{"id":21647,"date":"2011-06-09T13:01:00","date_gmt":"2011-06-09T17:01:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.investmentu.com\/?p=20127"},"modified":"2011-06-09T13:01:00","modified_gmt":"2011-06-09T17:01:00","slug":"with-icloud-apple-once-again-opens-up-new-market","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.investmacro.com\/fx\/2011\/06\/09\/with-icloud-apple-once-again-opens-up-new-market\/","title":{"rendered":"With iCloud, Apple Once Again Opens Up New Market"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a class=\"post_title\" href=\"http:\/\/www.investmentu.com\/2011\/June\/apple-revamps-icloud.html\">With iCloud, Apple Once Again Opens Up New Market<\/a><\/p>\n<p>by Ryan Cole, <em>Investment U<\/em> Research<br \/>\nThursday, June 9, 2011<\/p>\n<p>Apple is  doing it again&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>The company  has a rich history of getting to a new sector, not first, but best. And when it  does, everything changes. That&#8217;s not ad-man hyperbole &#8211; that&#8217;s just simple  fact&#8230;<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>When Apple released the first iPod, personal MP3  players weren&#8217;t new &#8211; but they weren&#8217;t mainstream, either. That all changed  when consumers experienced the ease of use of Apple&#8217;s then-revolutionary  click-wheel.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>When Apple started selling music via iTunes, many  pundits wondered whether digital music could compete with physical media.  Today, iTunes is the number one music seller in the world, with Amazon not far  behind. Brick-and-mortar stores dedicated to music are just about extinct.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>Last year, Apple released one of the first &#8211; but not <em>the<\/em> first &#8211; tablet computer. Now, Apple owns over 70 percent of <a href=\"http:\/\/www.investmentu.com\/2011\/March\/apples-post-pc-world.html\" >the tablet market<\/a> (and  over 90 percent according to some calculations that consider  sold-versus-shipped numbers).<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Of course,  none of this is counting Apple&#8217;s previous innovations&#8230; like icon-based  operating systems, mouse-based interface systems, or advances in battery life  that have helped the company dominate the high-end laptop market.<\/p>\n<p>In short &#8211;  what Apple does, it does well, and when it enters a new market, it tends to  dominate it &#8211; at least for a time.<\/p>\n<p>Competitors  may swoop in to steal Apple&#8217;s early lead &#8211; as Microsoft did with the personal  computer, and as Google may do with the tablet. But there&#8217;s no doubt &#8211; where  Apple goes, the market follows.<\/p>\n<p>That&#8217;s why  Apple&#8217;s newest service &#8211; dubbed iCloud &#8211; is a bigger deal than many investors  might realize.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Welcome to  Tomorrow, Today: The Cloud Gets Real<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Let&#8217;s be  clear: Apple is far from the first to this space. Both Amazon  and Google have been aggressively moving to the cloud.<\/p>\n<p>But, as  usual, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.investmentu.com\/2011\/May\/apples-ereader-monopoly.html\" >Apple is doing it differently<\/a> &#8211; and in a more user-friendly way. So, let&#8217;s take a  look at what iCloud is offering:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>File sharing that equals &#8211; or beats &#8211; Google docs.On Apple machines, you can start  working on a document on one device, pick up exactly where you left off on  another and make edits on a third (or fourth or ninth). This is much like other  cloud services &#8211; but it&#8217;s more seamless with the Apple interface, and does a  tremendous job of picking up exactly where you left off.\n<p>That goes for pretty much every program  &#8211; pick it up on any device, and you&#8217;ll open to the exact view you left on your  previous device. In other words &#8211; you aren&#8217;t just storing data on the cloud &#8211;  this is more like working off the cloud.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>Photos and videos taken on one device are automatically and immediately  available on every other synced device. True &#8211; after 30 days, they disappear.  