Minority Report: Whither the Mac maker?

The dropping of the word 'computer' from Apple's official name didn't get as much attention as the showcasing of the iPhone earlier this year, writes Seb Janacek, but it's had lots of us wondering where Apple sees its future.

Apple last month announced that the next iteration of its operating system would not be delivered this spring as it previously promised. Mac OS X (Leopard) is now scheduled to make an appearance in October 2007. The delay has caused disappointment in the considerable online Mac community. But this disappointment was compounded by dismay from some quarters because of the reason Apple gave for the slippage - that the company had to divert internal engineering effort from Leopard to the iPhone.

The announcement needs to be considered in the context of Apple's 'big' announcement at the unveiling of the iPhone and the Apple TV at the Macworld Expo in January that it was changing its corporate name from Apple Computer to Apple Inc to reflect its broader market focus and product portfolio. Doomsayers saw this as the beginning of the end for the company's traditional product focus - the Mac - as it turned its attention more to the iPod and digital lifestyle devices.

In an interview with Fortune magazine in 1996, more than a year before he took over the reins at Apple, Jobs was asked what he would do to turn around the (then) ailing company. His reply was to "milk the Macintosh for all it's worth - and get busy on the next great thing".

He added: "The PC wars are over. Done. Microsoft won a long time ago."

All very salutary stuff but within a few years the iMac had turned the company's fortunes on its head and back into profitability, thanks largely to Jobs himself. It seemed the Mac had a bit of life in it after all.

The January 'rebranding' is a bit of a misnomer in any case. Apple made a similar announcement about five years ago that it would be known simply as Apple in its marketing but kept the Apple Computer name for corporate and legal purposes. Jobs clearly saw the major product announcement in January as an opportunity to underline the point that Apple is now more than just a computer company.

So the Mac faithful need to wait a little longer for their next big cat. The last major version of Mac OS X - Tiger - appeared in April 2005, so the gap between Leopard represents the longest delay between versions in the operating system's history. Well over two years if the OS does meet its revised release date.

At the end of the day, a little perspective goes a long way. Leopard has been delayed. Hardly on the scale of Vista but embarrassing for Apple nonetheless - as well as a problem for any developers producing Leopard-native software for the spring schedule. However, the signals coming from the developer community on the likely readiness of Leopard had not been encouraging for some time.

On the positive side, the delay may allow Apple to raise the bar on what it delivers in October. The Leopard features previewed at last year's Developer Conference were distinctly underwhelming. At the time Jobs insisted the company was keeping the wraps on some of the new system's 'top secret' features. If he was being fiercely protective of the company's innovations out of fear that Vista might 'copy' them, as he'd alleged in the past, it was a strange move. Quite how Microsoft would have managed to re-engineer any Leopard features into its new OS given its own software development process is a moot point.

However, the CEO needs to go on stage at the company's developer conference in June and give assurances to the developer community that the company is still committed to the Mac platform. It shouldn't be too hard to do so as it clearly is.

He also better come good with his promise of new features otherwise the result will be a little underwhelming. The company plans to demo a feature-complete version of Leopard then.

Concerns over the future of the Mac are unfounded. Is it the beginning of the end? Not at all. It's a knee-jerk reaction from certain sectors of the Mac community with a blinkered perspective on the company's widening business priorities.

A delay to the iPhone would cause enormous damage to the company's credibility and send investors screaming into the trees. Given the level of media interest in the device, a delay to the launch, which was pre-announced six months previously, would have been truly dire. Not least for a company that regards product innovation as one of its greatest assets and rarely pre-announces products for fear of attracting copycats.

The iPhone has garnered an enormous amount of interest in the media and from customers. According to Cingular, the exclusive carrier of the iPhone in the US, it has received more than a million pre-sales enquiries since the January announcement. It represents Apple's biggest gambit in years and it's no surprise the device is top of the company's list of priorities.

No one would deny the Mac is in rude health, particularly when compared to the rest of the PC market. In its last quarter, Mac sales were up 36 per cent on the year-ago quarter - more than three times the industry growth rate, according to Apple. The company is making inroads into growing its market, with around half of new Mac purchase coming from customers new to the platform. Few would deny now that the so-called 'halo effect' of the iPod - where positive experiences with the digital music player lead to sales of other Apple kit - is bearing fruit.

Apple the computer company can coexist quite happily with Apple the consumer electronics company. And with Apple the media company for that matter. With the iPod, iTunes and new products such as the iPhone and Apple TV, the company has indeed moved on to the next big thing.

It just so happens that the Mac has come along for the ride and that the PC wars perhaps aren't quite as dead as they might have appeared. The 'Get a Mac' and 'Switch' campaigns prove the company is committed to growing its minority share of the market and recent sales figures seem to support that.

Ten years ago, when Jobs said the PC wars were over and advised Apple to move on to the next big thing, he may have been speaking truthfully or maybe with tongue firmly in cheek. If it's the former then it proves that even so-called tech visionaries get it wrong sometimes. Then again, 10 years is a long time in technology.