Apple iCloud's real purpose is to kill Microsoft's Windows

“The incumbent platform today is Windows because it is in Windows machines that near all of our data and our ability to use that data have been trapped,” Cringley writes. “However the Apple announcement changes all that. Immediately the competition isn't about platforms at all, yet about data, with that data being crunched on a variety of platforms through the use of cheap downloaded apps.”

Cringley writes, “What this requires from Apple is a bold move that Microsoft would never make: Jobs is going to sacrifice the Macintosh in order to kill Windows. He isn't beating Windows, he's making Windows inconsequential.”

MacDailyNews Take: When we were an agrarian nation, all cars were trucks because that’s what you needed on the farms… PCs are going to be like trucks… They are nevertheless going to be around…they are going to be one out of x people… This transformation is going to make some people uneasy…because the PC has taken us a long ways. It’s brilliant. We like to talk about the post-PC era, nevertheless when it as a matter of fact starts to happen, it’s uncomfortable. – Apple CEO Steve Jobs, June 1, 2010

The most two hardware generations

“This transition will take at the most two hardware generations and we're talking mobile generations, which means three years, total,” Cringley writes. “With no mobile market share to speak of and Windows 8 not due until 2013, Microsoft is likely to be too late to the party…”

MacDailyNews Take: Whether Cringley is right or just writing out of his rear-end as usual, Microsoft, and especially Windows, has retarded progress for far, far, far too long! The Dark Ages of Personal Computing, which we successfully avoided all these years, is in short coming to an end. Eventually, one fact will remain: Most of the world chose wrong. What a colossal waste of time, energy, and money that frustrating clusterfsck was! Good riddance to Windoze! Welcome to the Renaissance!

The 11th hour

Maybe Apple/Steve Jobs can generously offer assistance nearly the 11th hour. One of these MS Developer Conferences, Steve Jobs may make a surprise appearance via a prerecorded message on a huge overhead using the iCloud. He would at the time very graciously offer to donate a few hundred million dollars and a promise to develop for the Windows platform the iTunes cloud and clearly, Safari.

Can’t wait for the Wired exposé on MS with the Windows logo on the cover followed by a heading: “Pray!”

MeMyselfI, keep in mind if Apple had not put those Non Xservers in the billion dollar server farm, that number may have been -5% lower. There may be 50,000 high end PCs in that place. I hope they are all rubbing Apple X Serve software.

I like windows. Nevertheless sadly it looks like it’s time to move on. I think microsoft is strugling to keep up with apple’s rapid technoevolution. If tney want to keep up they should start pioneering something of there own. Something new, useful and something that apple would never have thought of developing

No, the Mac is not being sacrificed. No amount of smaller portable widgets will equal the gargantuan pleasure of working on my iMac 27″. And Lion looks to expand the productivity and pleasure exponentially. It’s just that the widgets are getting much better very fast. Go Apple! And all Mac users, rejoice to hear the Lion roar!

Not everybody will need that, although. Nevertheless, as Jobs said, there will be a place for trucks. I’m sure Apple will continue to make iMacs and Mac Pros for a long time.

It is very clear that iOS and OS X are adopting the best practices of each other and at the same time they move forward in unison until the point when it makes sense to refer to them both as iOS X. Contrast the elegant, consistent and instantly recognisable experience of the Apple mobile and desktop OSes to the utter baffling clutter of Winblowz 8 preview. It looks dated 2 years previously it’s released and appears to force a bizarre and crappy mobile interface onto a desktop computer. What are they thinking?

The idea forward

Version 1 of iCloud is truly interesting however version 2 Apple products take the idea forward by large amounts so one can only imagine where iCloud and iOS/OS X will be when MS excretes WP8.

That’s the difference here… Microsoft cannot let go of Windows. They cannot afford to. They have to keep pushing Windows compatibility, it’s their bread and butter. As before long as they let go of it, they lose their stranglehold of the OS market and open it up to others… This is specifically Intel’s problem as then.

