ie8 fix

Between the Lines

Larry Dignan, Andrew Nusca and Rachel King
Home / News & Blogs / Between the Lines

Apple's two-year roadmap: Think cloud services

By | January 3, 2011, 7:13am PST

Summary: Apple’s upcoming year is expected to feature upgrades to its existing product line, but the company is expected to prep a bevy of cloud services running into 2012.

Apple’s upcoming year is expected to feature upgrades to its existing product line, but the company is expected to prep a bevy of cloud services running into 2012.

According to Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster, Apple won’t enter new categories in 2011. This year will be about harvesting gains from the iPad, iPhone, App Store, Mac and iPod and upgrades.

In 2011, Apple is expected to launch the iPhone at Verizon in the March quarter with iTunes cloud services also due this year. Munster reckons that the fifth generation iPhone will have NFC (near field communications) technology. NFC allows you to swap data with other devices and use your mobile device for payments.

Munster estimates that a NFC enabled iPhone sets the stage to use your iTunes account as a point-of-purchase tool. Apple has payment information for 160 million active iTunes accounts. That fact means Apple is best suited to turn the iPhone into a wallet.

Going into 2012, Apple will have the stage set for cloud services. Munster writes:

Apple has largely failed in cloud services to date. Its first major push into web services for its connected devices, MobileMe, was riddled with issues surrounding the July 2008 launch. Following the failed launch, MobileMe has improved under new leadership but we believe the service has gained little traction considering the estimated 60.7m active iPhone users (last two years of sale) compared to an estimated 5m MobileMe users. Likewise, Apple has rolled its advertising services platform, iAds, out at a measured pace. But recently, the company made its “Find My iPhone” service free to any iOS user (previously a MobileMe paid service) showing a rising interest in web services for its connected devices. We believe iTunes streaming represents Apple’s largest opportunity in services with an addressable market of 160m iTunes active accounts, each with a real problem that Apple can solve (accessing music on portable devices). We expect to see an iTunes streaming service in 2011, but we expect Apple to continue its focus on web services beyond 2011 in order to leverage the connected nature of its devices. Other web services could include expanded support for document storage in the cloud, or even remote computing capabilities using the cloud to access your Mac and all its files and settings from another Mac (or an iPad) via the cloud.

Kick off your day with ZDNet's daily e-mail newsletter. It's the freshest tech news and opinion, served hot. Get it.

More from “Between the Lines”

Topics

Apple iPhone, Web Service, Apple Inc., Apple iTunes, Service, Apple MobileMe, NFC, Mobile Operating Systems, Digital Music, Smart Phones, Digital Media, Personal Technology, Consumer Electronics, Larry Dignan

Larry Dignan is Editor in Chief of ZDNet and SmartPlanet as well as Editorial Director of ZDNet's sister site TechRepublic.

Disclosure

Larry Dignan

Larry Dignan has nothing to disclose. He doesn’t hold investments in the technology companies he covers.

Biography

Larry Dignan

Larry Dignan is Editor in Chief of ZDNet and SmartPlanet as well as Editorial Director of ZDNet's sister site TechRepublic. He was most recently Executive Editor of News and Blogs at ZDNet. Prior to that he was executive news editor at eWeek and news editor at Baseline. He also served as the East Coast news editor and finance editor at CNET News.com. Larry has covered the technology and financial services industry since 1995, publishing articles in WallStreetWeek.com, Inter@ctive Week, The New York Times, and Financial Planning magazine. He's a graduate of the Columbia School of Journalism and the University of Delaware.

For daily updates, follow Larry on Twitter.

28
Comments
Add Your Opinion

Join the conversation!

Just In

RE: Apple's two-year roadmap: Think cloud services
birumut Updated - 17th Jun
Well done! Thank you very much for professional templates and community edition
sesli sohbet sesli chat
View in thread
0 Votes
+ -
RE: Apple's two-year roadmap: Think cloud services
jhuddle 3rd Jan 2011
I have often thought that itunes as a payment vehilce is a logical step. I do wonder about NFC in the States, I think it is at least 18 months away if not 24 months. Sure there will be some early apodters and Apple is often at the forefront, but it will cost retailers, hospitality, etc a good deal of money to rollout the readers for this. There are cheaper ways to get payments into a POS than NFC. I would bet Apple has something more interesting in mind for NFC. No idea what that might. On the other hand the overseas market may be big enough to justify NFC, we catchup in the states.
0 Votes
+ -
imagine...
banned from zdnet 3rd Jan 2011
@jhuddle
something like square up (https://squareup.com) without the ackward thingy and itunes as the clearing house as step one.
0 Votes
+ -
Apple uses an interesting wireless POS system at their retail stores...
olePigeon 3rd Jan 2011
Apple uses an interesting wireless POS system at their retail stores. They're essentially iPods and iPhones with a mag strip reader, with receipt printers strategically located throughout the store (or you can have the receipt emailed to you.)

