Interchange Project

Apple CEO Cook: iCloud is the company’s strategy for next 10 years

Apple’s Digital Hub strategy dominated the last 10 years of Apple, now it’s time for iCloud to be the hub of Apple’s future:

The response from customers has been incredible. It solves a lot of problems that customers were having and made their lives much easier. And so I see it as a fundamental shift, recognizing that people had numerous devices, and they wanted the bulk of their content in the cloud, and easily accessible from all of the devices. I think we’re seeing the response from that, and with 85 million customers in just three months, It is just not a product. It is a strategy for the next decade.

Apple’s Digital Hub strategy placed the Mac at the center of user’s digital lives with iTunes as a way to organize and purchase digital files that could then be transferred to iPods, iPhones, iPads, etc. Now Apple is positioning the cloud as a user’s digital hub, freeing people from needing a central computer to store and organize digital music and movie files, apps, e-books, etc.

Users can now use iPhones and iPads without needing to even own a Mac or PC. This is important, because Apple can’t make the iPad into a post-PC device if it still requires a PC for backup and syncing (which it did before iCloud). iCloud is what will allow Apple’s current non-PC devices and future ones to exist without needing a locally-managed digital hub.

I recently pre-ordered Game of Thrones on iTunes. What really has me excited is that the episode files can exist solely in iCloud, and I can stream them to my Apple TV whenever I feel like it. I no longer have to worry about storing and organizing files locally (and video files take up a tremendous amount of storage, never mind backups). I can even bring my Apple TV to friends’ and relatives’ houses and stream my purchased TV shows there as well.

Source: CNET.