As the iPad descends upon us, it is fair to ask, "Is this the beginning of the end, or the end of the beginning?" Depending upon whom you ask, the conclusions widely vary.
For example, RealNetworks' Rob Glaser forcefully argues that Apple's vertically integrated model "Must be stopped." He cautions: "If that's the way the industry plays out -- and there are a couple of vertical stovepipes that are closed -- A: we will have a much slower pace of innovation than we've ever had and B: there will be a tremendous loss in terms of value creation versus it being more horizontal."
Meanwhile, science fiction writer, blogger and tech activist, Cory Doctorow, recently made waves when he asserted in 'Why I won't buy an iPad (and think you shouldn't, either)' that, "If you can't open it, you don't own it. Screws not glue." He concluded:
The real issue isn't the capabilities of the piece of plastic you unwrap today, but the technical and social infrastructure that accompanies it. If you want to live in the creative universe where anyone with a cool idea can make it and give it to you to run on your hardware, the iPad isn't for you. If you want to live in the fair world where you get to keep (or give away) the stuff you buy, the iPad isn't for you. If you want to write code for a platform where the only thing that determines whether you're going to succeed with it is whether your audience loves it, the iPad isn't for you.
And don't even get me started on the legions who dismiss Apple's end-to-end approach with an "Apple's Evil" slap, or more stridently, paint the story as "destined" to play out as things did in the PC Wars, with arrogant Apple racing to an early lead, only to get its head handed to it in the end.
I won't spend a lot of time bringing to the fore the masses that see the Apple model in more favorable terms, as the numbers speak for themselves across just about any metric that matters:
- 85 million iPhones/iPod Touches/iPads sold
- 185,000 applications built
- 100,000 developer ecosystem
- 4 billion application downloads
- 15 billion iTunes media sold
- JD Power Award for Customer Satisfaction
- Ungodly operating margins/cash flow
So how to reconcile the animus with the market's clear directional momentum?
Read the full post @ O'Reilly Radar by clicking HERE.
Related:
- Innovation, Inevitability and Why R&D is So Hard
- The Chess Masters: Apple v. Google
- Open "ish": The meaning of open, according to Google
- Android vs. iPhone: Why Openness May Not Be Best
- iPad First Impressions: The Good, the Not So Good and the Not Yet
