technicalcreative

Monday, July 09, 2007

Dominion by stealth

Now that Safari has joined iTunes on the Windows platform, it's increasingly likely that Mac OS X is going to be available on most Intel machines, whether it sports an Apple logo or not. Apple will (and indeed, have ) deny it strenously, but I'm left with little doubt.

iTunes on Windows was all about pushing the sales of both the media player and the music store. The port of Safari is a different matter. Some analysts say it's all about getting extra market share, and crucially, revenues from the built-in search bar. Others point to the iPhone, pointing out that Safari is a key part of the applications suite.

I'm inclined to think a little bit bigger.

Apple kit is nice, but it's not special, and it certainly isn't required to run OS X. In fact, the most striking feature of Apple hardware is its relative uniformity.

While not quite on the scale of a solid-state games hardware, OS crafters at Apple have long been able to target a relatively tiny collection of components, knowing that they will exist on the target machine. Some might argue that this is a reason that OS X will stay on Apple hardware, but I disagree. The transition from PowerPC to Intel has given Apple a great deal of experience with hitting diverse kit. The company is still committed to providing PowerPC support, even though it is no longer producing PowerPC machines.

On the PC side of the divide, hardware seems to be less diverse than it was a decade ago. If you're out to buy a graphics card, chances are you'll go for nVidia or ATI. While I'm reluctant to enumerate every component you could possibly have in your PC, it's a markedly less crowded market. A lot of companies have gone under. The few that are left occupy powerful positions, able to create money through iteration before the next revolution.

It makes absolute sense from a financial perspective. Mac operating systems have rightfully garnered excellent word-of-mouth at a time when many consumers are extremely wary about being blindly led into Vista. Even if you don't own a Mac, you know someone who has a Mac, and you know this because they have told you. Numerous times.

I don't know what margin Apple makes on its hardware, but I do know that hardware costs a lot of money to develop, produce and distribute. As a developer I do know that software costs money to develop, but production ( burning DVDs and printing manuals ) and distribution ( moving DVDs and manuals ) is a comparative cinch. The bottom line is that software produces a better bottom line. There's a reason Sony and Microsoft are selling their hardware at a loss, and it isn't because they've been consuming questionable mushrooms ( really Nintendo's thing ). Real money is made on software. Apple knows this.

So, back to Safari on Windows. When using Safari to browse the Web and listening to music through iTunes, you're looking at a desktop that looks remarkably like a Mac. I think that's the point. Safari on Windows may be about increasing ad revenues, it may be iPhone inspired, and it may be an attempt to acclimatise Windows users with Mac OS fundamentals at a time when many are least happy with Windows. I suspect it is all three.

Apple are about to take over the world. You heard it here first.