You see, this is what I absolutely love about the way Apple works these days. Steve Jobs tosses the keys to his Volvo to one of his interns and asks him to make a run to the convenience store for bottled water, and on the way out of the parking lot, the intern accidentally backs over and crushes one of the company's AirPort Base Stations. But instead of firing the intern, as he most surely would have in earlier years, Steve merely runs over, picks up what remains of the flattened base station, and says to himself, "Hey, we can market this..."
Alright, so I have it on good authority that it didn't happen quite like that, but you have to admit that it's kind of fun to pretend for a moment that it did. But the important part of Apple's announcement today of a "mini-me" version of its wireless base station isn't really the product itself, so much as what it signifies. What is it they say about an avalanche and how it begins? And for me personally, this particular product announcement couldn't have come at a better or a worse time. Let's see, is there any way that I could possibly explain what this past week has been like? This telephone conversation might give you a hint:
Not me: "Hey Bill, I know you've only been asleep for four hours...do you feel like driving a Mini Cooper halfway across the county?"
Me: "Yeah sure, never drove one of those before. Will I have to know where I'm going?"
Not me: "No, you can follow me, I'll be driving the GTO."
Me: "The one with the flames painted on it?"
Not me: "Yeah."
Me: "OK good, that way I won't lose sight of you..."
I swear to God that's a real conversation I had this morning. I'll let you use your imagination to fill in the rest of it. Mostly because the rest the day was pretty much a blur. The upshot, though, is that I happen to be house-sitting for relatives this week, and my car also happens to be in the hands of someone else right now (hint: the Mini Cooper is not my car, nor is the GTO). In fact, if you manage to figure out what's going on with my life this week, please write in and let me know, because I no longer have a clue. But anyway, the part that you care about is that this particular house happens to have a cable modem, which means that all I had to do was bring my PowerBook with me, and I'd be right at home.
Well, almost. You know, the thing about having wireless access in your own home is that you get so used to having it that you almost forget that there are places on this planet that still don't have it (about 99.9 percent of the earth's surface, shockingly enough). So while I did remember that I was going to need to take my wireless router with me, I only put just enough absent-minded thought into the matter that I managed to grab the router...but not the accompanying power cable.
So I get over here and, upon realizing what I'd done, and remembering that my car is (okay, I admit, I have no idea where my car is anymore), I figure I'll just spend the week tied to the plug. I mean, I've got to get some use out of the ethernet port on my laptop sooner or later, right? So I set up shop, and even though the attached ethernet cable means that my laptop is suddenly no more portable than a desktop machine, I decide to just live with it for the week.
And I was fine with it. Until Apple had to pick today to unveil its latest hardware innovation, a compact wireless router that plugs into an electrical jack much in the same manner as a Glade Plug-in air freshener. No power cable, no external antenna, no nothing. It's exactly what I could use right now. It's one thing to speak metaphorically and say that Apple seemingly always manages to invent innovative new products that you suddenly decide you need the day they're announced, but in this case, I really did need it the day it was announced. In that case, it's probably a good thing that the product won't ship until July. Otherwise, I might not have been able to resist driving right down to the local Apple Store and...oh yeah, my car. Wherever it is. Yeah, nevermind.
About twelve hours after Apple's announcement, I suddenly conclude that I simply cannot stay tied to the plug anymore, and I find myself deciding that I'm just going to have to walk home and get the power cable. Right that minute. Nevermind the fact that it was sometime after midnight and, you know, dark out. So I walked home, grabbed my power cable, and tried to stuff it in my pocket, because it's one thing to walk through town after midnight, but it's another thing to do it while swinging around an electrical power cable. But...no dice. The power brick alone was too large to fit in my pocket, let alone the rest of the balled-up cable. So you know what? My current wireless router's power cable is bulkier than the tiny little AirPort Express wireless router that Apple launched today. The power cable, kids.
So do I need an AirPort Express? Nah, my cheapy little router fits the bill well enough for now. But considering how little I paid for it, and the fact that it doesn't even have a brand name on it, and the fact that it's more than a year old by now, I don't figure it's going to last for all that much longer. And you'd better believe that when it does finally bite the dust, an AirPort Express is what's going to replace it. I mean, the travel possibilities are seemingly endless. Four out of five odds say that this is the next piece of Apple hardware that I buy.
But as I said a little further up the page (please tell me you didn't skip ahead just to read this part), the product itself isn't the only story. In fact, there are several big stories here. First, there's the fact that Apple slashed the price of its formerly overpriced wireless equipment by about half, putting it right back in the game that it once briefly owned. Second, there's the fact that Apple managed to take an aging, mature wireless technology and repackage it in an innovative new way that actually gets users' eyes to light up when they think of all the new things that it might let them do. Third, there's the fact that while Apple's standards-based wireless transmitters have always been fit for use with Windows PC's, Apple is now finally going to market its wireless products to both Mac and Windows users, meaning that Apple is about to rake in a whole lot of cash while putting another Apple product into the hands of Windows users. And fourth, there's this whole iTunes tie-in that's so ingenious that I'm really angry that I didn't invent it. No really, I should have been able to come up with this one all by myself.
I swear, I could have invented AirTunes. For that matter, the dog sitting next to me could probably have invented AirTunes. But it was Apple who actually went ahead and pulled it off. I'd imagine it takes an awful lot of complex thinking to come up with such a simple solution to the task of allowing your computer to connect wirelessly to any speaker or stereo system in your house: put an audio-out jack on the wireless router itself. Well duh. Come on, dog sitting next to me, why didn't you think of this? Why didn't I? I'm telling you, the dog and I could have been rich. But so be it.
You know, I don't even want to think about the full implications of iTunes/AirTunes just yet. Not on four hours' sleep anyway. But I can see pretty clearly that an avalanche started today, one in which Apple takes over the home of every Mac and Windows user on the planet by bringing to life a whole slew of new digital devices that will eventually make today's announcement look like the mere baby step that it is. And I have no doubt in my mind anymore that Apple will manage to turn huge chunks of those Windows users into Mac users, in the process. Sure, it helps a bit that the Windows platform seems to have fallen into complete self-destruct mode over the past year or two, and so many people are currently looking to get out from under it. But this avalanche was going to happen anyway. Windows users had better buckle up, 'cause here comes Apple in ways that no one really quite imagined.
And if you're already a Mac user, you might want to buckle up too. AirPort Express today, and word has it that we might see new G5 PowerMacs as early as tomorrow. And If Steve is willing to toss AirTunes and new G5's out there so casually just three weeks before his biggest Keynote of the year, then you'd better believe that he's got some even better stuff up his sleeve for his big speech on June 28th. We know we're getting MacOS X Tiger on that day. But I think we now know that there's more in store for that Keynote that we're not even aware of. Oh, and if you get bored between now and then, Apple will be launching the iTunes Music Store in Europe a week from today, complete with an Apple Event in London to commemorate the launch. At this rate, perhaps Apple will begin launching a new product every week until even Steve can't remember them all.
Here I thought that June was going to be a silly little month where I got settled into my new place, did some house-sitting, and finally got to catch up on answering some long-overdue reader email. Instead, it looks as if this might end up being one of the busiest months in Apple history. So much for Mac-related dry spell. The floodgates are open again, kids.
Now dude, where's my car?
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