> Digital cameras now constitute 15% of all cameras sold in the US. 15% percent. It'll be 50% in a few years.
Really? That's the same thought I had the first time I saw a usable digital camera 10 years ago, and I don't think I'm special or that I was the only one...
It's truly remarkable that a $60B company is able to make these sort of bets and execute on them. It's easy for smart individuals to make off hand remarks but it is different for a company to rally and gather around a single idea like this.
To be fair, Apple isn't the only company that does this. Google is remarkable, as well. Virgin is another. I'm sure there are many others in many other industries that take big gambles for 'game-changing' or earth shattering results.
go and read photography magazines from that era. There's was much heated and vehement objection to including articles pertaining to digital photography and cameras. Many photographers at that time were convinced digital cameras were just toys and had no part in 'professional' magazines.
Classic disruption. When the new tech isn't very good and gets a foothold in new markets, the professional users (correctly) view it as inferior, rubbish, a toy. The big picture question is whether it could improve enough to be usable by professional users. It's kind of odd that many are oblivious to the obvious trajectory of improvement.
EDIT e.g.1 (from Worse is Better) could AI become good enough? A tricky one, since they aren't competing with another product, but with us. OTOH, computers are constantly replacing people for simple tasks - the history of computation is the history of mental automation. e.g.2 could PHP become good enough to replace Java in the Enterprise (apparently their target)?
Something that can stall the trajectory is the next wave of disruption breathing on their heels.
Many of the Mac sites have been running retrospectives on past Stevenotes leading up to this one. I ended up re-watching a number of them, and in particular a Q&A session Steve did when he returned to Apple (when Gil was still CEO, and the Clone Saga was ongoing) was extremely interesting. He basically blasted the Newton's usability and described the problems the iPhone solves, and that was just about 5% of the total talk.
Classic Gruber. I really hope that no one that I know ever mentions a WWDC presentation from a decade before.