Notes On A Revolution

There’s no shortage of chatter today about Apple’s market capitalisation surpassing Microsoft’s. It is note-worthy for sure, but a bigger deal is being made of it than I think it warrants. For a few reasons.

Wired Magazine notes market caps can fluctuate wildly, but in this same article Wired also notes a string of product releases.

iMac (Bondi Blue) – 1998

iBook (clamshell) – 1999

iPod with scroll wheel – 2001

Mac OS X – 2001

iTunes Store – 2003

MacBook (switch to Intel) – 2006

iPhone – 2007

App Store + iPhone SDK – 2008

iPad – 2010

The Macbook Air strikes me as strangely absent from this list. You know, the thin-as-can-be, light-as-they-come laptop Steve pulled out of a manilla envelope that came to market and went, well, largely nowhere. Odd that that product isn’t in this list, as I think (and I’m quite happy to be proven wrong) that’s the product the iPad is going to follow. Not the iPhone, it’s slim, sexy and properly revolutionary little brother, but the Air, a rare triumph of style over substance from Apple.

You wouldn’t know it with all the media hype of course. Tom Wallace, the Editorial Director of Conde Nast, Wired’s parent company is in the New York Times as having said of Wired’s iPad edition “This is the beginning of a revolution”. Tom’s quote can be held to be absolutely true if one considers the ability of traditional media companies to keep pace with the changing times; 15 years late seems about right.

I’ve been stunned by the absence of negative press in the iPad’s launch, but it is actually starting to make sense. The publishing industry, bereft of ideas when it comes to how they might save themselves, are banking on Apple’s latest creation to do it for them.

Why would they write negative reviews when its the only thing on the horizon they’re taking for a saviour?

I’m sure Wired have taken their time and done a great job in creating the iPad edition of their magazine. A much better job than their stable-mates GQ did who managed to shift a paltry 365 copies of their Men of the Year edition. But beginning of a revolution? As I tweeted at the time, give me a break. The revolution started years ago, some people just never heard the call.