Check Mate: Apple's iPad and Google's Next Move
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Check Mate: Apple's iPad and Google's Next Move
1–10 of 27 posts
Re: Check Mate: Apple's iPad and Google's Next Move
#2"it is a product that is deeply personal to Steve Jobs, and I believe the final signature product on an amazing career."
Kind of touching in an odd way. I will miss Steve Jobs when he retires from Apple.
Re: Check Mate: Apple's iPad and Google's Next Move
#3FTA: Thus, a reasoned analysis is that the iPad is to the iPhone & iPod Touch as the MacBook Air is to the MacBook. In other words, a cool product with a devoted base of happy customers, but in relative terms, a niche product in Apple's arsenal of rainmakers.
The difference being, of course, that the Air is a high-margin luxury item and was always intended to be so. Apple never intended to sell them by the millions, and is no doubt happy with the revenue generated. The iPad is priced just a tiny bit higher than a netbook, and looks to have a rather larger part cost (LED screen, large touch surface instead of a cheap keyboard, scary amounts of flash, custom chipset instead of mass-market Intel stuff).
There's no room there for "niche" products. If that's all they get, the product will be stillborn.
Re: Check Mate: Apple's iPad and Google's Next Move
#4A good article, but I think it misses one important point: the eventual commoditization of devices like this. Apple's entire touch screen platform does look compelling for non-techs, but there will be a raft of very inexpensive similar devices hitting the market, and I still think that lower cost will win the most market share (eventually).
Re: Check Mate: Apple's iPad and Google's Next Move
#5Similarly, while iPad lays clear Apple's ambition to pursue the e-book market aggressively (they demonstrated a nice iBooks player and added an iBook Store to complement the iTunes and App Store marketplaces), they demonstrated virtually nothing that harnesses the touch, tilt, rich media and programmatic elements that they can bring to the re-invention of print media.
I'm looking forward to downloading and running the Kindle iPhone program from the App Store.
Re: Check Mate: Apple's iPad and Google's Next Move
#6A good article, but I think it misses one important point: the eventual commoditization of devices like this. Apple's entire touch screen platform does look compelling for non-techs, but there will be a raft of very inexpensive similar devices hitting the market, and I still think that lower cost will win the most market share (eventually).
At that point, just release an iPad app into the wild like they've done with iTunes and Safari. You'll still have iTunes and the App Store, and they'll still be able to dominate the high-end high-margin part of the market.
Actually, they'd probably wind up selling more of their kit by doing this!
Re: Check Mate: Apple's iPad and Google's Next Move
#7A good article, but I think it misses one important point: the eventual commoditization of devices like this. Apple's entire touch screen platform does look compelling for non-techs, but there will be a raft of very inexpensive similar devices hitting the market, and I still think that lower cost will win the most market share (eventually).
In the same way the iPod range has been crushed by generic MP3 players?
Re: Check Mate: Apple's iPad and Google's Next Move
#8> (and I still very much believe that Apple TV is due for a near-term reboot to plug into the same ecosystem).
How would that work? All of the other devices are based on a touch interface. Is Apple going to break into the television market with a multi-touch TV?
Not to mention that all of the Apps are based on the touch interface, so you would have a hard time using them out of the box on an iPhoneOS-based Apple TV.
Re: Check Mate: Apple's iPad and Google's Next Move
#9A good article, but I think it misses one important point: the eventual commoditization of devices like this. Apple's entire touch screen platform does look compelling for non-techs, but there will be a raft of very inexpensive similar devices hitting the market, and I still think that lower cost will win the most market share (eventually).
But market share does not equate with revenue.
As highlighted in the iPad launch, Apple introduced the modern laptop with the first ever PowerBook. The laptop market is now definitely commoditized but that doesn't stop Apple from making a lot of money selling fewer highly profitable laptops.
They have something under 10% of the total laptop market but 90% or more of the segment > $1,000 per computer.
Re: Check Mate: Apple's iPad and Google's Next Move
#10> (and I still very much believe that Apple TV is due for a near-term reboot to plug into the same ecosystem). How would that work? All of the other devices are based on a touch interface. Is Apple going to break into the television market with a multi-touch TV? Not to mention that all of the Apps are based on the touch interface, so you would have a hard time using them out of the box on an iPhoneOS-based Apple TV.
AppleTV is just waiting for the content producers to come into the store. I think perhaps the tail of the announcement where Jobs discloses that there are 125 million accounts with credit cards at the iTunes store is aimed at the content producers.