberry and an iPod. Maybe in a few years the Blackberry will be the iPod, but I would hazzard to guess that there will always be something missing. Right now, even, the battery life on the Blackberry is garbage and the OS is not as responsive as it needs to be. How is one developer/manufacturer going to build the ultimate device? I don’t think they can.

So you get a group of companies working together. It’s still not enough. Does Apple control the interface design for everyone to ensure consistency and ease of use? What is the OS based on to ensure security and stability? Who isn’t part of the consortium and, as a result, what’s missing?

There will be attempts at mothership devices. And I hope they succeed. But I’m skeptical that we’ll see mothership + trinkets like the iPod shuffle. I think in all likelihood you’ll have the advanced iPod or easier to use Treo that still doesn’t quite cut it for whatever specific reason you have, so you’re either making do or you’re also buying Brand Xs latest large device to complement it.

The bottom line is, if you’re just making do, there will always be an in for the competition. So Apple may fall out of favour in 2 years, and come roaring back 3 years later. I think it’s inevitable anyway, because there’s still a ton of room in the industry to innovate. Apple doesn’t hold a monopoly in that area, nor would they have the resources to maintain it if they did.

It is, however, a positive sign that the iPod shuffle was released. This is at least evidence that Steve is willing to reevaluate strategy at Apple, assuming that when he says we’ll never make a Flash device it wasn’t just marketing rhetoric designed to give the Flash based competition a false sense of hope. Either way, I personally think the minds at Apple found a way to turn a limitation into an innovation; you have limited storage and a price point to hit in a saturated market — is there something new to be offered here that maintains the Apple ethos, simplifying complex technologies.

Anyway, I’ll stop now.
Peace.

While I generally agree with all of your points, the one potential pitfall that I see for Apple that is bigger than any other is the FairPlay licensing deal. I truly believe that Apple’s ability to own the digital media market for years to come lies in their ability to put out a killer version of QuickTime with FairPlay built in for all formats and license it.

If they’ll do that, they stand a very good chance. Otherwise, each piutfall you’ve pointed out has the potential to bite them in the ass one by one.

• they need a phone
• they want to play games on the go
• they want something hip & cool they can boast about
• they need their parents to buy one for them so it has to be affordable

Ok – so, did it fail? Yes. Partly because the way it was marketed and because it didn’t have enough original & good games. But, also, the primary marker ie. the kids *never* wanted to have it all in one. “If I want to play games I use my PS II”.

It’s all about the experience in the end. I consider myself a techie, but I have loads of devices for different purposes. All of which I’ve chosen because they are best for the given purpose.

I myself would never want to have all of their features integrated all in one – I want my employer to provide me with tools that help me to work better but I don’t want to use the same tool in my spare time for leisure activities.

If you’re working freelance, then it’s of course a different ballgame, but most of the consumers are not – this is an important point, imo.

Regarding big brother brands – Levi’s failed because they didn’t evolve., they didn’t study the changing youth culture enough and it was too late when they realised that. Look at Sony, same thing. But Apple, imo, is very clever when it comes to marketing – if they can keep that up, they will evolve and stay up there. A good read about branding is “The Hero and the Outlaw: Building Extraordinary Brands Through the Power of Archetypes”

Good article, though – enjoyed it a lot.

Please continue the ace essays! I’ll be sure to read (or listen to) all future ones.

Tee: What if you turned that around though and took a gaming device kids already used like a GameBoy and added phone capabilities to that? I think the Nokia thing happened because kids simply won’t stand for second-rate game platforms. If it’s not hip, they won’t use it.