You won't need to sync to your home PC. In fact, many people will be able to buy and use it without having access to a PC at all.
This is based on nothing more than speculation. But if you think about it, it makes a lot of sense. Consider the following:
1) Apple has spent a billion or two building a huge data center in North Carolina. What for? Providing cloud storage for a couple hundred million iPad/iPhone/iPod Touch customers sounds like a not bad use.
2) Imagine the appeal a ~$500 computing device that does the web; e-mail; games; photos; music; etc. will have to millions of (current) non-PC owners. People who DON'T WANT to EVER deal with the hassle of maintaining a computer. Who don't have the space, time, money, or inclination.
3) Look at the strategic investments Apple has made in companies like Lala. All orientated toward "cloud based" services. Why else did they buy them?
4) Steve Job's used the expression "postPC." Different people have varying definitions of what that actually means. But freeing people from the need to own, let alone interact, with a noisy, dusty, troublesome electronic box seems like a good way of going about achieving it.
5) Imagine the potential market. Right now, Apple is working toward selling ~40 million iPads a year. Which is fantastic. But this is based on the idea of the iPad as an additional device. Something people own to go with their laptop, desktop, etc. But what if you didn't need that ~$400-$1200 PC to begin with? What if the iPad 3 did everything you wanted? Suddenly the market goes from those people with an extra five or six hundred dollars to spend on a convenience, to the billions of people around the world who simply have to do some computing.
There will obviously be some technical challenges in making that sort of thing happen. The biggest, obviously, being the ability to safely and securely download, unpack, process and install a multi-megabyte iOS update. But I cannot believe that it will prove impossible.
Tell me whats wrong with this concept.
Discuss
This is based on nothing more than speculation. But if you think about it, it makes a lot of sense. Consider the following:
1) Apple has spent a billion or two building a huge data center in North Carolina. What for? Providing cloud storage for a couple hundred million iPad/iPhone/iPod Touch customers sounds like a not bad use.
2) Imagine the appeal a ~$500 computing device that does the web; e-mail; games; photos; music; etc. will have to millions of (current) non-PC owners. People who DON'T WANT to EVER deal with the hassle of maintaining a computer. Who don't have the space, time, money, or inclination.
3) Look at the strategic investments Apple has made in companies like Lala. All orientated toward "cloud based" services. Why else did they buy them?
4) Steve Job's used the expression "postPC." Different people have varying definitions of what that actually means. But freeing people from the need to own, let alone interact, with a noisy, dusty, troublesome electronic box seems like a good way of going about achieving it.
5) Imagine the potential market. Right now, Apple is working toward selling ~40 million iPads a year. Which is fantastic. But this is based on the idea of the iPad as an additional device. Something people own to go with their laptop, desktop, etc. But what if you didn't need that ~$400-$1200 PC to begin with? What if the iPad 3 did everything you wanted? Suddenly the market goes from those people with an extra five or six hundred dollars to spend on a convenience, to the billions of people around the world who simply have to do some computing.
There will obviously be some technical challenges in making that sort of thing happen. The biggest, obviously, being the ability to safely and securely download, unpack, process and install a multi-megabyte iOS update. But I cannot believe that it will prove impossible.
Tell me whats wrong with this concept.
Discuss
