Monday February 15, 2010 – Antonette Goroch
This year’s Macworld marked a turning point for Apple, and the media industry at large, in both what was absent and present.
On the one hand Apple, which pulled out as a Macworld exhibitor last year, was gone for the first time, leaving attendance and exhibitors down by double digits. Gone was the traditional keynote from Steve Jobs announcing the latest and greatest in Apple’s technological evolution (the iPad was announced a couple of weeks ago). This absence was symbolic of Apple’s transformation from a niche computer maker with a devoted base of enthusiasts into a multimedia ecosystem of post-living room entertainment for the mainstream.
What dominated Macworld instead were mobile applications, expanding the utility of Apple’s mobile devices. Over 150,000 apps---a vast number---now fill the AppStore, many of which were on display, morphing iPhones, iPods and now iPads into an array of functionalities from entertainment to productivity, and from education to novelty.
The breadth represented is a microcosm of what Apple’s ecosystem has given rise to---a sum greater than its parts. It’s not about just single use devices anymore---a music/video player or a smartphone—but rather a family of devices with the ability to span many functions throughout a person’s daily life. Sure the announcement of the iPad was big news on its own, but it will be the applications and the content that truly give its ultimate value. And, Apple’s deals cut with book publishers, perhaps undoing the current e-books business model, is arguably more innovative than the iPad itself.
Perhaps this year’s Macworld is also symbolic of what Apple will ultimately have to do if its ecosystem is to survive---disappear. Not literally, of course, but in terms of further opening that ecosystem. To some extent Apple has already done this, through the release of its non-DRM iTunes music library last year. Its video library remains a closed system, though, and Apple still screens/controls all the apps in its AppStore, keeping the Apple ecosystem a highly controlled one.
If Apple can successfully transition its ecosystem into a more open one in terms of content and functionality, it will guarantee a future far more expansive than the humble enthusiast beginning embodied by Macworld.
