According to Jobs, iCloud ‘marks the completion of a long quest to liberate the computer from local files and all the desktop mishigas involved’. A transition often referred to as the ‘Post PC’ paradigm.

Early analysis of the move calls it the beginning of ‘new era’ for Apple, positioning the company as the clear leader in the race for making cloud computing mainstream.

“iCloud will shape the next 10 years the way the iTunes-on-your-Mac/PC digital hub shaped the last 10″, veteran Apple commentator John Gruber wrote.

Google vs. Apple

He also pointed out the significant difference between Apple’s and Google’s cloud approaches.

“In both cases, your data is in the cloud, and you can access it from anywhere with a network connection. But Google’s vision is about software you run in a web browser.”

“Apple’s is about native apps you run on devices. Apple is as committed to native apps – on the desktop, tablet, and handheld – as it has ever been.”

Microsoft lagging behind

Microsoft’s lack of clear vision for a personal cloud is being seen as leaving the PC giant significantly behind its rivals.

According to Wired technology writer Steven Levy, the ‘Post PC’ concept is still a taboo at Microsoft.

“But whether Microsoft admits it or not, we’ve been Post PC for years now. Our problem has been that these new devices haven’t yet morphed into tools that are every bit as capable as the one they’re replacing.”

“At WWDC, Steve Jobs took moved us closer to filling that gap. Considering Apple’s unbelievable momentum, you have to believe that that his users will follow.”

Quote

You can’t just ask customers what they want and then try to give that to them. By the time you get it built, they’ll want something new. ~ Steve Jobs

Worshiped by the Apple-cult, loathed by the PC conservatives, Jobs doesn’t struggle to spark an opinion.

Currently, the polo-neck enthusiast from California, makes it regularly to the headlines of the digital world. Yet in 2004, when London iTunes store was launched, a Guardian article described him as practically unknown compared to Bill Gates.

There’s also another massive difference between the two. Whereas Gates is busy keeping up his richest-man-in-the-world image in smart suits and a nice smile, Jobs rants about the future of the digital world in his black turtle-neck and misfitting jeans.

True visionaries tend to come with their drawbacks. Jobs’ character has led to trouble even within his own company.

After co-founding the Apple Computer Company in his garage (legend says he even sold his Volkswagen camper van to finance the original design) Jobs was sacked after a reported power struggle.

Steve Wozniak and Steve Jobs

But in the style of true innovators this did not deflate Jobs. He continued his passion and entrepreneurial efforts, which eventually lead to both him and his new company being bought by Apple a decade later. There was still something in him, they thought.

The decision turned out to be, not just a good one, but a great one. Jobs has since revolutionised both the music and mobile industries and carries on fulfilling his vision – and/or making money.

Apple is currently estimated to be worth somewhere around $140 billion. It would be interesting to find out what the figure would be without Jobs. Having a character as a CEO is a powerful thing when you team that up with vision.

Jobs’ character has recently also been picked up by the entertainment industry. Cable channel Epix is planning a satire TV series set in Silicon Valley.

The series, which is written by Dan Lyons, the man behind popular parody blog fakesteve.net, is set to be directed by Larry Charles, director of Borat, Seinfeld and Entourage.

Titled iCon, the show is described as “a savage satire, a study of ego, power and greed” with its lead character, Tom Rhodes, being a composite of Jobs and other Silicon Valley titans.

Feature article

After months of sniping and grumbling at Adobe, Apple boss Steve Jobs didn’t leave anything to interpretation in his open letter on the company’s site. Read more…

Steve Jobs’ Flash rant – happened so far

It has to be admitted, the controversial letter, in which he argues against the use of Flash, is extremely persuasive, if a little long. It’s clear in its point and comes across very professional.

Jobs’ take on the subject at a question & answer session for Apple employees was not so diplomatically phrased.

“They are lazy”, Jobs said of Adobe. “They have all this potential to do interesting things but they just refuse to do it.”

As an explanation for the decision, Jobs – true to his style – simply stated that it’s because Flash is so “buggy”.

“Whenever a Mac crashes more often than not it’s because of Flash. No one will be using Flash. The world is moving to HTML5.”

Adobe reacted to the Jobs’ attack by announcing its move away from Apple to focus on developing Flash on other manufacturers’ mobile devices. Embarrassingly, in their recent Flash demo disaster, Adobe only managed to demonstrate the mobile version continuously crashing.

Let go of the past, will you!

Apple’s position with regards to Flash has been critisised of being based on business reasons, that is, pure greed, but the company itself insists there are logical, technical issues behind its decision.

“The mobile era is about low power devices, touch interfaces and open web standards – all areas where Flash falls short”, Jobs proclaims in his letter.

The structure of the argument goes like this:

#1 Adobe Flash is too proprietary.
#2 Not all web video content is in Flash.
#3 Flash has got one of the worst security records in 2009.
#4 It doesn’t perform well on mobile devices.
#5 It’s a battery muncher.
#6 It’s designed for mouse-usage and doesn’t marry well with touch screens.
#7 And most importantly, it’s against everyone’s benefits to let a third party layer of software come between the platform and the developer (if Adobe would encourage developers to use Flash to create mobile apps)

Critics of Apple should embrace the mobile era with HTML5 and stop criticising Apple for leaving the past behind, Jobs concluded.

Kill or be killed

As for the claims about money being behind the decision, John Gruber, a technology blogger and Apple enthusiast, reminded “the hypocrites”, as he calls them, that at the end of the day, Apple is a business – not a charitable organisation.

Gruber also made the point that the industry operates by the kill-your-enemies-before-they-kill-you rule.

He wrote: “Do customers benefit from what Apple is doing? In the short term, maybe not. But long term, absolutely. Because by putting up with what Apple is doing now, customers are helping to ensure that Apple stays in business and that its competitors die. That, more than anything else, is the reason to continue buying Apple products. I don’t see how anyone argues with the logic here.”

Read Jobs’ letter in full:
http://www.apple.com/hotnews/thoughts-on-flash/

Case Study

The curious case of Steve Jobs

From start to finish, the Apple CEO is a man of contradictions. A young Steve Jobs, starting out in the working life, was faced between an unusual choice between the business world and the Buddhist monastery – to make a living of selling gadgets to masses or to devote his life to a famously non-materialist faith. Read more…

Profile

Dan Lyons is a technology columnist at Newsweek and the creator of Fake Steve Jobs, the persona behind The Secret Diary of Steve Jobs, a leading technology blog. Before joining Newsweek, Lyons spent 10 years at Forbes. Over the past 25 years Lyons has written for a wide range of publications, including the New York Times Magazine, GQ and many technology trade publications.

Lyons’s latest book is Options:The Secret Life of Steve Jobs, a satire about Silicon Valley which was published in 2007 to critical acclaim. His previous books are Dog Days (a novel) and The Last Good Man (short stories). As a fiction writer Dan has been the recipient of both a prestigious National Endowment for the Arts Literary Fellowship and the somewhat notorious Playboy College Fiction Prize. He also was named one of the “Fabulous 52″ in the 1996 Best Young American Novelists competition sponsored by Granta.

Lyons has spoken at corporate campuses and industry conferences and events, including the Web 2.0 Expo and Thinking Digital in Newcastle, England. He has taught at the University of Michigan and the University of Toledo. He holds a B.A. from Bradford College and an M.F.A. from University of Michigan.