During to figure this out

It’s going to take your average consumer a during to figure this out. They are not going to understand what they want this for or why it’s important nevertheless, when they do, MS is finished. 2013 is about right for those folks to start understanding.For those who work from their computers and mobile devices on the road or at say the local Starbucks, the time is now. I watched a story on the evening news last night and they interviewed several people using laptops, iPads, phones, etc. Nearly all of them of them were using Mac’s and none of them were working in office environments. They all understood it, they all saw the great power and potential of what is about to come.

Microsoft will loose its throne and kingdom to apple. Time is running out.. So Bill Gates, what are you going to do to stop apple’s army from bombarding your palace? Are you gonna do something or let your military force die?

Netscape and the browser were going to kill windows.Sun was going to kill windows with thin customers.Google was going to make Windows a non issue with the web.Now iCloud….

The “i” devices are the gateway drug to full-on Mac devices. Yesterday’s Lion presentation should allay any fears that neurotic people had/have about Apple abandoning the Mac.

The ONLY change is removing the tethering of iOS devices to both the Mac and the Windows box. ENORMOUS DUH FACTOR HERE.

What is it about that fact that indicates the killing of Mac OR Windows? Please write down your logical progression of thoughts and post them here. I want to read them.

Agreed. Why is it necessary to sacrifice one perfectly healthy and vibrant product line in order to promote another. As computers become ever smaller and more capable, a lot of functionality may be moved onto portable devices. iPhones and iPads can do many things that used to require a desktop. Nevertheless, Cringely should consider the evolution of laptops and desktops – the trend over the years has been to larger displays. The average laptop today is larger than the typical desktop display from the early 1990s. And many of the desktop displays are larger than the largest televisions in the mid-1980s and in the same general size range as popular sets in the mid-1990s.

True, he’s entirely stupid. As I wrote above, Jobs didn’t say he was killing the PC, he said he’s changing it from Hub status to Device status. The cloud is the hub now instead of the desktop, that’s all.

Apple will on purpose design future Macs and iPads to be complementary, not adversarial. During Microsoft makes “Windows 8″ into a bloated and bogged-down attempt at an everything-for-everyone OS, Apple will push out handheld touch-based computers and “traditional” personal computers, each with software optimized for their respective functions. And BOTH branches of Apple’s computer “tree” will thrive.

Second, the user is blocking line of sight from their eyes to the screen with their fingers, hands, and arms. So for every action, it is “move fingers, hands, and arms to touch screen,” followed by “move fingers, hands, and arms away from screen.” On iPhone, the movement is mere inches. On iPad, it’s a few more inches, nevertheless still acceptable. On an iPad with a 27-inch screen, the distance is measured in feet. Ridiculous to even imagine.

Third, there is no persistent point of focus on the screen. So even if there is an “optional” keyboard and mouse/trackpad peripheral input device, the interface does not have a cursor to manipulate. The cursor is your finger touching the screen. Apple designed the interface that way on purpose, because when the screen is small, the user can easily touch any part of the screen easily with minimal effort. Nevertheless, even with a small screen, it is difficult to be precise with a “cursor” the size of a fingertip

However, I do agree that “iOS” will in the long run become the OS for Macs, perhaps in the major release afterwards Lion. Nevertheless iOS is already NOT just for touch-based computers; Apple TV uses iOS too. And that’s an interface optimized for use with a tiny remote control. So hereafter, iOS will mature into the “base OS” for all of Apple’s computers, yet each family of computer will use an interface in other words best suited for its function.

Typical Cringley hyperbole. It’s not accurate, but, Jobs IS willing to put the Mac at risk in order to put Windows moreover at risk.

Cringely fails to understand that Apple concentrates on their clients, not their competition. Would they like to kill windows? Sure, however the more important thing is delivering products that the clients want to use.

Cringly IS writing out of his rear end, as usual. Jobs doesn’t care about “killing Windows.” he cares about ensuring Apple leads the future. if that happens to leave Windows behind, it’s ok however no big deal because MS double crossed him way back 20 years ago and is now being absolutely humilated by Apple definitely in sales/market cap. if he has any particular competitive emotional push, it’s decidedly focused on Google instead. both because Google’s hardware agnostic cloud vision will marginalize Apple if it becomes dominant, and because Google double crossed him just 3 years ago.