FT.com - A fight over freedom at Apple's core
by Volker Weber
This is the significance of the iPad. It could have been built either like a small Apple Macintosh - open to any outside software - or as a big iPhone, controlled by Apple. Apple went with the latter. Attach a keyboard to it and it could replace a PC entirely - boasting plenty of new apps, but only as Apple deems them worthy.
Comments
Interesting article although I do not fully agree. An example:
Imagine if Microsoft’s Bill Gates had decreed that no other word processor but Word would be allowed to run on the Windows operating system. Microsoft lost a decade-long competition lawsuit for far less proprietary behaviour.
And there would be many lawsuits if Apple had a monopoly - however Apple does not - not at all. Nobody is kind of forced to use Apple products.
And that's why I use Linux... It.Just.Ehrm,wait,compiling,darn,wrong lib,recompiling,modprobing.Works. ;-)
No, honestly, I love computers. Apple doesn't. Apple loves money and profits from providing computers to, let's say, a specific group of users *cough*. It's all about money. You create a product if there is demand for it. And as we see, there is demand for easy-to-use and fire-and-forget computers.
On the other hand, as long as they don't enforce their products onto other systems - I can't really imagine running iPhone-OS on my Nokia phone - it's up to them, what they do with their own platforms.
Best regards
No, honestly, I love computers. Apple doesn't.
That's probably not right. What Apple customers don't like is to fiddle around with their computers. It's fun for you, but not everybody else. I know quite a few people who like to fiddle around with software. And for getting the job done, they have a Mac.
Now let's not confuse the Mac with the iPad. That's a completely different game.
>> You create a product if there is demand for it.
Actually, that's not entirely true either. You can also create a market by introducing a product for which there is no market yet. And if that is being done successfully, by definition, there are no competitors (at first).
I love the App Store, I really do! - http://tinyurl.com/ycf76p7
NB "... but only as Apple deems them worthy." total bullshit - look at the safe(!) crap that made it into the App Store
To me, its a reader - a companion product. What will be a successful one. That being said, I don't like the idea of reading the screen like a book, compared to an e-ink screen.
But.. I have not seen it yet. I'm sure lust factor will kick in, but I will wait to see what the next generation / competition response brings in.
While reading your comments two things came to my mind:
I like cars. I like driving cars. I don't like fiddeling around with them. So I'm driving a recent car which has guarantee and never needs to open the front lid. And that's what Volker described with the users who don't want any pain with their computers. They just want to drive, ehm, use them for what they are build for. And for me Apple does this way better then others. While many other, like Mathias, might love to scew on their cars.
I really can imagine that people who aren't using a computer today will use an iPad.
Which leads me to my 2nd thought. Some of you might remember Benjamin Zander from the Lotusphere 2009. All the others should look here.
He told the story about the two sales men who went to Africa to look for opportunities to sell shoes. Both wrote an telegram back. The first one wrote, that there is no opportunity for selling shoes, because the people in Africa don't wear any shoes.
The 2nd wrote back, that there are great opportunities, because no one has shoes yet.
And that's what Ragnar said. Bring a product to the market and build your own segment within the market...
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