Less than an "iPad Market" or a "mobile market" I think we are simply seeing the beginning of a world where you think less about the gadget that you are using and more about what you want to do. Now, the only reason this will be possible is because the gadgets are/will be designed so well that you are able to start ignoring them.
For instance, I have my contacts in Gmail on my Android phone and when I update them in one place, I have access to them everywhere I use Google. Why can't my GPS use my google contacts so that I can find directions? Why would I have to check my voice mail from my phone (I don't with Google Voice)? etc.
Apple understands the gadget aspect of this. Google understands the "cloud" aspect of this (Apple is catching on). What people want -- normal everyday people -- is not PCs/tablets/iPhones; for the most part, they hate computers; they want to interact with people and things made easier for them. They stick a key in their car and it "just works". They wash their clothes in a washing machine and it "just works". As hackers/developers/etc, we love computers for what they are, everybody else just wants an appliance.
I think we are simply seeing the beginning of a world where you think less about the gadget that you are using and more about what you want to do.
Sensibly put, but the TouchPad illustrates the dilemma at play: what if the main thing you "want to do" is use a new app that is only available on iPad? I think that many people are assuming that this will play out like iPhone/Android, where the sheer volume of Android phones incentivised Android developers enough to build a competitive (if not equal) app library, but I think the tablet space will play out much more favorably for Apple. Without the carrier system limiting their market share, Apple's brand name and quality reputation could lead to an even more dominant market position than the iPod enjoyed.
An often overlooked related issue: what happens if the iOS UI is the new "normal"? All the other comers are attempting to offer different/improved interfaces, just as iPod competitors tried to differentiate from the clickwheel, but if iOS dominates, the alternatives might find themselves increasingly marginalized in contrast to an increasingly iconic/familiar interface.
I don't disagree, but I'm concerned that we're just recreating the Mac / Windows / Linux issue, in gadget form. The current form may sway towards Apple, as the previous did Windows, but it's still the same problem.
The nice thing about the ipod - or any mp3 player - is that mp3s work anywhere. I can move content from my media center (linux), to my ipod, to my Android phone, wherever I want it. And sure, with these new OSs, content can still be moved around to an extent.
But when Apps are the content, we're back to where we started. As a linux user, I have a plethora of software I can use, but if I want photoshop, I have to install Windows or buy a Mac. (dislike WINE, absolutely despise The Gimp).
I don't know what the answer is, but I think Android comes closer to what the answer could be. To develop for the iPhone, I HAVE to buy a Mac. To develop for the Android, I can develop on almost any desktop system, and I have a plethora of competing devices to choose from.
As a consumer, if there was an app I loved on my last phone or tablet, it will most likely work on my next one. Sure it has to be based on Android, but that's the ONLY requirement. I'm not tied to a device manufacturer, only an OS - one from which applications could potentially be used on other OSs.
Even more: because you didn't click on your contact's name in your contact list?
I click on my dad's name in my contacts list and it shows his home phone, cell phone, and address. Next to each is an icon allowing me to "call the phone number" or "launch Navigation for this address".
John Siracusa explained on an episode of his podcast that part of the reason long-time Mac users experience so much schadenfreude about PCs and PC market share is that Mac users have felt like the persecuted minority despite being advocates of what they saw as a superior product for so long. It's a very emotional thing, he explains.
That does not explain, however, why a Mac user imagine himself, just because of his association with Apple as a consumer, that he had anything to do with Apple's success, or that his advice to anyone would be in any way meaningful.
Especially when that advice is "be disruptive." Disruption's easy to see in hindsight. But it's almost impossible to see before it happens. That's why it's called 'disruption.'
And anyway, Google is a force of disruption. On many vectors. In mobile, Google has introduced a business model that's so disruptive that all the industry players feel threatened enough to resort to litigation. (I'm referring to licensing of Android, wherein the manufacturers actually get paid for using the OS, through some ad-sharing deal that's never been completely explicated as far as I know.) They're also still quietly working on ChromeOS, another potentially disruption.
My point is, saying "be disruptive" is about as valuable as saying "just win!"
My point is, saying "be disruptive" is about as valuable as saying "just win!"
