Posts Tagged: apple

apple / iPad / iPhone / iPod / itunes / observatory — 9 Comments
24
Mar 11

iPod: Apple’s quiet monopoly

Remember the good old days when iPod was Apple’s most thrilling product?

Damn those iPhones and iPads, stealing iPod’s thunder like that.

Sure, iPods still get their buzz every September with the new holiday line. The crowds still show up. But clearly today’s iPod lives in the shadow of its more glamorous siblings.

Relatively speaking, iPod goes about its business quietly — if it’s possible to be quiet when your business is maintaining a massive, competition-crushing stranglehold on your category.

Shortly after its birth, iPod grabbed over 80% of the music player market. It was simple, elegant, and the combination of iPod/iTunes just couldn’t be matched.

But nothing’s forever, right? Every intelligent observer assumed that at some point, competitors would appear to bring iPod’s market share back down to earth.

That never happened. Later this year, iPod will celebrate its tenth anniversary — and its tenth year of dominance.

In technology terms, that makes iPod a senior citizen. Yet it still performs like a newborn.

I honestly can’t remember any one product line that’s held such a lopsided advantage for so long. The most recent numbers I can find (July 2010) show iPod owning 76% of the category. Holy hell.

Not that others haven’t tried. Zune was probably the most credible challenger, but could only sputter.

I once had an inside look at the iPod-killing business. I was invited to work with an agency making a pitch for a new Sony music player. Some assignments seem silly only in retrospect, but this one seemed silly even at the time. Our mission: “Bring down the iPod.”

It was an incredible delusion on Sony’s part. Not only was this particular music player a faint echo of an iPod, Sony was willing to invest only $15 million in the marketing effort — while Apple was pouring over $100 million into iPod. To light the fire under the agency, Sony also demanded to see “demonstrable results” in three months.

As long as companies are driven more by delusion and hope, iPod’s 75%+ market share is probably safe.

In fact, at this point one could reasonably argue that iPod will spend its entire life unthreatened by real competition. If anything, the category will simply fade as smartphones make standalone devices less necessary.

I suspect it will be a long, long time before another product dominates like iPod has.

(Yeah, I know. iPad now has 90% market share. But let’s meet back in a year on that one.)

apple / apple news / iPad / iPhone / iPod / observatory / strategy — 10 Comments
21
Mar 11

Why MobileMe will be free

MobileMe has always been the bad boy of the Apple product portfolio. It’s not like Apple doesn’t give it frequent makeovers. It just never seems to attract a crowd.

So it’s not surprising there is speculation out there about the future of MobileMe.

Who knows what Apple will do in the end, but there are some compelling reasons to believe it will become a free service.

MobileMe is a tough sell. It’s always been a tough sell. And Apple is really good at turning a problem into an advantage.

When I say it’s a tough sell, I’m talking specifically about what goes on in the Apple Stores. When a customer buys any Mac or i-device, the sales person is trained to sell them on two additional purchases: AppleCare and MobileMe.

AppleCare is a no-brainer. That’s because it’s easy to understand and worth the price. Pay a modest fee and get two additional years on your warranty.

MobileMe is another story. It’s got lots of parts, so it’s hard to explain. And the fact is, most people just don’t need all the parts. So they decline the opportunity to plunk down 99 bucks.

Every so often, some anonymous Apple employee dares to go public, as this one did recently. He confirms how difficult it is to sell MobileMe. I usually take these things with a grain of salt, but this is consistent with what I’ve read elsewhere and what I’ve heard from my own sources.

Apple has made some gallant efforts to spice up MobileMe, but the result has always been the same. People are lukewarm on it at best.

But now that so many years have passed, the current version of MobileMe faces more vexing problems than its previous iterations ever did. It has competitors who offer pretty good products — most of which are free.

If you’ve had an email address for years, chances are you won’t get too excited about having a me.com address.

If you use Dropbox to sync files amongst multiple computers, you probably won’t get too excited about iDisk.

If you sync calendars and contacts with Google, you probably won’t care much about iCal and Address Book syncing.

If you want to share your photos online, you can easily do that any number of ways.

So what’s the big advantage of MobileMe these days? Like most Apple solutions, its advantage is simplicity. Even if you only have a Mac and an iPhone, the convenience of MobileMe is hard to beat. Just turn it on and your stuff is automatically synced. Don’t underestimate the power of that.