Unless you want it elsewhere &#8211; and then you just mark it for a more permanent  place.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>Music bought on iTunes is immediately available on all devices. And, for $25 a  year, any music in your library is available to every device in your ecosystem.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>That&#8217;s a big differentiation with other  services. Amazon charges twice as much, and requires time- and data-consuming  uploads, while Apple just allows your device to download previous copies  already on Apple&#8217;s servers. Google music doesn&#8217;t have a price yet &#8211; but is  already outclassed by the services Apple is offering.<\/p>\n<p>This is far  from the last salvo &#8211; and this war is far from over. The gap between what <a href=\"http:\/\/www.investmentu.com\/2010\/July\/is-apple-the-perfect-growth-stock.html\" >Apple&#8217;s  offering<\/a> and competitors is small. There&#8217;s no saying yet who will dominate the  cloud.<\/p>\n<p>But that  hardly matters. Apple has thrown its hat into the ring, with its usual slick user  interface and huge horde of dedicated customers.<\/p>\n<p><strong><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">What counts is this<\/span>:<\/strong> With  Apple&#8217;s entry, the cloud is virtually guaranteed to now take off. No more  promises for the future &#8211; the cloud is today.<\/p>\n<p>Good  investing,<\/p>\n<p>Ryan Cole<\/p>\n<div class=\"feedflare\">\n<a href=\"http:\/\/feeds.feedburner.com\/~ff\/InvestmentU?a=ZqFRdtItcBM:lAagHy8-_CU:yIl2AUoC8zA\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/feeds.feedburner.com\/~ff\/InvestmentU?d=yIl2AUoC8zA\" border=\"0\"><\/img><\/a> <a href=\"http:\/\/feeds.feedburner.com\/~ff\/InvestmentU?a=ZqFRdtItcBM:lAagHy8-_CU:V_sGLiPBpWU\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/feeds.feedburner.com\/~ff\/InvestmentU?i=ZqFRdtItcBM:lAagHy8-_CU:V_sGLiPBpWU\" border=\"0\"><\/img><\/a> <a href=\"http:\/\/feeds.feedburner.com\/~ff\/InvestmentU?a=ZqFRdtItcBM:lAagHy8-_CU:qj6IDK7rITs\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/feeds.feedburner.com\/~ff\/InvestmentU?d=qj6IDK7rITs\" border=\"0\"><\/img><\/a> <a href=\"http:\/\/feeds.feedburner.com\/~ff\/InvestmentU?a=ZqFRdtItcBM:lAagHy8-_CU:gIN9vFwOqvQ\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/feeds.feedburner.com\/~ff\/InvestmentU?i=ZqFRdtItcBM:lAagHy8-_CU:gIN9vFwOqvQ\" border=\"0\"><\/img><\/a> <a href=\"http:\/\/feeds.feedburner.com\/~ff\/InvestmentU?a=ZqFRdtItcBM:lAagHy8-_CU:F7zBnMyn0Lo\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/feeds.feedburner.com\/~ff\/InvestmentU?i=ZqFRdtItcBM:lAagHy8-_CU:F7zBnMyn0Lo\" border=\"0\"><\/img><\/a>\n<\/div>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/feeds.feedburner.com\/~r\/InvestmentU\/~4\/ZqFRdtItcBM\" height=\"1\" width=\"1\"\/><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Apple is doing it again&#8230; The company has a rich history of getting to a new sector, not first, but best. And when it does, everything changes. That&#8217;s not ad-man hyperbole &#8211; that&#8217;s just simple fact&#8230; <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.investmentu.com\/2011\/June\/apple-revamps-icloud.html\">Apple&#8217;s iCloud&#8230; &gt;&gt;<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-21647","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.investmacro.com\/fx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21647","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.investmacro.com\/fx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.investmacro.com\/fx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.investmacro.com\/fx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.investmacro.com\/fx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21647"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.investmacro.com\/fx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21647\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.investmacro.com\/fx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21647"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.investmacro.com\/fx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21647"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.investmacro.com\/fx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21647"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}