Most historians will point at the release of windows 95 as the date that Microsoft finally reached 'good enough' feature parity with the original Mac OS. Historians will also point out that this is the same period in which the Mac as a platform began its rapid decline in terms of market-share and more generally mind-share.
With the release of windows 7 I began to wonder, is history was about to repeat itself? Just as in the previous case, it took Microsoft almost a decade to reach feature parity with OSX by ripping off most of the marquee features that have until very recently distinguished the Mac as the superior platform in terms of usability and core technology. Lets look at some features that windows is about to begin enjoying, that the Mac has had for many, many years now:
| Feature | Mac Release | Windows Release |
| compositing desktop that allows for window shadows and desktop 3d effects and animations | OSX 10.0 2000 | Vista 2007 |
| small cute apps for focused info like stock quotes, weather etc. (Widgets vs Gadgets) | OSX 10.4 2005 | Vista 2007 |
| dock that merges app switching and app launching. | OSX 10.0 2000 | Windows 7 2009 |
| advanced task switching (expose vs flip 3d, aero peek etc) | OSX 10.3 2003 | Vista 2007, Windows 7 2009 |
| integrated easy to use file previews for most major file types | OSX 10.5 2007 | Vista 2007 |
| Integrated OS level file search (spotlight vs windows search) | OSX 10.4 2005 | Vista 2007 |
| Folders whose contents are based on file system queries (Smart Folders vs Libraries) | OSX 10.4 2005 | Windows 7 2009 |
There are still many things that OSX does that windows does not (and probably vice versa) but of the new windows features that are obviously highly OSX inspired its clear that the motivation (as it historically has been for MS) has been to produce half-baked 'me too' implementations that are really only good enough to confuse Joe consumer long enough to get him to buy the seemingly less expensive windows rig in the face of the surprisingly appealing Apple offering.
Sadly the difference is in the details, and it can take a couple of weeks on a Mac to realize that the two platforms are literally nigh and day in terms of quality and user experience. Unfortunately, Microsoft’s chicanery keeps millions of people each year from being exposed to the superior execution of these features on the Mac platform. Because of this, for the uninitiated, making the big switch can require a bit of a leap of faith. It did for me.
Of course the big question is what happens now? Thanks to Vista, Apple has had several years to press its advantage, and consequently the Mac has made some decent market share gains (currently at nearly 10% -up from about 2% earlier in the decade). But now that the feature divide has been somewhat lessened, will history repeat itself? Will the general public quickly lose interest in the Mac and flock back to the PC?
In my opinion, this is a definite possibility. However, a few things are different enough this time around that there is good reason to be hopeful:
1) Apple is not playing from a position of weakness, which it was in 1995. OSX is technically very strong and well positioned for radical innovation, assuming the will and the ideas are there. This is true in both the desktop space AND in the mobile space. Perhaps just as importantly, Apple's leadership is strong, and they're playing for keeps -not unlike the re-invigoration and drive of someone coming back from a near-death experience, which is actually true on many levels with Apple. In a short number of years, the 'new' apple has nearly dominated the legal online media download market and the media player space, and has radically changed the mobile phone industry. The consumer PC space is the one area where despite doing increasingly well, Apple has been slowest to grow relative to its other endeavors. Which brings us to the next point.
2) Apple's Achilles heel has always been its price point in comparison with the rest of the PC industry. That gap for equivalently spec'ed computers has shrunk to within a couple of hundred dollars nowadays, but lets face it: most computer users really just want a cheap POS computer that is 'good enough' for a 'full' web experience and one that is capable of reading/editing MS Office documents they might get suckered into bringing home from work. Frustratingly this is an arena apple doesn’t even play in, but for good reason: those netbooks and 400$ laptops are practically disposable in terms of quality and net their makers razor thin margins, neither of which apple is interested in being associated with. So where does this leave apple in terms of opportunity for growth?