Though MobileMe is a good thing, it’s not a $99 thing. It’s the kind of advantage you expect from Apple, but don’t expect to pay for.

Unless Apple has a secret plan to turn MobileMe into MagicMe, it’s time to officially make the service what it should be — a basic part of the Apple experience.

This way, MobileMe would simply be one more reason to choose the Apple way. It would stop being a “one more thing” message from the sales person, and become part of the main sell. It would delight new customers and strengthen the loyalty of current ones.

Millions would happily buy into the idea of MobileMe — as long as they’re not asked to buy it.

advertising / apple / apple news / iPad / observatory / steve jobs / tablets — 10 Comments
3
Mar 11

iPad 2: what a difference a year makes

It’s easy to forget what happened a year ago when Apple unveiled iPad.

The most anticipated launch in the company’s history turned out, in many ways, to be a dud. I’m not talking about the device. I’m talking about the launch.

The naysayers went to work within seconds: the name is embarrassing, there are no surprises, it’s just a bigger iPod touch, Apple’s string of successes is finally snapped — it was unrelenting. iPad became a joke for late-night comics. If Apple stock were based on popular opinion, it would have plummeted at least 50%.

Only when people got their hands on iPad two months later did things turn around. You know the rest — it became the most successful new product in Apple history.

So it was with great interest that I read the day-after reviews this morning. Not a lot of overt gushing, but generally positive. Quite a few are in the “met expectations” camp. Which, in some cases, is simply a backhanded compliment from someone who had their heart set on drawing blood.

Personally, I was a satisfied customer. My test is simple: if I look at the old and new models side by side, and I can’t imagine myself using the old one, I feel like Apple has done its job. There are too many things “wrong” with the old one now, or just missing, for me to be interested. A ton of current owners will want to upgrade, and a ton of people who were waiting for a better iPad will eagerly jump in. It more than holds up against the imitators who can’t offer the ecosystem surrounding Apple products.

Here are my reactions to yesterday’s launch event, in no meaningful order.

Hello, Steve. Well, wasn’t that a nice surprise. Good to see Steve back in the saddle. I think it’s significant, because it quashes some of the darker theories out there.

“Don’t expect more than a speed bump.” As most know, a leak one day prior to the event from an “Apple staffer” warned us not to get too excited about iPad 2. It’s just a speed bump. The real fun comes with iPad 3, later in the year. Uh huh. This story was re-blogged over 500 times. Not that we need further proof, but this only demonstrates the uncontrollable drive that many feel to spew any and all details about an upcoming Apple product. You’d hope that by now, people wouldn’t be so eager to go on record spreading false rumors.

The Smart Cover. Damn, it’s cute. Probably one of the best examples of sexy simplicity Apple has come up with in a while. (And kudos to the Apple writer who came up with the line on the website: One great idea on top of another. Good one.)

The chip. Love it. Not only does the dual-core A5 chip deliver that snappy performance, it allows Apple to remain super-competitive in price. The other guys have to pay someone else for a processor, and those little buggers ain’t cheap.

The name A5. Does anyone know the real origin of the naming scheme? What happened to A1, A2 and A3? Just curious.

The iPad 2 video. After every launch, I say the same thing. The video is fine, high quality, hit all the big points, etc. It just looks and sounds like every other video Apple has done in the last few years — right down to the superlative overload. My ideal Apple is never formulaic. This is a formula.

The Smart Cover video. Totally cool. Beautifully done. A great example of how a spot that trumpets only a relatively insignificant feature can give you such a positive feeling about the overall product (and the company that made it). Hope it runs as a commercial.

White. Yippee! But I like black.

The competition. Back at CES in January, over 100 tablets stood up to compete with iPad. Unfortunately, they were competing with the wrong iPad. Like Apple has done since the second iPod, they’ve unveiled a new version just as the other guys are able to say “we got one too.” If you’re a competitor, there’s only one known defense: make an original, revolutionary product yourself. And you know how often that happens.

“2011: The year of iPad 2.” As a theme line for the event … thanks, but no thanks. It’s a bit too self-congratulatory for my taste. I’m used to Apple saying things like “the year of HD” and “the year of wireless.” Not “the year of iMovie HD” and “the year of AirPort.” However, I do agree with the sentiment. Barring any economic disaster, with businesses, schools and consumers lining up to buy, 2011 is going to be all iPad, all the time.

apple / creative / dell / observatory / simplicity — 10 Comments
24
Feb 11

Great ads vs. laundry lists

As we all know, ads can fail for a number of reasons: bad creative, bad strategy and bad clients.

