Steve Jobs describes iCloud experience at WWDC 1997
youtu.be
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I guess this is because now, every word he says is analysed and reported by mainstream media. He has to communicate to the entire world because of Apple's popularity, and not just a room full of WWDC developers.
I remember him pausing, then saying something along the lines of "... whatever the hell those are", or some quip like that.
The first is much more techy. And the latter is much greater in numbers.
Apple wasn't even a blimp on the radar screen back in 1997. Now they are a continent.
For emphasis, in December of 1997 AAPL hit an 11-year low of $3.53 (split adjusted). Today, mainstream media eats out of Steve Jobs' hand and their stock price is, as I type this, $332.
"You should buy stock... it is what I have done"
Your dreams may still be here tomorrow, but you may not.
But then ideas and slogans are rather cheap, and neither DEC nor Sun are around any more.
Apple is still around, and Apple is still executing on their ideas.
Amelio was also still in charge of Apple, yet it seems Jobs already had his plans worked out for what he would do with Apple if he was in charge.
Steve was quiet for a bit, mentioned some of the time you can't please some people, then talked about how Apple needed to get back to starting from the product, the user experience, and the customers instead of how do we market this cool tech.
Granted that's mostly based on rumors but it gives an interesting contrast to Microsoft's failure in tablets because of things like the Office division's execs refusing to make it touch friendly.
What's happened in the last decade+ is the infrastructure to support all these devices, and their network connectivity, has increased so we can finally have a good user experience doing it.
Without the infrastructure to support it, the product would end up instilling a sense of hate in people who use it. And we all know Apple is about creating the most seamless and easy to use experience for the user.
I wonder what held him back from achieving that vision is the first place. AFAICS, Apple is now playing catch-up to Google and Amazon in the cloud computing space.
Just look at Sony for an example of rushing into doing something yourself (PSN.)
I don't know much about iCloud, but I really hope they had learned the lesson and made it more open by providing APIs, allowing data migration, and supporting tools for other platforms. However, this might be just my wishful thinking.
It's a different ballgame now I think.
1. They only had the Mac platform (and non-connected iPods). Can you change the world with a 5% market share?
2. They wanted to charge for it.
Now, they could have done this a couple of years ago after they conquered #1, but they were still hung up on point #2, and just tried to make a better pay service.
2. Who gives their service away for free? Apple still charges for it. It's included in the devices you buy, etc.
Like anything, ideas are a dime a dozen and execution is everything. Building network storage for tethered devices on reliable connections and building network storage for untethered devices on unreliable connections are two different problems.
The way this post is titled gives him credit for the idea, which is a silly thing. If iCloud works as advertised, kudos for the execution.
But I have no doubt in my mind that the architecture under the hood would be very different if it were 1997 and Apple was building cloud storage in the pc era.