The Apple model of Cloud Polis is based on four primary emphases: hardware/physical touch, App ecology, cult brand/leader, and enclave aesthetics. The iOS, iTunes, App, and third-party content ecosystem is the basis of the company ’ s Cloud platform, but the Apple “ public ” coheres through mutual esteem for the premium hardware that Users carry with them in daily life. As Cloud Polis develops beyond the data-on-screens framework of today, it is an open question what the design brief for Cloud hardware will include, and so it may lead a company such as Apple or Google well beyond the domain of consumer electronics as we conventionally understand them and deeper into the personal effects of the world (as Apple ’ s Watch and Google ’ s Car and Glass projects foreshadow). In this, platform lock-in versus neutral interoperability becomes an even more existential problematic. Apple ’ s initial forays into massive User-centric Cloud services have a spotty track record (think MobileMe), while its audience-centric Cloud services (such as iTunes) bend whole industries toward them and generate fabulous profits. Still, it is at the level of the operating system that Apple ’ s model platform logic coheres, and it is through premium hardware that it is guaranteed. As usually credited to Jony Ive ’ s talent and Steve Jobs ’ s perfectionism, Apple ’ s physical objects ground the Cloud as something you can and want to touch and accompany you. This “ design ” adds dramatically to profit margin per device and underpins other channels of involvement and lock-in, pushing User experience of The Stack toward dictates of affect, flattening and cajoling the megastructure to “ just work. ” Beyond individual touch, the physicality and tactility of Apple ’ s platform are also available as architectural immersion in the global footprint of Apple Stores, where an ideal Apple culture is performed by teams of ideal Apple Users, the youngish, intelligent, helpful, at-ease store staff. In this architectural network of mall-based parishes, one does not merely shop for electronics; one is to be supported in the goal of creative self-realization. The expert experiential design of the object, as well as the inspirational native habitat from which it is adopted at point of sale, cannot be separated from the political coherency of the Apple model of Cloud Polis. It is renewed less by new services than by a dramaturgical cycle of tactile collective participation and self-representation. No future Cloud Polis can afford to overlook these accomplishments. However, despite its total design model, Apple ’ s platform logic is underwritten by its (now much-copied) innovation of Apps and the App Store. Instead of providing every possible software service, product, or function that could be anticipated, it instead administers a centralized market for mini-applications, connecting developers and Users indirectly and ensuring profit for the former and some degree of code quality for the latter. An outgrowth of a hardwareled strategy, Apple ’ s App ecology means letting developers assume the risk and reward for the long tail of software experiences. Even so, these must hew to the platform ’ s core interaction affect or face banishment. Whichever way the Cloud (particularly the mobile Cloud) might evolve, Apple is positioned as a preferred physical “ last millimeter ” of delivery (the feel of “ look and feel ” ), the exact physical point where User and Cloud touch. (There is more on Apps in the Interfaces chapter.)
Cloud Layer
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