It takes a special kind of client to understand that the best way to win a customer’s heart is to focus on a single compelling point — not to stuff a commercial full of goodness.

Some clients just have a laundry list of points they want to get into their ad, and they find it impossible to let go.

Even Steve Jobs is capable of having — as Pink Floyd once said — a momentary lapse of reason. I saw it with my own eyes at a meeting when Steve was trying to get the agency to squeeze a few more product benefits into an ad we were about to produce.

Sitting across the table from Steve was Lee Clow, past and current leader of Apple’s agency. Lee crumpled up 4-5 pieces of paper and tossed one to Steve. “This is a good ad,” said Lee, as Steve easily caught it.

Then, all at once, Lee tossed the remaining pile of crumpled balls of paper to Steve and he caught none of them. “That’s a bad ad,” said Lee.

If I’d known that the incident would have become a blog post, I’d have made it a point to remember if Steve then let us have our way. But I do stand behind the principle, as would most every right-thinking marketing person.

Simplicity beats complexity every time.

People tend to remember one thing well said better than a laundry list well recited.

Fortunately, just as I need to illustrate the point, Dell rushes in with a new ad. Or, more accurately, a new laundry list. It goes like this:

If you buy an Inspiron 15R (catchy name, fellas), you’ll get:

(1) More fun, (2) more control, (3) more durability, (4) more sales support, (5) for less, (6) with an Intel Core i3 processor for (7) faster multitasking and (8) McAfee Security Center. It concludes, of course, with the dueling theme lines, “You can tell it’s Dell” and “The power to do more.”

When y0u compare the Dell-style  laundry-list commercial to a more single-minded Apple commercial (like “Mac vs. PC), it’s not hard to understand why Apple is better at winning both customers and advertising awards.

technology — 13 Comments
3
Feb 11

The last Mac myth

Back in the good old days, the die-hard Apple fans — embarrassingly outnumbered — would often attempt to debunk the many myths surrounding the platform.

They targeted such notions as “Macs aren’t as fast as PCs,” “Mac files aren’t compatible” and “Macs offer less software.”

Like most of the world, I’ve stopped worrying about such things. The arguments just aren’t relevant anymore. Even the software issue, which still exists by absolute numbers, isn’t worth discussing. Whatever the number of Mac apps may be, a Mac owner has a huge amount of titles to choose from. If you lust that badly after a particular Windows app, you can simply configure your Mac to run it.

But, nosing around on the Apple sites and discussion groups recently (this is what I do for a good time), I was surprised to see one myth still alive and well. It’s the idea that Macs are not more secure than PCs — there are simply so few Macs on earth, they’re not a juicy enough target for the evildoers. This is the famous theory of “security by obscurity.”

This is also pure crap.

Macs were once not only a tiny minority of the world’s computers, they were a fading minority. The platform didn’t generate nearly the buzz it does today. Nor was its every move reported by legions of journalists and bloggers.

If I were a hacker 15 years ago, I’d buy the obscurity argument in a nanosecond. What’s the fun of being a big fish in an invisible puddle.

However, this isn’t then. Apple is now the world’s most successful — and most valuable — technology company. Macs get far more attention than their numbers suggest. They’re all over movies and TV shows. They’re the defacto standard in graphics and design. Although the Mac market share remains far smaller than that of PCs, Mac users number in the tens of millions. And then there’s mobile technology, where Apple either leads in market share or owns a giant chunk of the category. Regardless of market share, Apple leads by far in share of mind. The world’s obsession with Apple only grows bigger every day.

Add to that the fact that Apple has spent tens of millions of dollars proclaiming to the world that Macs don’t get viruses. That was the claim in one of the earliest “Mac vs. PC” commercials (the one where PC couldn’t stop sneezing). It was an open challenge to the world’s hackers. It was Apple’s public “bring it on.”

If you were a hacker seeking glory these days, the Mac has to be one super-tempting target. Being the first person on earth to cause havoc in the Mac world would mean instant enshrinement in the Hackers Hall of Fame. It’s just horribly naive to suggest that hackers have no motivation to attack the Mac. In fact, why would you create malware for PCs, where viruses are a dime a dozen, when you can have the fame and glory that would come with bringing those arrogant Mac users to their knees? Hell, I’m tempted to go try it myself.

