Apple’s incredible run has made a clear and compelling case for what we can now call the “Appliance Era” of personal computing. From laptops to mobile phones, people are making it clear than simplicity and aesthetics can trump raw features and performance, and the financial performance indicates as much. The fact that an Apple device can literally span multiple content ecosystem / micro-economies seamlessly is supporting this as well, with an Apple laptop being able to consume Apple-supplied, Microsoft-supplied, Amazon-supplied, or Google-supplied content interchangeably.

There is no reason why this should be a solely Apple-driven phenomena however - Microsoft’s XBOX, Windows Phone 7, and Zune content ecosystem hold as much potential, and provide as much focused functionality and simplicity. Windows 8 promises to bring the Windows Phone 7 experience to the desktop, and finally take the focus away from the particulars of the OS (we hope).