A Parallel (Apple) Universe

A month has passed since Steve Jobs’ latest keynote speech during the opening ceremony of the World Wide Developers Conference in San Francisco. Despite the malicious rumors about Jobs’ health, he succeeded in presenting another captivating and passionate speech. The “main course” was none other than the second generation iPhone 3G. Yet, the announcement of the MobileMe service was what a stuck a chord with everyone. MobileMe is the new .Mac service wherein along with the already known features (virtual hard drives, personal websites created by iWeb, e-mail addresses, online photo galleries, etc.) a new over-the-air synchronization of contacts, e-mails and calendar entries has been added.

Since the brand’s reinvention in the late 90s and early 2000s, Apple products are considered to be more of a lifestyle choice. Apple has attempted to gain a larger share of the high-tech market with aggressive online and TV ads, product placement in top-selling movies and popular TV shows and the exhibit of celebrities captured using Apple merchandise. In addition, contemporary product design, user-friendly multimedia products and services, improved compatibility with the present computational infrastructure, and product placement in influential retail stores, have all spearheaded Apple’s revamped attempt to gain a larger share of the high-tech market.

Recent research shows that Apple has employed a very successful strategy. The iPod has become the multimedia players industry standard, the iPhone has already gained a large share of the mobile phone market, and the population of Mac computers’ users is proliferating globally. Yet, the biggest success of Apple Inc. is the high sense of convergence among products, services and applications and the deep integration of all the above into the life of the common user.

Enhanced with the new MobileMe service and the iPhone 3G, Apple offers the end-user the capability and freedom to create his/her personal and private network branded by the bitten Apple. Yet, here is where some problems begin. With the current speculation that technology and the internet is moving towards an ideological “open-source” future, Apple is taking a step backwards. In order to unlock the full potential of the Apple offerings, a user must purchase Mac hardware and software. And once the user makes this choice, he/she enters a parallel universe. In a way, ‘once you go Mac, you can never come back.’

Mac users don’t only comprise a tech community, but a whole new movement. There is something about the bitten Apple logo that makes people feel more creative and eclectic, a part of an ever-growing, yet somewhat elite team. Joining the Mac cult might take a toll in a user’s life, because most applications work only with mac-oriented hardware, thus limiting the freedom to use one’s favorite software with the products of one’s choice. Definitely, the evolutionary step of installing Windows Os in Mac computers is an enjoyable relief, but still the user doesn’t have many options. The imposed-by-Apple limits on hardware and software are what is keeping the company from fulfilling total global potential. The greatest example of this is the iPhone.

The iPhone 3G is Apple’s relaunched promise to converge a mobile phone, an iPod and an internet device. It certainly provides some terrific and attractive characteristics, but the company’s assertion that the iPhone revolutionizes mobile telephony is not accurate. To begin with, in order to be able to use all of the iPhone features, a potential customer must sign up with a specific telecommunications carrier. This applies to every country in which the iPhone is available. In addition, in some countries, the device will be locked (again) to prevent it from being used with other service providers. Not only that, the MobileMe service will be accessible only from Mac computers, PCs, iPhones and iPod Touch, leaving all the other mobile manufacturers out of this “game”.

So, in a world where openness and transparency are highly valued and praised, is it a good business ploy for Apple to remain ‘technologically segregated’? Instead of defying Microsoft’s history, isn’t just about the right time for Apple to learn some valuable lessons and make its own place in the annals of technology?