Hacker conventions have been held with the express goal of breaking into the Mac. They usually end with a “concept virus,” or the announcement of some newly discovered vulnerability in Mac OS X. Yet somehow none of that ever causes a blip in the Mac world.

Given the total lack of widespread Mac viruses over all these years vs. the hundreds of thousands that exist in PCs, it takes some kind of twisted logic to maintain that Mac OS X is as vulnerable as Windows.

Interestingly, there’s a newer, more absurd myth being born to take the place of security by obscurity. It’s the idea that Macs are actually more vulnerable than PCs. This belief is put out there by security companies out to sell their own software, or security experts eager to prove their unconventional smarts. They have all the reports to prove Mac’s many documented vulnerabilities. The only thing missing are the viruses.

This is not to say Macs are invincible. Clearly any computer can be compromised. Everyone needs to exercise some common sense. But the simple fact is, it’s pure insanity to run a PC without antivirus software and commonplace to run a Mac without it. I haven’t run antivirus software in my Macs since Mac OS X was released, over 10 years ago. I don’t know anyone who has.

The “Mac is vulnerable” crowd does exist and will always exist. They’ll continue to make their claims until one day they can say they were right.

I will only note that there is also a Flat Earth Society waiting patiently to be proven right. We’ll see who gets there first.

microsoft / observatory / tablets — 19 Comments
27
Jan 11

Apple’s final humiliation of Microsoft

Given the latest financial reports, it defies belief that just 13 years ago Apple was wheezing on its deathbed.

Even  harder to believe, Steve Jobs was forced to grovel before Bill Gates to keep Apple viable with a $150 million investment and a public pledge to support Office for Mac for five years.

How different are things today? Well, as we all know, last year Apple surpassed Microsoft to become the most valuable technology company on earth.

Some shrugged that off because, market value aside, Microsoft still made far more profit than Apple. The profit margins in the software biz are much higher. In fact, Microsoft has trounced Apple in the profit department for 20 consecutive years.

Don’t count on 21.

According to Reuters, Apple is about to deliver the final blow. Microsoft is expected to announce a $5.93 billion profit for the last quarter — while Apple has already announced its $6 billion profit for the same quarter. (Correction 4:00 pm 1/27: Reuters’ analysts missed. Microsoft hit $6.63 billion in profits. For now, still the leader. For how many more quarters, your guess.)

But it gets juicier.

Philip Elmer-Dewitt writes for Fortune that while several research firms reported fairly poor numbers for PCs last quarter, a firm called Canalys saw a whopping 19% growth in PCs during this time. That’s because they counted tablets as PCs — and iPads sold by the millions.

By including iPad sales, Canalys shows Apple’s PC sales growing an astounding 241% over last year. This pushes them into the #3 spot worldwide, ahead of Dell and Lenovo, second only to HP and Acer.

Hold it right there, you say. Tablets are not PCs. That’s just twisting the numbers to make Apple look better. And yes, many would agree. (Just read the comments below the Elmer-Dewitt article.)

Your honor, I call Steve Ballmer to the witness stand. Here’s what Ballmer said when interviewed by Walt Mossberg at the All Things Digital conference last June. Skip to the 3:26 mark to see this exchange:

Mossberg: …this is semantics maybe, but, you’re using the term PC — I thought I just heard you use the term PC — to kind of envelop the things that I think a lot of average people don’t think of as PCs, like the iPad, or other tablets that might be coming. Is that kind of thing a PC?

Ballmer: Sure, of course it is.

Mossberg: It is.

Ballmer: Of course it is. It’s a different form factor of PC.

While it hurts to be on the same side of an argument as Steve Ballmer, I agree. Ballmer’s comments validate the Canalys numbers. With Apple now at 10.8% of the worldwide PC shipments, they’re a stone’s throw behind Acer’s 12.8%. And not imaginably far behind HP’s 17.7%.

This is shaping up to be an interesting decade.

advertising / app store / blackberry / creative / iPhone / observatory / strategy — 12 Comments
21
Jan 11

Adwatch: Intel soars, BlackBerry splats

These two ads have been around for a bit, but I’m sharing them anyway. Try and stop me. One proves that there’s always a creative way to say what’s been said before. The other proves that lame strategies lead to lame ads.

Starting on a positive note, here’s Intel’s effort:

In one of my first-ever posts 18 months ago, I raved about the new creative work from Intel via agency Venables & Partners. In following months, I gagged at their embarrassing Sad Robot and Penguins spots. These guys are giving me whiplash now, because this ad for their i5 processor is really, really good. (Correction 1/25 2:59pm: Venables did not create the Penguins spot, just the Robot spot.)