I agree it's not the most prescriptive advice, but it's not the same as "just win!". The term "disruptive technology" was coined by Clayton Christensen, who has written several books on the topic. In The Innovator's Dilemma he describes several disruptions in many industries in great detail.
The scenarios he describes (which the OP is referencing by using the term "disruptive") are not generic "here's a company who won!" situations. They are very specific. Namely, a competitor introduced a new technology that was inferior to established technologies in many important ways, but which was vastly superior in at least one. And importantly, it was superior in a way that could not be "backported" to the mainstream technology.
We talk about defensibility here sometimes, and each of these new technologies has a clear defensibility strategy.
Every Google Doc has a URL your coworker can click in an email, and be immediately editing the document, on any computer, whether or not they've paid for Office. That is a feature that will never be added to Office. It can't be added to office.
Telling Google (or HP, or Amazon) to be disruptive is telling them to focus on finding features that Apple won't or can't add to the iPad, and building your products around those.
That's a hell of a lot more to go on than "just win".
And Innovator's Dilemma was written like fifteen years ago. I'm pretty sure anyone at any position of authority understands the concept. That's not what stops large companies from being disruptive. It's fear, bureaucracy, risk aversion, any number of things. But it's not because they've never heard of disruption before.
So, I stand by my point that the value proposition for the sentiment "be disruptive" is equal to that of "just win," namely: zero.
How many users quietly think "gosh, I wish we could move past Windows/Intel/PCs/filesystems/internal-combustion/XYZ/PDQ and do something _better_"? Lots. Huge big piles of lots. People WANT disruption. Oh, sure, some companies come out with "disruptive" products, but those fade and die far more often than not. It's not just the product, it's the infrastructure, the ecosystem, the culture - all of which Apple identified, crafted, and nailed.
Yes, advice can indeed be "be disruptive", just as good advice includes "do it right" (which far too many don't and know it). The successful will grok what that _means_, and how extensive it is, and will build a long-term business model to achieve it ... which isn't "hack together something simple and odd and sell a bunch and then sell the company to the first deep pocket who comes along."
Yes, advice can indeed be "be disruptive", just as good advice includes "do it right" (which far too many don't and know it).
If you're saying that there are people who know they're doing it wrong, but keep doing it wrong anyway, I don't think advising them to "do it right" is going to change anything. Likewise disruption.
"You are the company that names your beta builds after candy, ice cream, and sugared cereals. Apple names their betas after things that will eat your things along with the tasty human wrapper that eats that crap. Do you honestly think anyone can take you seriously?"
Really? That's his biggest dig against Google is that they like to have fun with their beta names?
So what about the Kindle and the Nook? They seem to be doing okay, and would anyone really call them a different market? I mean, they're obviously specialized as e-readers while the iPad is more general-purpose, but I don't see why Kindles and Nooks won't morph into more general-purpose devices as well (the Nooks already are fairly general-purpose)?
That is to say, are Kindles and Nooks fundamentally different from iPads, and therefore would be considered to serve different markets, or is it much more like Apple computers vs. PC's in the 80's? One had a much larger market share than the other, and they were different enough that we had a divide between "Apple Computers" and "Personal Computers", even though they largely did the same stuff?
I like the Kindle (and the new Nook, not the old ones) for two reason:
1. the e-ink is easy on my eyes when reading for hours; I would never seriously read on a backlit tablet device.
2. The devices really are ONLY for reading. I spend my entire day in front of a full-blown computer, so when I have a break I don't want another full-blown computer in front of me. I want a book or a reading device. This is the same reason why I don't own a smartphone. I think I'm in the minority of geeks, but in the majority of regular people when I say this. I think most people would say, "Why would I want to check my email on my book?"
From that perspective I think they're hugely different markets than the iPad. It bummed me out to hear that Amazon is jumping on the tablet bandwagon with their unreleased Kindle, because like I said in another thread (and like this article says), people don't care about tablets, they care about iPads. I'd bet that any tablet not made by Apple is doomed to failure for at least the next 5 years, because only Apple knows how to put together such a slick and seamless user experience.
