By Gadjo Cardenas Sevilla
It's this time of year, right after the International Consumer Electronics Show (CES), that I most miss the Macworld Apple Keynotes.
I know, Apple hasn't participated in a Macworld expo since 2010 (and the show has since moved to late March and been rebranded as Macworld/iWorld). More than anything, I miss the anticipation of seeing new product or OS announcements this early in the year, it sort of sets the stage for what's to come, and also whips Apple's competitors into a frenzy to figure out how they can counter or copy what's been announced.
Apple's strong product releases in 2013, including the new iPhone 5s and 5c, iPad Air and iPad mini with Retina, MacBook Pros, MacBook Airs and the long awaited new Mac Pro (stay tuned for my official review in the coming weeks), are now all available in various markets and in steady supply.
More importantly, Apple's making huge inroads to China through its partnership with China Mobile for the iPhone 5s and iPhone 5c. China Mobile is the world's largest mobile carrier, it has over 760 million subscribers. iPhones have long been favoured devices in China (where, ironically, they are manufactured). iPhones are valued and sold for high prices in the Chinese grey market, so having them available and tied to a leading carrier early in the year is a very big deal for Apple.
Where iPhones go, iPads are sure to follow, so China Mobile is certain to offer the WiFi plus Cellular variants of the popular tablets shortly. So will a bunch of other countries as global supply kicks into high gear.
The iPhone 5s is still the most powerful smartphone in the market in terms of general performance. The iPhone 5c is not as insanely popular, but it is a great seller at a great price point and it isn't just for consumers, students and budget smarphone buyers.
My wife's office recently replaced various ageing BlackBerry Bolds with iPhone 5cs and people were thrilled. BBM is now cross platform, they also have iMessage and now have all the features of the iPhone 5 in sweet, colourful cases. Compare a three year old BlackBerry and a new iPhone 5c side by side and the two devices couldn't be more different. Sure, the physical keyboard is missed by some, but two weeks in and everyone seems happy.
The iPad Air is still unbeaten in the tablet space. There are fewer and fewer 10-inch tablets coming to compete against the larger iPad and we're now seeing more movement in the 7-8 inch tablet segment. Some manufacturers are going larger with 12 inch Pro-focused tablets and there's a bunch of new Windows 8.1 tablets and convertibles coming to stores, but these run the desktop version of Windows. Windows RT, the version that runs on ARM chips designed to compete with iPad, is available on a limited number of devices outside of Micrsoft's own Surface tablet.
Apple's timing their major product launches late last year really worked out for them. They made a big splash in time for the holiday buying season, competitors were unable to steal attention during this critical period and they're in a great position to coast for the first few months of the year, if they want to.
The addition of the new Mac Pro completes the huge product revamp that began in 2012, and now every single Apple hardware product is up to spec plus iOS 7 and OS X Mavericks continue to be refined and updated just months after their big update. We'll have a better idea of where Apple is going once we hear from them during their quarterly earnings call next week. Which I'll be covering in this space.