Is Apple ready to compete in two new fields (Home Theatre and Mobile Telephony)?
What I said then: For each of these new markets, the question remains: Will Apple come off the way they did in the PC market in the 1990s or the way they have in the digital media player market for the last five years? If Apple succeeds in both these spaces, they’re well on their way to being established as the premier consumer electronics company. If they blow it, expect to see Apple called “beleaguered” by the media so fast your head will spin. What I say now: I’d say yes. AppleTV has only been out for a few weeks, and people are going nuts customizing and hacking it, which is always a really good sign of reception. It would appear that they’re ready for the market. The iPhone’s feature set and design (which were unknown when I wrote the original post) show that Apple is ready to compete in the phone market, but it will be a long time before we know how well this gamble paid off. Either way, it’s clear that Apple’s got game in both these fields, and they aren’t (yet) bursting under t
