Apple Anywhere

Calloo, callay—the frabjous day arrived!

The long-awaited iPhone made its debut at CES yesterday. As we expect of Apple products, it’s gorgeous. As we expect of the media, we’re all over it. Is it the right price? Does it have the right functionality? Should Apple have launched its own virtual mobile network? What will the mobile manufacturers do?

The answers are: No, probably, no and…whatever. Apple—as all technology firms have learned to do in the last two decades—will rapidly improve on its first model, and the Motorolas of the world will step up their games in response.

But these are the trees—step back and see the forest.

The most interesting thing about yesterday’s announcement wasn’t, in fact, the iPhone itself or the other major announcement—Apple TV. Apple TV was announced months ago, and the iPhone has been the subject of chatter for a couple of years. But what about the simple one-line announcement about the company’s name? It will become, simply, Apple. Good for Apple for noticing it delivers computing, not computers.

More than a century ago, through steady advances of engineering and manufacturing, time-telling products—which began as highly specialized, rare technologies—went from one per village, to one per family, to one and more per person. The clock began as a town’s prized possession, moved into a place of pride in train stations, and then into the home hallway. Then miniaturization and the quickening of life led to the cheap wristwatch. Today, time-telling has snuck into dozens of places in our home: microwaves, coffeepots, ovens, TVs, DVDs, stereos and more. The semi-annual leap-forward, fall-back routine has become quite a chore. What’s happened has been diffusion. And none of the dominant watchmakers of the last century survived as is—there is little demand for clocks as special-purpose devices.

Apple saw the forest on this one—there’s more computing in things other than computers, than in computers themselves. Eventually, a computer that’s just, well, a computer won’t be unlike a cherry wood, hand-carved hallway clock with brass weights and a gold-leafed faceplate.

In the connectivity revolution, the leaders of the next wave of technology change will be those that figure out how best to package function—what’s possible—with our desires, and deliver it Anywhere.

Congratulations, Apple. You’re on the road to Anywhere.

Emily Nagle Green
January 2007

PS: If you’re ever in the neighborhood, the National Watch and Clock Museum in Columbia, Pa. offers a fascinating look at how time-telling became the completely diffused technology it is today.