Not only is it fresh and mesmerizing, it’s a great job done under difficult circumstances.

Intel makes processors. Every new processor is faster than the one before. So, chip after chip, the creative guys are asked to come up with a new way to say the same thing. It’s one of the tougher challenges in this business. Then there’s the not-insignificant fact that working with Intel can make the veins in your head burst. So when someone makes a great ad, and Intel doesn’t peck it to death, this is big news.

Now brace yourself. Here comes the clunker:

Suppose for a minute that you’re BlackBerry. Your market share is in a well-documented free-fall. You’re watching as Apple and Google fight it out for new customers — a huge chunk of which happen to be your current customers. You get that apps are the big deal in mobile technology, but your own App World is a pathetic also-ran to Apple’s App Store and Google’s Apps Marketplace. (You’re only behind by a couple hundred thousand apps.)

But you’re feisty. There’s still some fight left in you. You bring in your top strategists and creative hotshots, and allocate a nice chunk of marketing money to the cause. And what do you get? An ad that basically says: With BlackBerry, you don’t just get apps — you get “super apps.”

It’s stunning, actually. You would think that grown adults with even a fleeting familiarity with the smartphone market would know better. Does anyone believe there’s anything about the BlackBerry OS that would allow it to run apps that are more “super” than Apple’s and Google’s apps? What the hero of this spot does seems to be easily accomplished via iPhone or Android. This is simply BlackBerry wishing things would be different — but the cold reality is there for all to see.

BlackBerry once had such a commanding share of the smartphone market, it’s hard to imagine them fading to nothing. But ads like this make you think that’s a distinct possibility.

apple news / observatory / steve jobs — 9 Comments
19
Jan 11

Steve Jobs and the Revolution Machine

With Steve Jobs out again on medical leave, the future of Apple automatically becomes the topic of the week (and possibly the year).

I’m concerned about Steve’s health, and wish him a speedy return. However, I’m not at all concerned about Apple’s health.

That’s because Steve’s most important accomplishment has not been any one revolution. It’s his design of a machine that manufactures revolution. That, of course, is Apple itself.

Steve started building the Revolution Machine the day he returned to the company in 1997. He well understood how Apple came to be in its near-death condition, and was determined to build a new company that would never be mediocre again. He didn’t waste a minute clearing out the dead wood, reorganizing and refocusing the troops. With iMac and subsequent products, he proved that Apple could defy all the dire predictions — but only if it entered a state of perpetual innovation.

He recruited the best and brightest, and made sure they’d never leave. (Stock options!) Now experienced over multiple revolutions, it’s the executive team that makes Apple do what it does. They share Steve’s passion, and they understand the difference between simply creating products and creating products people can love. Together, they’ve learned how to make a creative process repeatable.

Obviously, Steve’s vision is a unique part of the machine, and one that cannot be easily replaced. But his values have been instilled throughout the organization, and will be a guidepost for a long time to come.

That Steve has built a Revolution Machine is undeniable. His motivation is a bit more subjective.

Not to burst the critics’ bubbles, but he didn’t do it because he wants to take over the world, control our lives or become the richest man on earth. He did it because he loves Apple. He loves what the company stands for and feels responsible for those who work there. He wants Apple to thrive long after he retires from the scene, and remain a creative force around the world.

With the Revolution Machine in perfect working order, the chances of that are pretty darn good.

At product launches, when Steve acknowledges his executive team and/or those who helped bring Apple’s latest innovation to life, he means every word. He knows that what Apple does could never happen without them. He also knows that it will keep happening with them.

All that aside though … get well, Steve.

apple / iPad / technology — 12 Comments
10
Jan 11

CES 2011: putting Apple in its place

It only takes 2,700 exhibitors to put Apple in perspective.

The annual Consumer Electronics Show is unimaginably huge. More than 33 football fields’ worth of displays. I left my measuring tape at home, but I suspect Sony filled one of those football fields all by itself.

While Apple declines to show up at such gatherings, their absence allows us to make some interesting observations. Much the same way that astronomers draw conclusions about planets by examining the forces surrounding them.

First, just to keep the astronomy metaphor going, it’s hard not to appreciate the “speck in the universe” aspect of Apple when you walk around CES. Apple is dwarfed by the sheer volume of its competitors. It is also dwarfed by the many lines of products offered by its biggest competitors.

