Everyone has a list of what’s coming at Macworld. What did we miss? What did we forget? Apple’s most important secret. The Mac is the center of the Digital Hub, and the center of Apple’s most important Mac secret.

This is so obvious I’m surprised “this secret” hasn’t shown up on anybody’s Macworld Wish List.

Sure, we all want OS X Leopard, faster Macs, an Apple iPod that’s also a cell phone, new iLife and iWork applications, a Mac tablet, MacBook Pro mini, lower prices, and world peace.

What really shows up at Macworld is always less than we want, less than what we expect, but sufficient to satisfy us-- for a few more months.

What did we forget? We forgot that the Mac is the center of the digital hub. A big secret tucked into each Mac is iTunes. Fortunately, iTunes is also tucked into about 60-million Windows PCs.

iTunes is a secret? Yes, and no. The secret trick in iTunes is synchronization between computer and device; notably the iPod. On the Mac, sync is dead dog simple. Easy. A digital no brainer.

So, think of iTunes synchronization as an element of Mac OS X’s iSync capability. I don’t know if iSync is involved in iTunes communicating with an iPod but it doesn’t matter-- it is communication and Apple makes it an ultra simple effort.

That’s the secret. Apple makes what is troublesome at best on PCs a very simple operation using iTunes and the iPod. People love that. Mac users take it for granted.

When Apple releases an iPod that’s also a cell phone it will have to connect to iTunes, and iTunes is synchronization and communication heaven. It just works.

Cell phone makers and cell phone companies haven’t figured it out. Cell phones can play music but can’t get it back to iTunes on a PC or Mac.

Cell phones can take pictures but it’s a pain to get the photos back to the PC or Mac? Why? Cell phone operators are greedy. They want to charge you to send photos, and charge you to download music.

They charge for features that should be simple, easy to use, and get done what you want. Cell phone companies don’t understand that, so their products are a pain to use the way we want to use them.

Apple’s cell phone disguised as an iPod will become the darling device of 2007 because Apple understands the “digital hub” requirement of simplicity.

A cell phone that’s also an iPod is a killer beast-- IF. If it synchronizes seamlessly with Mac or PC and allows a free exchange, back and forth, of everything on this list:

Music, photos, ring tones, contacts, schedules, notes, maybe movie clips, and anything else. Cell phones for PCs don’t do any of that with ease. Neither do PDAs. That’s Apple’s secret. Make it easy.

Quick, easy, elegant synchronization; the moving of files and data seamlessly, effortlessly from PC and Mac to iPod cell phone.

Now, take that simple secret and move it to iTV. There’s that synchronization and movement process again. It’s a pain on any device, right? That’s why it’s not being done well by any device.

Enter Apple’s iTV which will allow simple synchronization and movement between Mac and TV screen. My bet is that iTV also works with Windows PCs using iTunes.

What moves? What synchronizes? Movies, photos, slide shows, music, and anything else on your Mac or PC. This whole secret already works seamlessly between Mac and digital camera, Mac and video camera, Mac and iPod.

The two pieces missing are Mac to cell phone, and Mac to the TV. Apple’s ability to have devices communicate effortlessly will make 2007 a wonderful Apple year.

Think of the solution Apple brings to the table with iTV and an iPod cell phone, both of which actually synchronize and communicate effortlessly with Macs and PCs. PC users love their iPods because Apple makes music the focus of the effort, not a confusing interface or a cumbersome way to communicate between devices.

That’s Apple’s secret for Macworld 2007. Convergence. Communication. Synchronization. The Mac remains the premier digital hub, but Apple brings Mac-like elegance to Windows PC users with a version of iTunes that communicates with iPod cell phones, and the television.

It’s Apple’s most important secret and I just spilled the beans.

Cool, your read my comments to Kate’s article a couple days ago! Not all exactly the same ideas, but pretty close.

http://www.mac360.com/index.php/forums/newreply/767/

Does this mean I get entered in the most fabulous quote contest? Or does fall into the “Great minds think alike” or “It takes one to know one” category?

Here is a brief recap for Rob Enderle, the folks at Motley Fool, or anyone else who just doesn’t get the genius behind Apple like us Mac360 hanger-outers do.

“...with iTunes 7 you can transfer songs purchased at the iTunes store from your iPod back to an authorized Mac. [Apple is] going to do mobile music purchases right. You purchase with your mobile device at iTunes $0.99 per song prices ... and listen anytime on your mobile device and then transfer to your computer the next time you sync and you can use it any way iTunes allows.

It’s easy as only Apple can do it.

What form will these mobile devices take? Who knows? Perhaps an iTunes-enabled phone done right from moto or Nokia? (unlikely)

Perhaps a real Wi-Fi iPod which can connect to hotspots ...you could purchase and download music or movies or whatever anytime you can connect to an increasingly ubiquitous Wi-Fi hotspot.

