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Rough Type: Nicholas Carr's Blog: Google, Apple and the futur...

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Because your data and applications are stored centrally, you will automatically have full access to them whenever you buy a new Google-Apple device (maybe they'll license the system to other manufacturers, too) or walk up to a public terminal. Forget about syncing, forget about thumb drives, forget about backups. You'll never think about that stuff again. All your data is with you all the time.

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Here's how the partnership works. Apple is taking responsibility for "the user interface and people." It's designing the devices themselves, which will be typically elegant machines that run versions of OS X. While Apple puts together the front end of the integrated network-computing system, Google provides "the perfect back end" - the supercomputer that provides the bulk of the data-processing might and storage capacity for the devices. While the devices will come with big flash drives to ensure seamless computing despite the vagaries of network traffic, all data will be automatically backed up into Google's data centers, and those centers will also serve up most of the applications that the devices run.

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Here's how the partnership works. Apple is taking responsibility for "the user interface and people." It's designing the devices themselves, which will be typically elegant machines that run versions of OS X. While Apple puts together the front end of the integrated network-computing system, Google provides "the perfect back end" - the supercomputer that provides the bulk of the data-processing might and storage capacity for the devices. While the devices will come with big flash drives to ensure seamless computing despite the vagaries of network traffic, all data will be automatically backed up into Google's data centers, and those centers will also serve up most of the applications that the devices run.

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What's at stake is control over personal computing itself - and Microsoft knows that, confronting the combined front-end and back-end skills of Google and Apple, it's at a big disadvantage. It will likely lose this war.

So how how long before the first Google-Apple Cloud Computer appears? I would say it's months, not years. And then the fireworks really begin.

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Let's look at a few of the advantages that a Google-Apple Cloud Computer offers:

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Let's look at a few of the advantages that a Google-Apple Cloud Computer offers:

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1. It will be cheap. The introductory machine, a small, general-purpose Apple-branded computer, will go on sale for $199 and in short order the price will fall to $99.

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1. It will be cheap. The introductory machine, a small, general-purpose Apple-branded computer, will go on sale for $199 and in short order the price will fall to $99.

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2. It will be highly energy-efficient

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2. It will be highly energy-efficient

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3. It will be low-maintenance.

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3. It will be low-maintenance.

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4. It will be flexible. Because your data and applications are stored centrally, you will automatically have full access to them whenever you buy a new Google-Apple device

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4. It will be flexible. Because your data and applications are stored centrally, you will automatically have full access to them whenever you buy a new Google-Apple device

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What's at stake is control over personal computing itself - and Microsoft knows that, confronting the combined front-end and back-end skills of Google and Apple, it's at a big disadvantage. It will likely lose this war.

Highlighted by wade

What's at stake is control over personal computing itself - and Microsoft knows that, confronting the combined front-end and back-end skills of Google and Apple, it's at a big disadvantage. It will likely lose this war.

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I think there will be three sources of apps: (1) the basics that you mention, which will be supplied and served up by Google-Apple; various consumer apps, including games and web 2.0 stuff, that will be served up over the net as they are today (ad-supported or for fee); and specialized, pro apps that will be designed by developers to run on the Google-Apple platform (incorporating app-cacheing techniques to ensure the necessary speed and responsiveness) and that you'll either license for a fee, as you do today, or subscribe to for a monthly fee (with consolidated billing from Google-Apple).

Nick

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I think there will be three sources of apps: (1) the basics that you mention, which will be supplied and served up by Google-Apple; various consumer apps, including games and web 2.0 stuff, that will be served up over the net as they are today (ad-supported or for fee); and specialized, pro apps that will be designed by developers to run on the Google-Apple platform (incorporating app-cacheing techniques to ensure the necessary speed and responsiveness) and that you'll either license for a fee, as you do today, or subscribe to for a monthly fee (with consolidated billing from Google-Apple).

Nick

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So.. analogously, what happens when you can fit the computing and storage capacity of a Google data center into an iPhone? You know it will happen someday. The cloud seems like a way to fake it until this happens.

Posted by: Charles

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So.. analogously, what happens when you can fit the computing and storage capacity of a Google data center into an iPhone? You know it will happen someday. The cloud seems like a way to fake it until this happens.

Posted by: Charles

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If they start to mass-produce those $100 laptops for every child on the planet, a lot of them will still find their way back into the hands of people who live in the economically developed countries.

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If they start to mass-produce those $100 laptops for every child on the planet, a lot of them will still find their way back into the hands of people who live in the economically developed countries.

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the centrally controlled system will be able to make use of local computing power and storage capacity to optimize the user experience (without shifting maintenance and other crap onto the user). It's all one system.

Nick

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the centrally controlled system will be able to make use of local computing power and storage capacity to optimize the user experience (without shifting maintenance and other crap onto the user). It's all one system.

Nick

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Yes, I'm talking about personal computing, and the Google-Apple Cloud Computer will certainly be designed and marketed as a consumer product. But there's no reason that it couldn't expand into certain segments of the business market fairly quickly - and into other segments more slowly. If it can accommodate a virtual desktop - and I'm sure it could - then it would fit nicely with the trend I describe here.

Posted by: Nick Carr [TypeKey Profile Page] at October 17, 2007 04:55 PM

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Yes, I'm talking about personal computing, and the Google-Apple Cloud Computer will certainly be designed and marketed as a consumer product. But there's no reason that it couldn't expand into certain segments of the business market fairly quickly - and into other segments more slowly. If it can accommodate a virtual desktop - and I'm sure it could - then it would fit nicely with the trend I describe here.

Posted by: Nick Carr [TypeKey Profile Page] at October 17, 2007 04:55 PM

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"It will be cheap."

When's the last time Apple shipped anything cheap (in the low price sense of the word)? Its entire line is overpriced and a modest iPod Nano is $149-199. Even if the purchase price is subsidized by advertising or a monthly fee -- and don't forget that iPods and iPhones are subsidized by iTunes and phone bills -- a $99 price point is hard to believe.

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"It will be cheap."

When's the last time Apple shipped anything cheap (in the low price sense of the word)? Its entire line is overpriced and a modest iPod Nano is $149-199. Even if the purchase price is subsidized by advertising or a monthly fee -- and don't forget that iPods and iPhones are subsidized by iTunes and phone bills -- a $99 price point is hard to believe.

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"It will be flexible."

How flexible or universal will it be if Apple stays true to form: the software and content only run on Apple devices; Apple limits or prevents third-party application development while selling many apps itself; and there are platform lock-in problems?

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"It will be flexible."

How flexible or universal will it be if Apple stays true to form: the software and content only run on Apple devices; Apple limits or prevents third-party application development while selling many apps itself; and there are platform lock-in problems?

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two of the sexiest companies in the world gain a lot of attention by working together, but it doesn't mean the collaboration will necessarily go well.

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two of the sexiest companies in the world gain a lot of attention by working together, but it doesn't mean the collaboration will necessarily go well.

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