I have a theory that in the next 6-12 months apple will make a radical play for the budget consumer market that will involve redefining the low end of the consumer PC space that is dominated by these cheap sub 600$ devices. I believe they will do this with their rumored but not as yet announced tablet device. Think about it. If you were a budget conscious consumer and for 3-600$ you had a choice between one of a slow netbook/laptop with a tiny/crappy screen, a slow bulky desktop, OR a very sexy portable touch screen internet tablet with excellent usability and many games and applications, which choice would you make? Assuming this device:
- does full web browsing and email,
- can be used to play some games (including some high profile ones)
- can do basic personal media management (a-la a stripped down iLife)
- can do basic personal productivity (a-la a stripped down iWork)
- can be used to sync your ipod/iphone (ie its designed to BE a desktop replacement -not accessory)
Then this would be a no brainer choice, and Apple will have successfully eaten the lunch of the entire consumer focused budget PC market segment who would likely be eager to trade up to something that clearly has better value at a similar price point.
Another reason why I believe this to be a probable next move is that points 1-4 are already mostly implemented in the iphone/itouch product line-up which inhabits the 200-400$ price space. If 200$ more would get us a 10-12-inch screen and a little more horse-power and a little more disk space,
this would fill out the 400$ to 900$ gap in apple's product line-up quite nicely.
Here's another thing we need to face: computers are STILL too complicated for the average person. Hell even people I know in their early 30's who have grown up with computers still don't really get how to
use them, but you know what? My mom effortlessly figured out how to use many features of my iPhone within seconds. If this is the type of usability and general experience we can expect from an apple 'tablet', we're looking at a home-run, and the budget PC segment will implode in short order.
Unfortunately, I see a few things that may be roadblocks to this happening. And the case as its often been in the past, is that the game is Apple's to lose.
1) flash: everybody hates it, but flash is still the conduit through which most of the web gets its video content. In order to succeed as a budget PC replacement, this tablet NEEDs to be able to play the flash video on the web sites that joe user is used to going to. Apple has tried to move the industry away from flash by keeping it off the iPhone with limited success. It may be time to give up on this.
2) productivity: this device needs to be seen as being capable of handling basic productivity tasks in accepted business formats. This means Word documents and PowerPoint documents. Sure, just like flash, everybody hates these and almost nobody at home who is a casual user uses office for anything significant, but they become VERY uneasy if its not at least possible to do business at home. This is one of the basic value propositions that made the generic PC successful early in its history, and if apple wants to supplant the low-end PC, it needs to be able to offer something in this regard.
3) greed / arrogance: apple does great work and it deserves to be proud of what its done in the past decade. However, when greed and arrogance rear their ugly head, apple stumbles. Here are some examples: until very recently apple still sold combo drives on most of its machines in an age where every PC has shipped with a dvd-rw for a VERY LONG TIME. Another example is memory and HD specs. White its true that OSX is not the bloated resource hog that Vista was, ram and HD space is cheap and it would have been an easy PR win for Apple if they had kept the mac equivalently specked with PCs in this regard over the past several years. Unfortunately, the desire for high margins has kept apple from doing so and they’ve undoubtedly lost many sales on this easily comparable ground alone. My last example and perhaps the most relevant is the Macbook Air. The Macbook air is a pretty cool machine aesthetically and technically. This is the type of machine that apple has a gift for producing, and they should be proud of their work, but the immediate consensus on release was that apple’s pride had lead it to over-valuate the air in the market place. It was over-priced at an initial 1799$. Today it is much more reasonable starting at 1499$ but still. This is the kind of mis-step that can make or break the popular acceptance of a product, and something that Apple needs to keep in check.
If it can manage to hit these targets, I believe the personal computer space in five years will land solidly in Apple’s lap. The one wild card in all this prognostication is Google and its Android OS which could well rise up to power a generation of also-ran devices to compete with Apple in this space. Google itself has shown very little talent at producing interesting or compelling consumer electronic devices. Some of its partners however have shown surprising skill in taking Android and hammering it into some remarkable products. Given this dynamic, Android may be worth keeping a close eye on over the next few years and may well usurp windows in terms of competitive importance in many segments of the computer/consumer electronics market.