Or a real Apple cell phone with 3G internet. Hell, the iPod already syncs with iCal and Address book. All you’d need to do is staple a numeric keypad (maybe one of those virtual touch screen keypads we’ve seen Apple patents on) and a cellular radio transceiver, add a little Apple interface genius and you’d be good to go.”

Greg

What’s the Secret Center? A Giant bundle of nerves and anticipation with complete lack of justification (I’m not going to be buying anything soon, except Leopard in the Spring) that threatens to snap before every expo. Even worse, as far as rumors go we’ve been reduced to Numbers, iSight enabled LCDs, and the iPhone—which granted they likely have some solidity, but frankly same ones pop up every da(m)n expo. The midget Mac Pro has only been mentioned by its faithful, thankfully, and not trumpeted seriously.

It all leads me to believe that (#1) no new machines are going to be released (#2) It’s largely going to be state of the union and (#3) we’re all going to walk away feeling somewhat hollow and unimpressed. Not that the software goodness won’t be mind-blowing, the coming consumer gewgaws envy-inspiring, but for some reason any expo that doesn’t make you covet several thousand dollars in hardware and software just seems to be a bust, emotionally. It’s not even a “physical thing to take away” bit, because you can find plenty of that on the show floor. I think it’s just new hardware gives you the “I’m going to work in ways I’ve never worked before” feeling more thoroughly and convincingly than any software bit Apple can release. Because even beautifully conceived software can fail to own up (OpenDoc anyone?), but you just can’t find a downside to “3–5 times faster!”

(You’ll have to excuse me. At my very first expo when I was but a pup Quicktime was introduced and Charleton Heston was doing his postage stamp sized Moses bit all over the show floor. That set the stage for expectation that hasn’t always born out but still survives today. It also set the stage for free stuff at Expos. I walked out with a CD containing Quicktime 1.0. I’m pretty sure I didn’t have a CD-ROM drive yet. This was like 15 years ago, so I’m asking in advance forgiveness for timeline inaccuracies.)

As for the on topic comment: I agree, but not iTV. I don’t think iTV will sync. iTV will transmit but not store, that way Apple can sell you an iTV for each of your TVs, and a dedicated Mac to stream video to all of them. As far as Bob Iger’s HD comments, I suspect he meant, in essence, cache, and said HD instead because he couldn’t remember if it was caché or cache (joking, but I think you get the idea). It makes sense to have a bit of storage for the OS and to balance out transmission rates. So, you know, when you go nuke that bag of popcorn the last episode of Lost doesn’t cut out from the RF interference. (Microwaves do in fact cause interference on the 2.4Ghz band. Now you know.)

Carol Mary Miller - 05 January 2007 02:32 PM

Everyone has a list of what’s coming at Macworld. What did we miss? What did we forget? Apple’s most important secret. The Mac is the center of the Digital Hub, and the center of Apple’s most important Mac secret.

This is so obvious I’m surprised “this secret” hasn’t shown up on anybody’s Macworld Wish List.

That’s Apple’s secret for Macworld 2007. Convergence. Communication. Synchronization. The Mac remains the premier digital hub, but Apple brings Mac-like elegance to Windows PC users with a version of iTunes that communicates with iPod cell phones, and the television.

It’s Apple’s most important secret and I just spilled the beans.

Yes!

The Major snaps to attention and salutes. You indeed have the key, and the key is iTunes. (They are going to have to change that name eventually, though. “Apple Media Library” anyone?)

I blogged (is that a verb?) similar sentiments this week, but you are the first person I’ve seen put it so elegantly. iTunes, whether on the Mac or Windows platform, is the key. iTunes just works, where anything and everything else interfacing with Windows seems to be a crap shoot. (I’m sneering as we speak at the Linksys Media Center Extender I dropped far too much money on, which never once worked. After tomorrow’s keynote, it might as well be a doorstop—there’s no chance I’ll ever be able to move it on eBay once the “iTV” is revealed in full glory.

The very proprietary nature of iTunes has made it the perfect media hub. My iPod has been fed from my iBook G4 for quite awhile, but a few weeks ago I needed much more hard drive space and tired of moving recorded TV programs from my Windows XP Media Center (with MyTVtoGo ReadySync feeding everything I record into iTunes) over to the iBook to transfer to my 5G iPod. So i tossed a massive hard drive onto the Windows system and moved all the music from my iBook over to join the TV shows on the PC in one big iTunes library. And it is SO nice…

And if iTV works as we think it does, soon that whole library will be available from my living room TV, too. Oh, joy…

But iTunes can do so much more. Link an Apple cell phone to all my Address Book entries as well as my music. Bring video podcasts, games, original on-demand programming and more to my TV. (Cell phone links to TV. The mind boggles at the possibilities.) How about an alliance with Google to bring YouTube content to the TV as well, via iTunes/iTV?

Tomorrow is going to be very exciting…