When Steve Jobs took the stage for his keynote address at Apple’s annual developers conference last week, he had plenty to say about the new iPhone 4, calling it “the most precise, beautiful thing we’ve ever designed.” He waxed on about its mind-blowing video-chat features and its gorgeous display—even though the Wi-Fi connection failed during his demo. He didn’t neglect the iPad, either, pointing out that Apple has sold 2 million in two months—or about one every three seconds. But Jobs didn’t say one word about the venerable old Mac, even though the conference used to be the place where Apple showed off the new features coming to its line of computers.
It’s a sign of the times. Right now the computer industry is undergoing one of its periodic upheavals in which an aging platform is swept away and replaced by something newer, cheaper, and better. In this case, the victim is the personal computer. Just as mainframes gave way to minicomputers and minicomputers gave way to PCs, the PC is about to be eclipsed by mobile devices. Apple’s new smash-hit product, the iPad, might seem like a toy, but soon it and other mobile devices will become our primary computers, replacing laptops and even desktop machines.
And just like the last time around, a battle is brewing to see which company will rule the industry. During the PC wars, Microsoft triumphed, ending up with 90 percent market share, which left Apple with table scraps. In mobile, Jobs sees a shot at redemption. But this time he faces a new opponent, Google, whose mobile operating system, called Android, has emerged as the biggest rival to Apple.
No comments:
Post a Comment