I skate to where the puck is going to be, not to where it's been.

Steve Jobs, channelling Wayne Gretzky

Another Steve Jobs keynote at a show called Macworld completely devoid of Mac content (unless I missed something). It is all about iPhones, iPod, iTunes now, with the Mac's primary raison-d'etre being a base station for all these entertainment gadgets. After dropping the word Computer from the company name, I would not put it beyond Jobs anymore to pull out of the computer business altogether (unlikely, but only because he needs the Mac to manage the media library, at least for the moment, a future AppleTV could also do that).

For a computer scientist/software geek who does not listen to music, does not watch TV, avoids phones as much as possible, this is not a promising turn of events. I am also not completely sure that Apple can hold their own as an entertainment electronics maker. For now, they can cash in on the iPod halo effect, but they will need to have similar successes in the new areas as well. A streak of mediocre products (and the AppleTV for example seems to be such, even I would rather buy an XBox 360 or a hard disk recorder) and internal conflicts of interests could deteriorate their brand image and they'd end up like Sony, who also lost their undisputed industry leadership at the same time they lost focus. This may be unfounded pessimism, they could also experience amazing growth and make us all rich, but in either case, it is probably downhill for the Mac from now on.