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The Chair

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Re: The Chair

#41

Post by tesseract »

recoiledsnake wrote: post #12

>There’s a palpable sense among everyone from Apple I spoke to yesterday that this is the biggest and most important thing in the history of the industry. Seriously? Bigger and more important than the invention of the Internet and WWW? Well, I just wish the Post-PC devices wouldn't come with a 30% (or 43%) surcharge for all subscription content.

I fear the world got lucky in that the Internet inherited its openness from academia, and the PC inherited its openness from the early hobbyist microcomputer scene. As in many other industries, openness - except when necessary for a bare minimum of interoperability - has never really been the norm in consumer electronics. As computing moves beyond the PC, I think that (sadly) we are going to have to get used to proprietary platforms and their attendant pricing shenanigans.

Re: The Chair

#42

Post by jsz0 »

rbarooah wrote: post #36
blinkingled wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Umm no - most existing Android apps work and look good on the Xoom. Better than the iPhone apps looked on the iPad. I gave it to my wife who has an iPod touch and she has yet to complain about lack of apps - I found most of what is needed for her. So lack of apps is not really a burning problem.

You're seriously trying to claim that blown up android phone apps, many of which don't even rescale properly, are competition to the dedicated iPad designs? Have you looked at iPad apps lately? Even if you don't include iMove and GarageBand that were just announced, how about OmniGraffle, Sketchbook, Inkpad, the Korg Apps, Reeder, Osmos, iWork, etc.

I think the Apple mind control conspiracy theory stuff is a bit outdated these days. You can 'convince' a small number of people to choose one product over another for superficial reasons through clever marketing but that's not a very good explanation when you're talking about tens of millions of people. If Apple had these secret mind control talents they would have 'convinced' people not to buy Android phones or Windows PCs. For now it just happens that they have a big head start and consumers simply don't know (or care) about the alternatives yet or just aren't sold on them.

Re: The Chair

#43

Post by rbarooah »

jrockway wrote: post #39
rbarooah wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're seriously trying to claim that blown up android phone apps, many of which don't even rescale properly, are competition to the dedicated iPad designs? Have you looked at iPad apps lately? Even if you don't include iMove and GarageBand that were just announced, how about OmniGraffle, Sketchbook, Inkpad, the Korg Apps, Reeder, Osmos, iWork, etc.

A more interesting benchmark would be "time spent in each app". Sure, there are eight trillion apps for the iPad. But I bet most people spend 95% of their time in the browser (or an ebook reader), and the other 5% of their time in the email app. Guess what, you can do that with a 386 laptop from 1995. Apple's success comes from convincing people, through marketing, that they want to do that on an iPad and not on some…

I think that's probably true for some parts of the user base - particularly the more tech savvy - it's effectively true for me - I'll concede twitter and reeder as not much more than an extension of the browser or an ebook reader.

However I think you're underestimating how many non-tech savvy users find appliance-like apps much easier to understand than the web. Yesterday my wife borrowed my iPad to use with her mother to look at furniture on Craigslist.

She got me to buy a $2 craigslist app that I'd never dream of buying for myself which turned the iPad into a light-table of photos of stuff for sale linked to a map. Suddenly her mother could use Craigslist. At a certain point the screen blanked and she had a moment of panic of not knowing what to do - but then she realized there was only one button to press and everything was ok again.

That 386 laptop from 1995, or for that matter an iMac from 2011 requires a vastly more developed mental model in order to do anything. Even if most people can eventually learn this, it's work, whereas the ease of the app model on the iPad makes it relaxing and fun.

The apps matter a lot.

Re: The Chair

#44

Post by rbarooah »

blinkingled wrote: post #40
rbarooah wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're seriously trying to claim that blown up android phone apps, many of which don't even rescale properly, are competition to the dedicated iPad designs? Have you looked at iPad apps lately? Even if you don't include iMove and GarageBand that were just announced, how about OmniGraffle, Sketchbook, Inkpad, the Korg Apps, Reeder, Osmos, iWork, etc.

Where did I claim that? The existing apps do work so there is no lack of apps to start with and Honeycomb has been out for only few weeks - it won't be long before more tablet optimized apps appear.

Right - I said in my original comment that the situation would change over the year, but for now an average user would be silly to buy a Xoom and only have blown up phone apps and hope that stuff they like gets developed in future, when they can buy an iPad 2 and have great dedicated apps today.

Re: The Chair

#45

Post by wvenable »

tumult wrote: post #2

The tech press needs to play up the competition to the iPad as much as possible, because drama drives clicks. But the reality is that Apple's iPad is so far ahead of everything else that it's almost out of sight. Have you used one of the 'iPad killers'? That is not competition. It's a joke. You can't even buy any of them, except for Samsung's Galaxy Tab. [And the Motorola Xoom, but only at retail Best Buy in America,…

> Few people are buying those things.

