Final Thoughts On 2011
2011 is already over. It seems like just yesterday we weren’t getting excited for yet another CES and Macworld Expo. Since Apple decided to stop showing up in 2010, Macworld has been devoid of interest for most people and 2012 won’t change that. That name change certainly isn’t helping. CES 2012 will be the last one Microsoft will provide the keynote for. Unfortunately, the company has taken the habit of showing off gadgets during their yearly keynote that never seem to materialize. I’m sure we’ll all miss Ballmer’s yearly snooze-fest. He has a rare talent of making you yearn for the good old days where Bill Gates was hosting the keynote.
In 2011, we saw Android 4.0 released on exactly one phone and zero tablets. We also saw the release of iOS 5 on three models of phones, three models of mp3 players and two models of tablets. Funny how one of those OS is supposedly open and sees the release of many tens of devices each year. Based on availability, it’s not the one you’d think. Still, as I said a few weeks back, Ice Cream Sandwich is actually pretty nice.
2012, much like 2005 was supposed to (remember those rumors ?), will perhaps see the release of an Apple television set. Since Apple has successfully tackled the previously stagnant industries of the MP3 player, the cell phone and the tablet, it’s exciting to think what Apple might be able to do to the television industry. This isn’t an easy market to change though. Much like cell phone where Apple had to learn to work with carriers and their (often) ridiculous way of doing things, a television set needs to work with an existing infrastructure that Apple will have to try and work with (or perhaps, around). Don’t expect this to be easy.
Of course, the big question when it comes to Apple’s next big move is what’s Apple going to do without its iconic founder. As I said in my Thank You Steve post in october, Jobs didn’t take decisions because it would benefit Apple immediately. He took them because it was the right thing to do for the company long term. He was a visionary that will be impossible to replace and it’ll be interesting to see what Apple will release in 2012 and beyond now that Steve is no longer there to guide them. The iPad 3 might well be the first big product announced early in the year by Tim Cook and his team. No doubt that product will sell very well (and let’s all hope for a retina iPad), but I’m sure we’ll see a bunch of articles saying that a Jobs-led Apple would have released so much more. Make sure to grab the popcorn for this one, the idiots will come out in drove.
Speaking of popcorn, we close the year with the Lodsys debacle still not over. Ars Technica published an interesting article just a day or two ago on this and it’s really too bad indie developers still have to fight over such ridiculous patents. Hopefully in 2012 Apple and Google will be able to quell that fire and everyone will be able to move on. Still, you can’t able but wonder when the next patent-troll will come around with a different obvious software patent. As a device that was meant to promote innovation, patents are doing a great job of killing it. The patent system was not designed with the fast-changing world of computers and software in mind. It clearly doesn’t work.
Let’s not forget about everything Apple did in the cloud in 2011. The Mac App Store has quickly become my place of choice to buy apps for the Mac. iCloud has been really impressive so far for a free service. It’s been working flawlessly for me so far. The recently released iTunes Match is also quite amazing. I’m very excited to see what 2012 will bring. Expect to see greater integration in Lion. The lack of an updated iWork for iCloud is especially puzzling. When the App Store launched early in the year, everyone was expecting a new version of iWork, yet it didn’t happen. It’s long overdue and I’m really curious to see what’s happening with iWork.
So let’s all hope for a great 2012. Hopefully the Kindle fire will become available worldwide and maybe we’ll see the release of Windows Phone 8. Nintendo will release the Wii U and will continue its trend of ignoring its biggest fans by releasing a console stuck 5 years behind everyone else. Speaking of everyone else, we should see an announcement for the next Xbox and probably the playstation 4 in june at E3. Wether you game on consoles or not, these new consoles are much needed, if only to move the world of gaming forward. This generation of console is now 5-6 years old and PC gaming is suffering because of it. Time to move on.