Apple is an unusually difficult company to read. Most other companies telegraph their punches, but Apple does the opposite. It even misleads Apple watchers, so that when it releases a product it will be a surprise, in some way at least. This strategy has served it well in recent years. Before any major Apple event, like for instance the World Wide Developer Conference (WWDC) that just took place, there is a rolling wave of prepublicity that builds up like a tsunami approaching the shore line. The consequence is that the event and the announcements at the event are  well reported, even when there is very little to report.

The Message of the WWDC

The WWDC actually contained three important announcements:

1. The inevitable new iPhone (or super-upgrade) appeared, the 3GS, with much improved camera and with video capability.
2. Snow Leopard will be released in the fall and will be very cheap, at $29 for an upgrade to Leopard.
3. A 13-inch MacBook Pro was introduced and the price of  other MacBook Pros and the MacBook Air were cut.

That was it really, except for a few minor announcements for the business market. Apple will support Microsoft Exchange – it’s about time – but it also means Apple now takes the business market seriously. It didn’t use to. Another sign of this was a full 64-bit version of Snow Leopard at $499 for the server, with unlimited client licensing.

The iPhone

Apple doesn’t need to run too hard with the iPhone to stay ahead of the competition, but it’s keeping up a brisk pace anyway. The latest challenge from the Palm Pre may be real, but it’s not threatening. Apple has the App store and (see How and Why the iPhone Changes The Game), the App Store is the trump card. Developers don’t switch easily from one platform to another and Apple has the vast majority of developers for phone apps. The competition has an awful lot of running to do to get anywhere close to Apple.

Nevertheless Apple took a small swipe at Palm by cutting the cost of the cheapest iPhone to$99 and it also added some nice features like:

• Voice control
• Some neat camera features including auto-focus
• Editing video and direct publishing to Youtube
• Electronic compass – combining with map software
• Encryption
• Support for 7.2 Mbps HSDPA 3G where available

In the US Apple’s iPhone is still constrained by its exclusive deal with AT&T which will surely be dropped when it runs out. It’s doubtful whether Apple will want to make such deals again. It was good for Apple at the time of the iPhone launch and it proved to be a sensible move because the high price of the AT&T phone deal didn’t deter too many buyers. But such deals are now acting as barriers to sales of the iPhone.

The Snow Leopard

Snow Leopard will be released in the fall and will be very cheap, at $29 for an upgrade to Leopard. Why? Nobody seems to be asking that question, but I doubt if it’s prompted by trying to compete with Windows 7. Apple zoomed past Windows long ago with the move to Intel and Microsoft is clueless about how to compete. But the fact is that Apple is willingly forgoing hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue. It could easily have sold Snow Leopard at $139 and no-one would have complained.

The logical conclusion to draw is that Apple is eager to pull its customer base onto Snow Leopard, which in turn implies that it has something else in mind. My guess is that it all has to do with the coming Mac tablet. We need to consider the whole Apple range in order to get a perspective on this.

The Mac market
The third important announcement at the WDC was the repositioning of the MacBook range, introducing a 13″ MacBook Pro, cutting the cost of the other MacBook Pros and the MacBook Air and reducing the MacBook itself to the one basic model. My expectation is for that model to vanish when Apple’s new tablet computer is announced.

The reason that Apple is so tough to compete with at the moment (even in this economy) is that it has all its ducks lined up. From the iPod Shuffle up to the largest Apple server we have, in effect, a single OS, a single provider of hardware and a standard approach. If you think of this as a range of devices then the range is:

• iPods
• iPod Touch
• iPhones (iPod Touches with 3G phone capability)
• MacBooks
• Macbook Pros
• iMacs (including the Mac Mini)
• Mac Pros

The indications from the WWDC is that the price range between $500 and $1000, i.e. between iPhones and MacBooks is about to be filled by a Mac tablet. If you want to know the probable spec of such a device, read 10 Pointers To What Apple’s Netbook Will Be Like. But the device  itself will, in my opinion, only be part of the story. Apple is currently preparing to build a huge data center in North Carolina with the intention of investing hundreds of $millions – and it can’t just be for serving iTunes.

Most likely Apple intends to build on the success of iTunes and the App store and become a hub for everything digital, including ebooks and apps. Most likely Apple will expand the App store to serve apps to its soon to arrive tablet and also to Macs of every variety. Why would it not do that?

In order to pursue this with maximum impact, it probably needs as much of its customer base as possible on Snow Leopard. That, I believe, is why Snow Leopard will be cheap – to help Apple build out its full range of devices and help it to gather revenues elsewhere. Apple has a large part of the software developer community eating out of its hand. It may was well unleash them across the whole range of Apple devices.

In the end, it’s all about the ecosystem.