He’s not saying the PC is dead, dying, or even getting old; he’s saying that the big emerging market opportunity is in those post-PC devices (you or I would likely call them gadgets). The overwhelming sense I got from his fireside chat with Bill is that he’s got a bunch more gadgets coming out, you’ll happily get rid of the other stuff they replace, if you ever had anything like it anyway, and you can bet real money on tighter integration between all of them and the PC.

Jobs consistently focused on the two newest Apple post-PC era gadgets, the Apple iTV and the upcoming iPhone experience. Mossberg seemed to want to talk about convergence, asking if all of these things aren’t just computers in a different form factor. Mossberg also wanted comments regarding the constant predictions by some of “the death of the PC.” Jobs’ responses are of course illuminating here, I’ll condense his quotes while quoting liberally to give a more concise idea of what he was talking about:

but then, there’s an explosion that’s starting to happen in these, what you’d call post-PC devices. You could call the iPod one of them. There are these things that are not… as general purpose, they’re really more focused on more specific functions… that category of devices is going to continue to be very innovative, and you’ll see more of them.

“We’re getting to the point where everything’s a computer in a different form factor. So what? So what if it’s built with a computer inside? It doesn’t matter. It’s ‘what is it, how do you use it, how does the consumer approach it.’ It doesn’t matter anymore, so who cares what’s inside it anymore?”

What’s really interesting is, and we talked about this earlier today, if you look at the reason that the iPod exists and that Apple’s in that marketplace, it’s because these really great Japanese consumer electronics companies who kind of owned the portable electronics market, invented it, couldn’t conceive of the appropriate software… it’s in a beautiful box, but it’s software…. what an iPhone hopefully will be, it’s software. Apple views itself as a software company.

how much of the really revolutionary things that people are going to do in the next 5 years are done on the PCs, or how much of it is really focused on the post-PC devices. There’s a real temptation to focus it on the post-PC devices, because it’s a clean slate, and because they’re more focused devices, they don’t have the legacy of zillions of apps in these zillions of markets. I think there’s going to be a tremendous revolution in the experience of the post-PC devices. I think the question is, how much to do in the PCs… some of it has to be tempered a little bit….

[Users] don’t want to drive with a joystick, they like the steering wheel. Radical rethinking of things is going to happen in these post-PC devices.

When asked by Mossberg why .Mac had been stagnant lately:

“I couldn’t agree with you more, and we’ll make up for lost time in the near future.”

These are telling statements about product plans from Jobs. Apple is in the business of releasing solutions for interface problems created by other companies in software, and they’re going to release a bunch of gadgets to fix them, instead of just trying to cram it all into the PC. For example, When my wife tivos something on our DVR, I don’t want it recorded to my phone. I don’t want it recorded on my laptop either; a convergent solution isn’t really the right thing for this situation. And I’m saying that as a big fan of convergence.

I’m not ashamed to admit it, but my wife has an easier time with the TV remote than I do. She is basically unofficially in charge of the TV remote. It’s not that I don’t understand it — I set it all up, she pesters me when the satellite signal doesn’t work or inputs aren’t aligned, she couldn’t tell you the difference between BNC and RCA. It’s that I can’t stand using the thing — the interface sucks, and I don’t like having to use multiple remotes, and I don’t feel like rolling my own. There’s 40 odd buttons on the remote because the manufacturer have no idea how to fix the interface problem in software. Apple knows how to fix the interface problem in software and match it with corresponding hardware; the resulting TV product has a four-way nav pad and two buttons. The marriage of hardware and software is, as Jobs called it, “a powerful marriage.”

This coupling is the raison d’etre of their post-PC devices. The iPod aimed to replace confusing or non-consumer-friendly mp3 players from Japan, and well, you know the story there so far. The Apple iTV and Front Row — they aim to fix the previously mentioned TV problem, as well as bring the computer and the internet to the ailing interface problem in your living room, aka your TV and its remote. In an earlier talk, Jobs demoed iTV’s ability to play YouTube videos. With that product, I don’t need to look in the dark for what button does what, I can just look at the screen; that’s where I’m generally looking while watching TV anyway. If I wanted to show my wife something I saw on YouTube, we’d instead watch it in the living room instead of crouching over my laptop.

Regarding what he says about .Mac, I’ll put money down that we’ll see .Mac improvements come with Leopard that require an update to the iPhone. Of course, I could be wrong. We could see those improvements when the iPhone comes out. But, I’m glad to hear that Apple has short-term plans to improve its internet services division.

At any rate, Apple is constantly looking for those interface problems because those problems market opportunities. Jobs of course wouldn’t talk about those market opportunities in detail; he instead passed on what other Apple employees said of him in the early years:

“Isn’t it funny, a ship that leaks from the top.”

And with that, I end today’s column. I know, it’s not fair. I haven’t really delved into what the post-PC era means for a smartphone here, I’ve mostly just explained it regarding the iTV. That’s neither a product I own, nor is it the likely subject matter of this website. I’ll move on to what it should mean for phones tomorrow.

One of the best parts, for me, is that Jobs confirmed they’re still working on 3rd party applications for the iPhone, how to do it right; how to do it without making the device crash twice a day. A more in-depth article should follow this afternoon or evening.

In any regard, D5 has posted a highlight reel, but I’d personally recommend just watching the individual flash videos. Read on for the links.

• Prologue
• Part 1
• Part 2
• Part 3
• Part 4
• Part 5
• Part 6
• Part 7

So, there’s a lot of press out there that says there’s likely to be a smackdown between the two; I don’t think that’s too likely, but it will give some valuable insight to how the two of them operate and where they think the industry will go. Don’t get me wrong, I’d rather have the smackdown, which is why this makes me laugh.

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