The curious thing about the iPod is how little of it came from Apple. The company decided on the case, interface and software but largely farmed out the electronics to companies from Santa Clara to Edinburgh. Most of the components are standard, most of the functionality off the shelf. The rest is Apple magic: if the company is to continue its stellar performance when the iPod finally runs out of steam, it must be sure-footed in sprinkling that magic elsewhere.
Apple's strengths are software, industrial design and marketing, and it knows this. It has shown little inclination to seriously chase the business market, where such things are way down the list of desiderata. No doubt OS X on Intel could land a punch on Microsoft but it could also be a fatal self-injury for a company that gets its money from high margin proprietary hardware products which people buy for the software they run.
Apple's best fit is the aspirational home -- not for nothing do all those makeover TV programmes swap out the punter's grungy PC for a shiny iMac -- and its closest kin, and therefore most dangerous enemy, is Sony. Although Sony invented portable music it's gone from being a market leader to an unimportant player, largely by trying to lock in its users in to ungainly software and proprietary standards. Apple has been fortunate here: the iPod should have been a Sony product, but Apple got there first, and it has given the Cupertino firm extremely valuable momentum.
The converged home has to be Apple's next move, and soon. It risks being late to the dinner party -- with Windows Media Center 3.0, Microsoft is already halfway through the six iterations it normally takes to get something right. We suggest a set of smart wirelessly linked digital components, including a DVR file server, flat-screen TV-cum-Mac, digital radio and -- why not ? -- a cordless iPod. These would make a stunning proposition, and cement Apple's arrival as the major consumer innovator of the 21st century.
Talkback
I think this article is spot on. But you overestimate Sony's role. Increasingly their products are ill-thoughout, badly-made and with after sales support and customer service on a par with a Parisan waiter. Apple on the other hand are doing all of these things right. A much more sensible brand comparison would be Bose or Bang Olufsen.
Anyway bring on the convergence, but can we get rid of all those wires!
Ok, I started with PCs many years ago and gradually worked my way through 95,98 and now xp.
I've done the games, read the books and worn the t shirt, so what now.
What now is music, pics and video, thats what I do now.
Hey, I've just described ilife from apple mac. Apple mac? that funny machine so revered of geeks and bearded ones that no self respecting pc'er would touch with a ten foot barge pole.
Not any more chums. This pc'er is switching in a big way, and so i suspect will many thousands more as they gaze upon the work of art that is the imac, why it's not being put up for this years turner art prize is beyond me.
Looks, price, a stable operating system and it's got ipod writ large upon it. I would have to be nuts with a capital N to ignore this.
Switchers of the world unite, you have nothing to lose except 1,000 patches and the blue screen of death!