Why is anyone happy that it is only an iPad market? Do they expect Apple to continually innovate in a non-competitive market? If you like tablets and not just Apple, you want to see more contenders in the market not less.
"Do they expect Apple to continually innovate in a non-competitive market?"
Probably, yes, and I would argue there is some reason to believe they would do so. Look at what happened in the MP3 player market: Apple utterly dominated that market long ago, and yet they kept messing with the product lines, adding models, changing the feature balances, etc. There was and still is a lot of experimentation going on there and there's essentially no real competitors in that market anymore. "Portable music player" and "iPod" are practically synonyms.
Apple (with Steve Jobs at the helm, anyway) is different from many companies. They don't see themselves as competing with other companies. Instead I believe they consider Apple of the previous year to be the competitor to beat for the current year.
I don't know. Perhaps the utter iPod domination was largely a US thing - especially since it went hand-in-hand with Apple coming back from the dead and them not initially having the resources to go global in a big way?
I think Apple has been largely US-centric up until the iPhone, so that could explain why there's a disconnect online when topics like this come up since obviously non-US people will have had a different Apple experience over the last decade or so than those of us here who have been seeing iPods everywhere for years.
Well, the iPod certainly dominated in Australia, at least. I have to think for a second to even remember another brand of mp3 player. Ah yes .. the Creative Rio, or Zen, or something. I have never actually seen one in real life.
I would also like to know where you are from. iPod was an incredibly strong brand here. It was basically synonymous with mp3 players. Anything else seemed, and in truth was, second best. I owned 3 or 4 of the things.
How about:
- increased codec support formats like flac?
- wireless sycning?
- syncing or streaming for unlimited music services like Spotify, Rdio, or Rhapsody?
- industry standard like micro-usb for charging and syncing?
- micro sd storage expansion?
I don't know how people see an innovative market for mp3 players.
Changing form factor is also considers evolution. Tech people tend to ignore anything beyond a list of specs, but something like iPod Nano design creates interesting ecosystem beyond the initial "omg it supports MicroSD", e.g. the iPod Nano wristwatch.
I know at least six people bought the iPod Nano because of that and they will probably never considers buying one if Apple were adding MicroSD or supporting FLAC. (Can't comment about Spotify, Rdio or Rhapsody because they're not available in my country anyway.)
I think the owner of "minimalmac.com" is probably quite happy that it's an iPad-only market (even if it isn't really), because Our Lord and Savior Steve Jobs presented the iPad and every other tablet is just a heathenish mockery.
What about Windows versions? Windows XP still works perfectly, but that didn't prevent people from buying Windows Vista or Windows 7 because of the innovations...
"You are the company that names your beta builds after candy, ice cream, and sugared cereals. Apple names their betas after things that will eat your things along with the tasty human wrapper that eats that crap. Do you honestly think anyone can take you seriously?"
And that's without having a compelling price point. Right now a rooted Nook is the only value product point out there in Android, and Google still has a 20% OS share. When somebody inevitably figures out how to pump out an equivalently featured tablet at the sub $200 range, volume market shares will change dramatically. This does not, of course, mean that the iPad will not continue to earn the vast majority of the market's profits. But that's a different story...
As to the main thrust of the argument, I think that disruptive innovation from Apple's competitors will continue to be exceptionally rare (rather than the norm, as it is at Apple) as long as product development is feature driven rather than UX driven. Please correct me if you think there are other structural factors in play.
"Make the iPad as irrelevant as the iPad seems to be doing to the consumer PC."
I don't think this is wise goal in the short term. The iPad/tablet space is just ramping up. There is certainly room for competitors here, but I just don't see a vector for disruption right now. Maybe in 5 years.
There are plenty of other markets to disrupt, though. Look at Sonos-- they blew up the (hugely expensive) whole-house audio market. Or Flip (rip) with their camcorder.
Bookmarked and probably will throw it at the OP's face in 5 years.
30 million odd iPads sold does not mean anything. Yes iPad is a spectacular success, but it hardly is the end of the PC era. There is a world beyond the United States as well, they do have a little say in determining the market.
