Five Things Apple Could Be Doing With The New Data Center, But Probably Isn't
Wednesday, November 4, 2009 at 8:37AM 
Apple is ready to setup shop with a data center in North Carolina. Sure, it could be to simply add capacity to existing services, but let's look at some of the more exotic, yet within the realm of possibility, uses for it:
1. Mobile Me For Everyone
The internet has changed a lot since Apple first offered .mac/iTools, the predecessors to MobileMe. For one thing, there are more free online options for just about everything. Apple has re-positioned MobileMe, but the true advantage of it would come from Apple returning to its roots, and making MobileMe a free component of owning a Mac, or iPhone (since it has that Find My iPhone feature, etc.) Apple actually has a tremendous advantage here due to the size of its marketshare. Microsoft would be hard-pressed to offer a similar service to 90% of the computers on the planet. Then again, they seem to ok with hotmail/msn. Imagine an online version of time machine. Sure things like bandwidth limits could get in the way, but wouldn't be great to know you had offsite backup without another utility?
2. Live Video Streaming
One of the "missing pieces" in making Apple's living room "hobby" a full-fledged profit generator is live sports and entertainment. Think about the possibilities if Apple could give you the live programming you see now on broadcast television, and bring fresh new offerings as well. Like what? Oh, perhaps the yearly WWDC keynote and other Apple events for starters. Apple has been a big customer of Akamai through the years, but a full-on live video push would most likely require a new, proprietary approach.
3. TV subscription model
Of course along with live programming, Apple needs to find a way to offer a wide variety of content at an affordable price. Rumblings this week point to a $30/month price point for something. Whether that's to get one network's programming, or replicate your entire cable lineup, makes a big difference, but either move would bring Apple directly into the cable/satellite company's business.
4. Cloud Apps
The days of apps on the desktop are numbered. At least that's what we've been hearing for years. Apple is great at letting others go first, learn from those mistakes, then offering something uniquely different, and often successful. (iPhone or iPod, anyone?) If a tablet device is in the works, it won't have the hard drive of your desktop, but it could have a decent processor, video card, etc. What if programs like iPhoto ran "in the cloud", allowing you to run the app on the tablet, seeing/editing your photos from your desktop (or online storage) in the same room, or across the globe.
5. Push Servers/Gaming
Given the success of the app store, it wouldn't be too surprising to see Apple add more capacity for push servers for apps. A more exciting move would be the development of games for a new tablet (are we getting ahead of ourselves?) and/or the AppleTV. AppleTV could become a cable box and game console challenger, all in one package.
Reader Comments (3)
I used iTools. I loved the cards and the small amount of things I could back up or store... for free.
I bought the .Mac product. I even had the family accounts so I could easily support non-tech parents' accounts.
I'm going to hate losing my yourname@mac.com email account... but when this year is over, I'm not paying Apple anymore when Google provides 80% of the services for free.
I hope they set things up quickly in North Carolina.
I also hope Apple offers at least some form of limited free cloud services for backup or being able to access media while on the go. My main problem is that my upload speeds are not very good with my cable provider, so it would take me time to upload files. I just hope that Apple offers something useful to users for all that storage they be able to provide. I wouldn't mind getting all my TV services from iTunes if they could really provide problem free services.
My vote is for cloud computing- with lots of new things we haven't even thought of sharing easily or using remotely. Fingers crossed.