That's not really true. While Apple has a huge lead, they've already begun to lose marketshare (95% down to 75% last quarter). With more and more competition coming soon, I don't think that Apple will be able to hold on. One only has to look at the success of Android phones -- which literally didn't exist at all when the original iPhone was released -- to see that such a lead is not insurmountable.

> Have you used one of the 'iPad killers'?

Have you? The Motorola Xoom gets very good reviews -- most praising the software as much as the hardware.

Re: The Chair

#46

Post by nopinsight »

> But there are other things any competitor could copy, easily, but seemingly don’t even understand that they should, because such things aren’t technical. Take that chair. The on-stage demos of the iPad aren’t conducted at a table or a lectern. They’re conducted sitting in an armchair. That conveys something about the feel of the iPad before its screen is even turned on. Comfortable, emotional, simple, elegant. How it feels is the entirety of the iPad’s appeal.

This is an illustration why product companies, however large, should still be led by a product-oriented CEO. Companies led by MBAs or finance people are not doing too well on innovation front. Microsoft is a prominent example of this observation. Sony during Nobuyuki Idei's tenure was another example.

Re: The Chair

#47

Post by Wientje »

jrockway wrote: post #39
rbarooah wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're seriously trying to claim that blown up android phone apps, many of which don't even rescale properly, are competition to the dedicated iPad designs? Have you looked at iPad apps lately? Even if you don't include iMove and GarageBand that were just announced, how about OmniGraffle, Sketchbook, Inkpad, the Korg Apps, Reeder, Osmos, iWork, etc.

A more interesting benchmark would be "time spent in each app". Sure, there are eight trillion apps for the iPad. But I bet most people spend 95% of their time in the browser (or an ebook reader), and the other 5% of their time in the email app. Guess what, you can do that with a 386 laptop from 1995. Apple's success comes from convincing people, through marketing, that they want to do that on an iPad and not on some…

I wouldn't try browsing with a 386 laptop. I highly doubt you could still buy one in '95. Funny as historical comparisons are, some accuracy would be appreciated.

Re: The Chair

#48

Post by wladimir »

tesseract wrote: post #41
recoiledsnake wrote: post #12

>There’s a palpable sense among everyone from Apple I spoke to yesterday that this is the biggest and most important thing in the history of the industry. Seriously? Bigger and more important than the invention of the Internet and WWW? Well, I just wish the Post-PC devices wouldn't come with a 30% (or 43%) surcharge for all subscription content.

I fear the world got lucky in that the Internet inherited its openness from academia, and the PC inherited its openness from the early hobbyist microcomputer scene. As in many other industries, openness - except when necessary for a bare minimum of interoperability - has never really been the norm in consumer electronics. As computing moves beyond the PC, I think that (sadly) we are going to have to get used to propr…

Indeed, there was always a big contrast between the telecom world (closed) and the PC world (open). As these are merging now, I hope the openness won't be sacrificed. I really hope we can prevent that from happening. It's one of the things that makes the internet a really great place for innovation.

Re: The Chair

#49

Post by heyvince »

jrockway wrote: post #39
rbarooah wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're seriously trying to claim that blown up android phone apps, many of which don't even rescale properly, are competition to the dedicated iPad designs? Have you looked at iPad apps lately? Even if you don't include iMove and GarageBand that were just announced, how about OmniGraffle, Sketchbook, Inkpad, the Korg Apps, Reeder, Osmos, iWork, etc.

A more interesting benchmark would be "time spent in each app". Sure, there are eight trillion apps for the iPad. But I bet most people spend 95% of their time in the browser (or an ebook reader), and the other 5% of their time in the email app. Guess what, you can do that with a 386 laptop from 1995. Apple's success comes from convincing people, through marketing, that they want to do that on an iPad and not on some…

I agree "time spent in each app" is a better benchmark. In the event that Apple held an event in April 2010 announcing, among other things, iAds it was announced that the average user spends 30 minutes a day in apps. Again, this is the average user. I spend far more time than that, and I would also say that I probably spend, at least, 90% of my time in non-Apple apps.

Apps matter. More than any other consideration, including brand.

Re: The Chair

#50

Post by rbarooah »

wvenable wrote: post #45
tumult wrote: post #2

The tech press needs to play up the competition to the iPad as much as possible, because drama drives clicks. But the reality is that Apple's iPad is so far ahead of everything else that it's almost out of sight. Have you used one of the 'iPad killers'? That is not competition. It's a joke. You can't even buy any of them, except for Samsung's Galaxy Tab. [And the Motorola Xoom, but only at retail Best Buy in America,…

> Few people are buying those things. That's not really true. While Apple has a huge lead, they've already begun to lose marketshare (95% down to 75% last quarter). With more and more competition coming soon, I don't think that Apple will be able to hold on. One only has to look at the success of Android phones -- which literally didn't exist at all when the original iPhone was released -- to see that such a lead is…

75%? Where does that come from?
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