I have been an Apple fan since there was an Apple.
I am beginning to have an issue with their approach which seems limited to great hardware and great software. They are basically “late to the cloud”. Here are a couple of examples:
a) Ownership of music in a physical sense (having the bits on my computer) is no longer necessary or even perhaps the best form of ownership. What I really want is to listen to what I want when I want. Lala offers a great example of an alternative model – rather than purchase music from iTunes to put on my computer for .99, I can access the same song as long as I have Internet access for .10. In addition, I can listen from any computer not just the computer I used to download the song from iTunes.
b) The netbook – an inexpensive computer that is perfect for accessing online services – is another example. If I can save a large amount of money spent on hardware and software by accessing online services why not take this approach? Apple desperately needs a great $500 netbook. I own multiple computers. I can see a model that combines a netbook and a desktop as superior to a model that combines a laptop and a desktop. Money aside – we need to do less on any given machine, but we need access to what we do from as many locations as possible and with as many devices as possible. Why duplicate software across these devices? Why have resources we want confined to different machines?