14 DAY TRIAL // There was a time when analysts and pundits alike were convinced that a television was the next big thing for Apple. Then the iWatch rumors started to spread. But all this time Apple has been just as focused on expanding its presence in the cockpit.
To get one thing straight, the company really is looking to revolutionize both television and wearable computers (and probably other things too), but you have to know when a market is ripe for the picking.
For example, Apple needs a few more channels on that Apple TV’s Home screen before it fully unleashes its power to cause a paradigm shift and erase cable TV off the face of the planet.
In the same way, smartwatches have yet to pick up Steam because everyone is still trying to figure out how to integrate these into our daily routine with a truly useful purpose, rather than just for show. Time is of the essence, but so is timing. And Apple has its eye on both.
The perfect example of that came earlier this week when the Cupertino giant rolled out a press release titled, “Apple Rolls Out CarPlay Giving Drivers a Smarter, Safer & More Fun Way to Use iPhone in the Car.”
A move that had been planned for at least a year, integrating iOS into car dashboards was apparently scheduled to happen before putting iOS on the TV screen, and before putting iOS on our wrists. Why? Because it’s part of a natural progression.
Apple may not tell us this but I’m pretty sure Steve’o left the holiest of instructions before his death in 2011. And that is to gradually expand iOS to every possible appliance until computers become synonymous with Apple. After all, it was the guy’s life-long mission to pair technology with humanity.
So-called experts are already slamming the Cupertino giant and its partners’ decision to actually make it easier to speak on the phone in the car, but who can argue that CarPlay is a bad seed when it makes navigation so darn easy? So there may be some ups and downs to this affair, but we won’t know them until we get some extensive usage recorded.
And don’t think that just because Apple chose to launch CarPlay ahead of iWatch and iTV that somehow cars are more important for Tim Cook & Co. Far from it. But what better way to test the waters and see how folks react to iOS on things other than iPhones and iPads, right?
iWatch will reportedly have this neat Healthbook app, while at the same time your iPhone running iOS 8 will also have Healthbook pre-installed, enabling the two devices to communicate with each other, one reading out your life signs, the other interpreting it. With iOS, it all comes together in one place: you.
After all, you’re the central part of all these products, not the products themselves. Regardless of how they look, sound, or feel, the final platform where all these end-benefits converge is, and forever will be, you.
Apple knows this, either collectively or from a napkin note signed Steven Jobs, and it’s carrying out this genius plan with superb execution. To conclude, I’ll leave you with a quote from Quoth the Raven who put together an excellent piece comparing Apple’s 2014 roadmap to a hand in poker.
“Tim Cook’s actions in the midst of a seemingly normal shareholder meeting, suggested something else to me. Call me crazy, but I think Apple is due to get aggressive again – real aggressive. I’d like to specifically note the part of the meeting where Cook said to the audience, ‘We want to grow more. And this morning, we want to unveil some new products.’ After realizing he had the audience’s full attention, he then said, ‘I was kidding about the last part.’”
“In the midst of being scrutinized for lack of innovation, what CEO comes out and does something like that? A CEO who is holding a big hand, that’s who.”