While Apple's is an inhouse implementation, there are already several 3rd party solutions that are nearly identical.
0 Votes
+ -
RE: Apple's two-year roadmap: Think cloud services
msalzberg 3rd Jan 2011
@olePigeon

The Apple POS system is called EasyPay, and Gap is using it on a limited test basis.
0 Votes
+ -
EasyPay
use_what_works_4_U 3rd Jan 2011
@olePigeon @msalzberg
I was working at the Apple Store when EasyPay first appeared, and at that time it ran on WindowsCE on a large clunky piece of hardware that everyone hated to carry around.

Card readers for the iPhone were on the "wish list" of Apple Retail employees for a long time just to get away from that big handneld box.
0 Votes
+ -
RE: Apple's two-year roadmap: Think cloud services
jhuddle 3rd Jan 2011
Both squareup, and wireless POS are about payments. Wireless POS is nothing new, still not common, but has been around for over ten years. Squareup is great service, actually use it myself, but it still uses the physical card. NFC, requires no card, just pass your phone near the register, vending machine, etc. for payment.
I think Apple has something cooler in mind for NFC, I have no idea what it is. Maybe purchasing the "now playing song" in Starbucks by waving your iphone near a pod/kiosk. Maybe getting access to additional information/content at events. Whatever it is I think it will be outside the box. If NFC is a play in the states, it is too early for payments. Very early adopters yes, widespread no. As I said earlier there maybe enough market overseas to justify NFC for payment.
0 Votes
+ -
.
banned from zdnet Updated - 3rd Jan 2011
removed
0 Votes
+ -
RE: Apple's two-year roadmap: Think cloud services
Loverock Davidson 3rd Jan 2011
I'm sure Apple and the cloud will be... well just look at Ping. LOL!
0 Votes
+ -
You mean Bing?
GoPower 3rd Jan 2011
The real joke from Microsoft.

@Loverock Davidson
0 Votes
+ -
RE: Apple's two-year roadmap: Think cloud services
Loverock Davidson 3rd Jan 2011
@GoPower
oh noes!~
0 Votes
+ -
RE: Apple's two-year roadmap: Think cloud services
rhonin 3rd Jan 2011
@Loverock Davidson
True.
Knowing Apple they will likely try to link it via iTunes which will die a very ugly death.
iTunes... another name for crapware..... (at least on Windows).
0 Votes
+ -
RE: Apple's two-year roadmap: Think cloud services
techconsumer@... 3rd Jan 2011
@zenwalker
0 Votes
+ -
RE: Apple's two-year roadmap: Think cloud services
techconsumer@... 3rd Jan 2011
@zenwalker

Having used iTunes on both Windows and Mac (nearly a year using on this) iTunes is bug-laden. It loses images when I have downloaded them legally from my own discs, it mixes up artists and albums not on the database (instead of leaving them as I have fixed them manually). It crashes quite often and I can't understand the large updates so frequent yet there is no concrete improvement of functionality. Each new iTunes update just seems to get more focussed on pushing possible products we might want to buy, hence increasing our spend on iTunes. That is not innovative, it is shrewd and certainly not consumer-focussed. I would much rather have the option to use iPods and Apple TV and Airport all of which I have with a standard computer without glitchy iTunes. I would be very wary of a company who having almost gained the entire market of paid music downloads then want to sell me other products and monopolise the software tool (iTunes). People wake up , this wil give Apple more of a monopoly and allow it to charge whatever it likes. We need the likes of HTC, Google, Samsung etc to keep Apple in line..don't get me wrong I love Apple products but I do not favour monopolies especially in technology (cf. Microsoft and Windows, it does NOT encourage free thinking and innovation or better alternatives)
0 Votes
+ -
IPad & Mac Integration
Prime Detailer 3rd Jan 2011
Seems like an obvious thing for Apple to do would be to allow an IPad and a Mac to work together. The Ipad would become an input device and would allow you to use some of the Ipad operating features work on your Mac and also be a big Magic Pad or an artists sketch pad. There are lots of possibilities.
0 Votes
+ -
Recent patents show they're working on that...
olePigeon 3rd Jan 2011
Recent patents show they're working on that. An iMac with a multi-touch screen on an adjustable stand. You flip the iMac onto its back and pull it down in front of you (so it's laying flat or at a comfortable angle), and the iMac automatically switches into iPad mode with all your iPad apps. When you orient the iMac back to its vertical position, it switches back to the desktop OS X.
0 Votes
+ -
RE: Apple's two-year roadmap: Think cloud services
jhuddle 3rd Jan 2011
@olePigeon This is the out of the box stuff I was talking about. NFC has to be bigger than payments. I knew there werw bigger brains out there than mine. God help us all if there aren't happy.
0 Votes
+ -
That big server farm Apple just built out East...
Userama 3rd Jan 2011
has to have something to do with the "cloud", don't you think? Maybe free MobileMe???
0 Votes
+ -
RE: Apple's two-year roadmap: Think cloud services
rhonin 3rd Jan 2011
@Userama
Do you actually use Me?
0 Votes
+ -
RE: Apple's two-year roadmap: Think cloud services
Userama 3rd Jan 2011
@zenwalker Yep.
0 Votes
+ -
Something useful about MobileMe
Joe_Raby 3rd Jan 2011
If you actually use an iPad for productivity, iDisk enhances it ten-fold. At least with iDisk, you don't need to sync with iTunes to get your iWork documents over to a real computer, if necessary. This kind of functionality shouldn't cost anything though.