I wonder ... At what point in Facebook/Microsoft's history was it justifiable to say that they were going to dominate the market so entirely that every other entry was destined to be a chimp, not the gorilla?
Wow, if you're not a fanboi, that was really tough to get through. But what the author fails to realize is that it isn't about hardware. If Tim Cook had truly 'locked up' the components channel, competitors wouldn't be flooding the market (which they are).
I agree with the author that this market already needs to be revolutionized. Google and Microsoft aren't just playing copycat. The Kinect isn't the only technology coming out of Microsoft that truly changes the game. http://www.conceivablytech.com/8886/business/beyond-windows-...
This guys has a major stick up his ass. His comment that Google fails in the tablet market because they have silly beta names is ridiculous. Google does not even manufacture the hardware and as such cannot guarantee the UX.
On top of that his suggestion is blatantly obvious - Apple dominates tablets. So if you want to make money its probably easier if you go for the lower lying fruit.
to paraphrase: steve jobs is so frickin' awesome its not even worth trying to compete with him. So go and find greener pastures.
His writing style is annoying with it's 'Apple holier than though' attitude. But I think you've missed the overall point of the article.
If you can ignore such pedantic arguments as the beta names, he actually makes one good point. At the same time, I think he completely misses the fact that it isn't the hardware manufacturers that will differentiate, it's the OSs. The hardware difference between the iPad and other tablets is minimal at best, which is why Apple is suing Samsung for copying the design.
"You will never be able to build at the same cost they do and produce anything even close."
Umm..the Galaxy Tab 10.1? Also the Asus Transformer tablet is pretty close, too, and $100 cheaper.
And speaking about the Transformer. I think this it. That is the new market. The evolution of both notebooks and tablets - the Transfomer style notebook. You get iPad style consumption by detaching the tablet, and you get productivity, too, by attaching it to the keyboard dock. Although, having a keyboard and 50% higher battery life (Asus Transformer with keyboard lasts 15-16 hours) will not be enough for "productivity". You also need some productivity apps, and Google should work harder on that. But luckily for them, and Microsoft, the world is moving to HTML5 web-apps, and the tablets are catching up quickly in performance with most notebooks.
Why did I say for Microsoft's sake, too? Because whether Microsoft or Intel likes it, the world is moving to ARM based machines. And when Microsoft will do that with Windows 8, they'll have zero legacy apps on it. They'll have to start from scratch. This is why they need HTML5 apps, and are trying to promote them over Silverlight apps, because they think it's the quicker/easier way to get into the market.
So yeah, think about it - the Transformer style notebook/tablet. It's both a tablet and an evolution of the notebook. It's the best of both world's and this way the tablet can also become a "necessity" not just a luxury item, because you won't be using it just for consumption anymore.
Yes, there is an "iPad market" out there, and although it's growing, it's still tiny and I don't think people will ever consider them their main "computers". They could consider their main computers a Transformer style tablet, though. Two years from now they'll have enough performance and apps to do just that for everyone. But the trend starts today, and Asus is leading the pack.
The others should follow them if they want to outsell the iPad and make themselves relevant for the future. They need to make the tablet something that is a necessity for everyone, just like a phone or a notebook is (the iPad isn't). And the Transformer style tablet/notebook is the way to do that.
There's a reason why Apple promoted a keyboard with the iPad from day one. They felt the iPad is an incomplete product without it. And it is.
What the author carefully sidesteps is that, according to Gartner, Apple market share is DROPPING fast. And, that Android has reached a critical "over 20%" market share this year.
For instance, I have my contacts in Gmail on my Android phone and when I update them in one place, I have access to them everywhere I use Google. Why can't my GPS use my google contacts so that I can find directions? Why would I have to check my voice mail from my phone (I don't with Google Voice)? etc.
Apple understands the gadget aspect of this. Google understands the "cloud" aspect of this (Apple is catching on). What people want -- normal everyday people -- is not PCs/tablets/iPhones; for the most part, they hate computers; they want to interact with people and things made easier for them. They stick a key in their car and it "just works". They wash their clothes in a washing machine and it "just works". As hackers/developers/etc, we love computers for what they are, everybody else just wants an appliance.