That’s right,  because after announcing iCloud, Steve Jobs’ Grand Design – Master Plan will be accomplished in all its means and Apple will never be the same as we knew it before.

“From a garage to the clouds” could be a good way to pitch Apple’s irresistible ascension to change the world and all the business that have come across its path.

iCloud will end this path by delivering the ultimate change in our digital life style: the end of computing and software, and the beginning of the “Internet as everything” where all kind of digital services will be available and chargeable with online payments.

See ya on the cloud!

iMac, iPod, iPhone and iPad. The road ahead is tempting and amusing, whatever are your expectations, go further as long as you can.

But today, on January 24th, once a year, take a rest to stop and look back to the road done and where you come from.

I bought my first Macintosh (an LC with the latest Mac System 7) in 1992. Since 1984 it was my only desire and I had to wait 8 years to get enough money to afford one (I was still a student at the time and I could only count on myself financially).

It was my first computer: never had one before (I preferred abstinence than to go with a x86). And since then my life changed.

This is where I come from.

And today, in the praise of the greatest invention of all times, on the mark of the 27th Birthday of the Macintosh, let’s wish Steve Jobs, one of the Macintosh inventors, to get well and return soon to steer us along the path to digital happiness.

So now we’re talking about war between the two giants for the last stand in the mobile computing market.

But my dear fellows I believe that this is just a battleground and not the whole war that is going to be fight on several grounds. One battleground, perhaps the most strategic for the final victory, will be cloud computing and the deployment and access to web services (software as a platforms).

This is going to be the ultimate battle and mobile computing is just a tactical battle of this war but not the main story that still has to written.

Stay tuned.

Yes, because they are going to invent something new that doesn’t exist yet.
A whole new paradigm with a new business model annexed.

The whole tablet business is going to be something different than we might expect.
Please forget about the hardware (that indeed will be engineered with innovation in mind) and let’s focus on the OS side.

Of course that will be the Mac OS as in the iPhone and that matters a lot.

But if I can add my piece of speculation, and by the way today is xmas and I will consider it as a little gift from you, here is how I imagine the whole thing:

The web is a platform, cloud computing is the way to go propelled by a software is a service (web apps) business model.

Google, in this new game, is leading and Chrome OS is its next move to sublime a perfect business model.

Jobs is too smart to ignore all this and to passively assist to the shift from desktop software to web apps in favor of Google’s kingdom.

So the Mac tablet or whatever is going to be called is going to be a “port” to the cloud where content and web services are king (latest business deals with CBS and Disney are a demonstration, pending interest in QUATTRO is another).

The underneath OS is going to be the real suprise: I expect to see Jobs pull out another rabbit from his hat (Mac OS X 10.7 Clouded Leopard???).

Apple has secretly (I like to image it…) developed a new version of his OS designed for the tablet and aimed to use web apps downloadable from the Apple store or deployable directly from the cloud.

Os mine just a fantasy consequence of my holidays drinking or a clear and present challenge that Apple is going to deal with in 2010?

For the moment my best wishes of a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to all.

————————-

Juanuary 14, 2008

Apple CEO Steve Jobs today sent the following email to all Apple employees:

Team,

I am sure all of you saw my letter last week sharing something very personal with the Apple community. Unfortunately, the curiosity over my personal health continues to be a distraction not only for me and my family, but everyone else at Apple as well. In addition, during the past week I have learned that my health-related issues are more complex than I originally thought.

In order to take myself out of the limelight and focus on my health, and to allow everyone at Apple to focus on delivering extraordinary products, I have decided to take a medical leave of absence until the end of June.

I have asked Tim Cook to be responsible for Apple’s day to day operations, and I know he and the rest of the executive management team will do a great job. As CEO, I plan to remain involved in major strategic decisions while I am out. Our board of directors fully supports this plan.

I look forward to seeing all of you this summer.

Steve

Also this morning Telecom Italia has released the following statement: “Telecom Italia announced today it has signed a deal with Apple to bring the iPhone to Italy later this year.”

No doubts that we’re talking about the 3G iPhone.

Still remains to understand:

1) when? (end of June?)

2) locked or unlocked?

Investigations are in progress…

During the first few minutes of the presentation, Steve Jobs showed the U.S. SmartPhone Marketshare from the big manufacturers.

RIM 41%
Apple 28%
No one else even in double digits. Apple isn’t too worried about Windows Mobile or Symbian at this point. This is Apple vs. RIM.”

This is, at the end of the day, the trend I’ve predicted in my last post written last Dicember.

Well my own humble prevision is that the devices are going to be commodities as are today PC hardware (with the exeption of the Mac platform) and the battle will bend on the software side with only two possible models:

1) Apple iPhone and few other proprietary OSes (Blackberry and Windows Mobile for the business world, Symbian instead will be doomed by the iPhone on the consumer market);
2) Open source Mobile OS as Android or other Linux based OS fully available to the consumer and business users.

Android in particular will grow in the next years essentially in that segment of the consumer market left available by the iPhone price positioning (below $ 150) contributing to increase Symbians difficulties to follow the increasing innovation provided by such devices as the Gphone & iPhone.

If you don’t need an advanced phone for business purposes as a BlackBerry or a fancy looking gadget as the iPhone you can always swith to a basic phone for less than a 100 bucks and install Android: you will obtain a fully enhanced device for much less than the currently over priced 500 bucks Nokia N95 !

PS: take a look to this article published on Mon, 12/17/2007 .

This is a nice way to restore our friendship after 90 minutes of tough match where we battle diveded in two teams. So during our Pizza I couldn’t miss to observe one of my fellow companions’ brand new cellphone: the HTC Touch.
Well for almost the entire dinner this touch screen device was the main attraction and topic.
Frankly how can a lousy imitation of the iPhone, over priced (it is sold in Italy at 546 euro!), and featuring Windows Mobile 5.0, can attract the interest of tech-savy people as my soccer teammates?

Ok the iPhone isnt’s still available in this country and my friend admitted that it was a bargain (infact he paid it half price..), anyway, I don’t see the point of buying something that has been doomed by the superiority of the innovation of an E.T technology brought to you by Apple.

How can you still buy a crappy and expensive cellphone in the iPhone era when for less you can have something amazing as the Cupertino phone loaded with Mac OSX ? In other words, who will care anymore for cars when tele-transportation in a StarTrek style will be available?

Perhaps the wide availabilty of information is not a true assumption and rationality is just mere utopia that is not fully involved during our buying decisions.

Leopard is going to be sold for a suggested retail price of $129 (US)/€129 (euro) for a single user license.

See you at the Roma-Est Apple Store soon!