What they need to do is fix the printing support on the iPad. It's horribly broken in its current state. I'm not buying a new printer just to print with this thing. Instead, I had to buy a $10 OS X app just to make it work (good thing I have a Mac mini - it hardly gets any use except for this). AirPrint was supposed to be supported on any Bonjour-equipped Mac or Windows PC, but Apple hasn't finished it yet.

Even with "multitasking", the iPad is very much a 1.0 device. By the time version 3.0 ships, Apple will probably be thinking about moving their mainstream computing to iOS.
0 Votes
+ -
RE: Apple's two-year roadmap: Think cloud services
rhonin 3rd Jan 2011
@Joe_Raby
Can you clue me in on why the iDisk is so good?
I run Win7 systems with my iPad and i4, etc.... and found iDisk to be limited and very unwieldy. I have pretty much migrated all my iDisk stuff to DropBox (which is an awesome, simple solution).

Thx.
0 Votes
+ -
Sure...
Feldwebel Wolfenstool 3rd Jan 2011
...for storing my "Paladin" and "Three Stooges" video collections, o.k....
0 Votes
+ -
RE: Apple's two-year roadmap: Think cloud services
thehumanyawn 3rd Jan 2011
Apple already has remote access through MobileMe

http://www.apple.com/mobileme/features/mac.html
0 Votes
+ -
Advice for Roadmap designers - make a stand against China
cymru999 3rd Jan 2011
Apple should pull their manufacturing from China in the light of recent developments, to protest of the loss of freedom for the Chinese people. Still no doubt the itunes store will get banned soon as it distributes subversive music and games
0 Votes
+ -
RE: Apple's two-year roadmap: Think cloud services
james347 3rd Jan 2011
Think not.
0 Votes
+ -
RE: Apple's two-year roadmap: Think cloud services
techconsumer@... 3rd Jan 2011
This is hardly a ground-breaking roadmap for one of the most marketing-focussed and supposedly innovative companies...Google and HTC are already well ahead in terms of cloud computing seeing the potential for simple to use, uncluttered widgets. Often times I find Apples so-called new innovations annoying and intrusive. Ping on iTunes is one such example. WHat on earth does your career, your hobbies etc have to do with Apple, surely sharing common interests (music) is enough. All this information gathering by Apple is very suss. Finally when I read the article 2 year roadmap I expected to hear of much more new add-ons, gadgets and innovations -e.g. getting serious about an appleTv equivalent of google tv, sharing of tunes on iPods, updating of software for existing outdated classic iPods (I have one and its like a forgotten cash cow - lots sold but Apple too lazy to update software or features...at least Creative did this for a while with their Mp3 players. Other things I thought I would read about for Apple would be more privacy control options, less of this facebook mentality of capturing user info. Also what is it with iTunes one of the most innovative and popular music software tools yet it "forgets" my imagery, mixing my artists and albums up after I have manually fixed them! Still a LONG way go Apple in my book especially given the hyped up prices we pay for your goods (especially in Australia) even though our dollar is strong (retailer monopoly of Apple distribution outlets)
0 Votes
+ -
Apple is not business grade
phil_swift 4th Jan 2011
Apple products are not secure enough or hardy enough to be business grade. Some of my friends have replaced glass on there Apple products after dropping them. Batteries cannot be replaced after a serviceable period. Apple also have less than 10% of the business market. I hope this changes but Apple will have to make their products much more resilient, both hardware and security wise, including anti-virus and anti-malware systems.
0 Votes
+ -
RE: Apple's two-year roadmap: Think cloud services
birumut Updated - 17th Jun
Well done! Thank you very much for professional templates and community edition
sesli sohbet sesli chat

Join the conversation!

Formatting +
BB Codes - Note: HTML is not supported in forums
  • [b] Bold [/b]
  • [i] Italic [/i]
  • [u] Underline [/u]
  • [s] Strikethrough [/s]
  • [q] "Quote" [/q]
  • [ol][*] 1. Ordered List [/ol]
  • [ul][*] · Unordered List [/ul]
  • [pre] Preformat [/pre]
  • [quote] "Blockquote" [/quote]
ie8 fix

The best of ZDNet, delivered

ZDNet Newsletters

Get the best of ZDNet delivered straight to your inbox

Facebook Activity

Blog Roll

Blog Archive

White Papers, Webcasts, & Resources
ie8 fix