Having been to enough Macworlds in my day, it’s easy to imagine what Apple’s booth would look like next to the booth of, say, Sony or Samsung. It would be a fraction of the size, simply because Apple focuses on a relatively small number of products — featuring only single lines of desktops, laptops, music players, phones and tablets. The other guys have product lines out the wazoo, churning out everything from TVs and DVD players to washers and dryers. I imagine it will be a while before we see Apple going up against Whirlpool.

Apple’s accomplishment, however, becomes more amazing given the number and size of its competitors. Creating far fewer products, selling to far fewer people, Apple generates more profit than every last one of them. By far.

Standing in that Sony booth, being awed by the depth and breadth of that company’s product offerings, watching the enthusiasm of the crowds, it defies belief that Apple is the more successful — and more valuable — company. In my opinion, it’s the ultimate tribute to the power of simplicity.

There’s only one reason, of course, why any company would bother with CES in the first place. It’s that one time of the year when they can buy themselves some great PR and generate excitement for their new products. In other words, they have to pay for what Apple gets free all year long. While some may grouse about that, let’s not forget that Apple doesn’t derive this benefit because journalists, bloggers and media companies have such big hearts. Apple gets the buzz because over a couple of decades, they’ve repeatedly created new categories by innovating so successfully. They’ve built expectations that are in themselves newsworthy.

Last, I did want to offer an observation about the many tablets on display at CES. Rather than bore you with model-by-model reviews, I’ll just say that there are a number of solid contenders out there. There is every reason to believe the tablet market will evolve much as the smartphone market did. Apple takes the early market share lead by reinventing the category, then Android and the others step in with more features and lower prices. Fans of those platforms will find much to like. Ultimately Apple will sell fewer units than the others, but as is the case with computers and smartphones — they will continue to generate greater profit.

As long as Apple continues to innovate as it does, there will be a large audience willing to pay the premium.

app store / apple / apple news / iPhone / mac / observatory / steve jobs / technology — 5 Comments
22
Dec 10

It’s an app-happy world

Art credit: Koka Sexton (via Flickr)

I get all wispy and nostalgic when I think about the days of the first iPhone. How innocent we were then.

When we talked about apps, we were talking about web apps. The kind we had to load up in Safari. No, developers weren’t allowed to get their greasy fingers anywhere near iPhone’s innards.

Apple tried to calm the natives by putting on a number of iPhone developer events to help them make the best web apps they could. But those apps only gave us a taste of what a real app might do.

Some say Steve Jobs only reversed himself when he realized the enormity of the potential for 3rd-party apps. Others believe opening iPhone up to apps was the plan all along, and it was simply a matter of “first things first.” iPhone needed to become a solid platform first.

Whatever, within six months of iPhone’s birth Apple welcomed developers into the tent. Six months later, the App Store was born. It soon became clear that apps were by far the biggest part of the iPhone story. Apps are what turned a communicator/iPod into a true pocket computer.

When competitors started to appear, Apple’s advantage depended on its lead in apps. Apps became a given for every platform. No competitor could seriously contend without an app store of its own.

In fact, the very word apps, a geek word turned mainstream by Apple, was instantly adopted by Apple’s competitors. It’s now as generic as a screen full of app icons arranged in a grid.

Now, as if the world of apps isn’t big enough already, the other shoe is about to drop. And this is one humongous shoe. The Mac App Store will open for business on January 6th.

You can’t help but feel this is going to be a “how did we live without this before” kind of thing. Surely it will spark another gold rush for developers. Happily for AAPL stockholders, it will also spout a new gusher of cash. Apple will now start pocketing 30% on software sales — as opposed to the 0% they’ve been taking for the last 25 years.

Given the historic success of the App Store, this development wasn’t hard to predict. Even yours truly saw it coming back in October of 2009. As the App Store does for apps and iTunes does for music, the Mac App Store will give millions of Mac people one simple place to discover great new apps, talk them up with friends and get instant gratification 24/7. While mega-apps like Adobe CS5 and Final Cut Studio may not work this way for a while (but then they may), the Mac App Store will be the Big Bang for more bite-sized apps and utilities that make the Mac a more fun and customizable place. Mac apps will suddenly be a spontaneous decision, just a click away.

The Mac App Store will be one more reason for people to be drawn to the light. Though none of us should be surprised when a certain entity announces its intention to copy the idea on the PC side.

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