In the past the past three years, Apple has dared to be dull.
During Apple’s very best years — between 2007 and 2010, Apple introduced the first iPhone and the first iPad, two world-changing products that now define Apple and bring in most of its revenue. These products were a shock to the consumer electronics world, scrambling the trajectory of the whole industry and refocusing it on Apple’s direction.
That’s great, Apple. But what have you done for me lately?
Here’s how Apple works. They find a horrible content consumption experience. They figure out how it can be transformed into a wonderful experience. They work on the problem until the technology is ready, and can be packaged into a relatively affordable and appealing product. Then they ship it and spend the next few years refining and perfecting the original vision.
If that oversimplification about how Apple works is accurate, then Apple isn’t really in full control of when its groundbreaking new products ship. They have to wait for technology, such as Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE), or for various industries to come around to making a critical mass of content deals.
Back to the drought of the last three years. During this time, every Apple announcement has been preceded buy speculation and rumor that Apple would at long last announce an iWatch, an iTV set and other products that would signal a radical new product category for Apple. And every announcement ended in disappointment.
Will Apple ever ship these kind of products? I say they will. And the reason is that the “environmental” constraints will melt away, freeing Apple to do what Apple does.
Specifically, I think the next three years will be twice as awesome as the iPhone-iPad years, in the sense that Apple will break into four new businesses.
iWatch
There should be zero doubt that Apple will ship a wristwatch, and almost certainly this year. The technologies that Apple has been waiting for include BLE, curved glass and better batteries and power management.
Have no illusion that Apple’s iWatch will resemble in any way Samsung’s horrible Galaxy Gear (now shattering records for store returns).
The iWatch will be an iPhone peripheral, showing you notifications and enabling control of some phone functions. I will connect to the phone via BLE and use the phone’s Internet connection.
A patent various blogs are writing about this week look at Apple’s methods for exploiting BLE. Specifically, the patent describes a system for one device to wake up another, exchange data, then shut down, aggressively conserving battery power.
This is exactly the kind of functionality that wasn’t possible before BLE, and which is necessary for an Apple-quality smartwatch.
Curved glass that Apple can use — and it’s important to know that this is manufacturing technology above all — won’t be ready for prime time by Corning until next year. Curved glass is necessary for Apple’s iWatch because it’s the only way to achieve a display of reasonable size without Galaxy Gear type bulkiness.
iTV
Apple’s TV set won’t be a TV set. It will be a computer designed to be used from 10 feet away. Yes, it will be cool, and I want one, etc. But what Apple is really waiting for, in addition to the price of manufacturing 4K displays, is the content deals necessary to make both the iTV and the future version of Apple TV really compelling.
Right now, the challenge is live TV and content licensing deals. If you want to watch Mad Men right now on Apple TV, you’ve got to wait a day, then rent it on iTunes. What Apple needs is a critical mass of partnerships and licensing deals that enable the company to offer these kinds of shows live and free, after a subscription to Apple has been paid for.
As the TV content creators and studios slowly lose their grip on audiences, they’ll be pliable enough to cut such deals with Apple. In fact, it’s only a matter of time until Apple is the leading way for TV show creators to make money from subscription revenue. Why? Because they’ll always charge top dollar in exchange for the highest-quality TV experience.
iOS for Cars
Apple signaled at its recent developers conference that iOS, as well as Apple Maps, iTunes Radio and Siri, were all headed into car dashboards. This isn’t even a secret, and major car makers like Chevy. Honda, Kia, Hyundai, Ferrari and Volvo are all eagerly building iOS into their dashboard, and we’ll see the new implementations next year.
What Apple is waiting for here is the long design and development cycles common to the car industry — measured in years, not month.
They’re also waiting on more partnerships. A short list of carmakers will happily add iOS to a small range of models. However, it’s going to take critical demand and conscious consumer demand for iOS to spread to more makes and models.
I think that within three years, iOS will be a standard feature or a popular option in a very wide range of cars.
Desktop iPad
And finally, I think its possible that Apple will roll out a desktop version of iOS and iPad, one with a giant screen too large to carry around.
The point of all this is not to predict what has already been predicted, or start rumors about things already rumored. Instead, the point is that Apple appears to be on a three-years-on, three-years-off cycle of explosive entry into new markets, followed by the boring perfection of what has already shipped.
Best of all, the three years of boring is about to be replaced with three years of awesome — starting next year. This is going to be fun.
via apple - Google News http://news.google.com/news/url?sa=t&fd=R&usg=AFQjCNHATJ1ZR50osWQutVfVGepjL9jbqQ&url=http://www.cultofmac.com/253623/buckle-up-apples-next-3-years-will-be-insane/
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