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The world of personal computing keeps changing. In the 1970s, we had
the first pocket calculators and the first personal computers. Word
processing came to PCs with Electric Pencil in
1976, and the first spreadsheet, VisiCalc, arrived in
1979. In the early 1980s, the IBM PC and the
first handheld computers reached the market. In the mid 80s,
Apple's Lisa and Macintosh introduced the
world to the graphical user interface (GUI).
In the late 80s, the first notebook computers appeared. The tiny
Poqet PC arrived in 1990,
the PowerBook introduced modern
notebook design (with a pointing device in front of the keyboard) in
1991, and Apple gave us the Newton in 1993. That
was the same year the first graphical browsers appeared for the
fledgling World Wide Web.
The most significant computer
of the late 90s was undoubtedly the iMac, introduced in 1998.
It changed the face of all-in-one desktop computers, and its adoption
of USB while abandoning SCSI and ADB helped establish USB, which had
languished virtually unused on Windows PCs for a year. The Blue & White Power Mac G3
brought FireWire, Apple's high speed (up to 400 Mbps vs. 11 Mbps)
alternative to USB.
Ethernet was invented before personal computing. The next step
forward in networking was wireless, first made popular with the 802.11b
AirPort Card for Apple's
first iBook, and Bluetooth, a short range wireless protocol, got
its start a few years later. Most computers today use even faster
versions of ethernet, WiFi, USB, and Bluetooth, and most Macs now have
800 Mbps FireWire as well.
Convergence
The biggest change in personal computing in recent years was the
introduction of the iPhone in 2007. With the iPhone, Apple combined a
version of its OS X operating system with an ARM CPU, a
touchscreen interface, plus WiFi and 2G wireless networking,
essentially re-visioning the smartphone as a pocketable computer that
also works as a phone. And last year, Apple bumped the iPhone to 3G
wireless.
The iMac had originally been intended as a Network Computer (NC), a
personal computer without a hard drive that would run software over its
network connection rather than from a built-in drive. Although this
wasn't implemented in the earliest iMacs, NetBoot has been part of Mac
OS X Server from the beginning, and all "New World" Macs support
it.
Apple
extended the NetBoot concept with the introduction of the MacBook Air in January 2008. The
MacBook Air (MBA) was the first Mac without a built-in optical drive in
15 years (give or take). MBA users could buy a $100 external
bus-powered USB SuperDrive - or use Apple's new Remote Disc technology
with an OS X Mac (10.4.10 or later) or a Windows PC (XP SP2 or
later). Remote Disc allows the MBA to use the optical drive over a WiFi
network, and even to boot from it and install the Mac OS from it.
Another piece of the puzzle is VNC,
Virtual Network Computing, which allows one computer to access and
control another remotely, whether on the same local network or over the
Internet. VNC software even allows an iPhone or iPod touch to connect
to and control your home or office computer.
Putting the Pieces Together
We have Internet access almost everywhere today, whether via
ethernet, WiFi, 3G, or some other protocol. We have small computers,
ranging in size from iPhones to netbooks, that are great field machines
but can't really replace your home or work computer. However, the
smaller, lighter devices don't need all the power and storage space
that your desktop machine may have.
The next step it to harness the power and storage of your home
computer from your portable computer, whether it's a smartphone, a
netbook, or a tablet. With pervasive Internet access, your field
computer doesn't need enough storage space for your entire iTunes and
iPhoto libraries, all of your documents, and all of your apps. In the
same world where 500 GB hard drives are common in desktops and 250 GB
drives in notebooks, iPhones may have just 8 GB and netbooks a
mere 16 GB of solid state storage.
These aren't exactly the thin clients/diskless workstations
envisioned in the late 1990s, but they're fairly close, especially in
comparison to the cheapest entry-level PCs on the market. They only
need enough RAM and storage space for the operating system, your most
used apps, and your most important data files. Everything else can be
stored on your home or business machine, and it could be copied to your
field computer as needed.
As an alternative, thanks to VNC and related technologies, you can
use your field computer to run apps on your main computer, and with a
browser and Flash, you can run a host of Internet-based apps as well.
Put all the pieces together, and we could really get the cost of field
computers down by relying more on the cloud and remote access to your
desktop computer.
The Next Step
The next step beyond that is the family or business server, which
could be a small machine that everyone can use to store iTunes
collections, iPhoto libraries, and any other files you might want to
access from more than one computer on the local network - or anywhere
else in the world. And if you install your apps on the server, you
could access them even when your main computer is off.
And that brings us full circle to the network computer. If you have
a server with enough power, bandwidth, and storage space, your other
desktop computers can get by with smaller, less costly hard drives. And
if your network is fast enough, maybe even dispense with those optical
drives that many of us rarely use.
That server would look like one Apple
introduced last month, the Mac
mini Server, which sells for US$999 with Mac OS X 10.6 Server,
4 GB of RAM, and two 500 GB hard drives. It's the perfect home, office,
classroom, etc. server with a small footprint, low energy demands, and
a full fledged server operating system. (The unlimited user version of
OS X 10.5 Server retailed for US$999, which shows what an
incredible bargain the Mac mini Server is.)
Apple is putting all the pieces together. The MacBook Air, iPhone,
and iPod touch are field computers. The desktop Macs, especially the
Mac mini Server and new quad-core
iMacs, have power and storage space to spare and share. Mac
OS X has all the software to allow everything to talk with
everything else.
I wouldn't be at all surprised to see Apple leveraging this kind of
technology when the long-rumored Apple tablet finally appears. Put the
money into solid design, give it the hardware it needs to take
advantage of the omnipresent Internet, and offload a lot of file
storage and computing to remote computers. It could change the face of
personal computing once again.
Dan Knight has been using Macs since 1986,
sold Macs for several years, supported them for many more years, and
has been publishing Low End Mac since April 1997. If you find Dan's articles helpful, please consider making a donation to his tip jar.
Links for the Day
Mac of the Day: Original iBook G3, introduced 1999.07.21. Innovative, rugged, heavy, clamshell laptop introduced AirPort and was a huge hit.
The most significant computer
of the late 90s was undoubtedly 
Apple
extended the NetBoot concept with the introduction of the 
That server would look like one Apple
introduced last month, the