
Check Mate: Apple's iPad and Google's Next Move - stakent
http://radar.oreilly.com/2010/01/the-chess-grandmaster-apples-i.html
======
plinkplonk
The title is pretentious link bait.

Let's see. Who has "Check Mate"d who?? CheckMate is the end of a chess game
where one side unambigously wins over the other.

If anything the game is just beginning.

Oh yeah and what is "Google's Next move?" Does the author ever make that
clear? Or did he just throw it into the title for effect?

------
stcredzero
_Similarly, 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.

~~~
dgabriel
I have the kindle app, and it's not anywhere near as much fun to use as my
actual Kindle. It's small, backlit, and slightly less comfortable and
intuitive.

~~~
stcredzero
I also have the PC app on my old hp tc1100 tablet. I have to make Sure to keep
my forearm vertical while holding it, but it works well for me.

------
mark_l_watson
A 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).

~~~
goatforce5
In the same way the iPod range has been crushed by generic MP3 players?

~~~
ryanwaggoner
Interesting, but the MP3 player market seems to be somewhat of a fluke in
terms of resisting commoditization. Perhaps it's due to the iTunes marketplace
keeping Apple's product line superior, in which case the iPad + App Store
combo could end up doing the same. Then again, the iPhone doesn't have the
market share that the iPod does, and I think iPhone market share will peak and
then drop as Android and other mobile handsets come online that are truly
competitive.

On the other hand, businesses generally buy PCs because they're far cheaper,
but the market for MP3 players in a business context is basically non-
existent, whereas it's potentially huge for the tablet market, so that's
another mark against Apple.

It'll be interesting to see how it all turns out.

------
jakez
"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.

~~~
CalmQuiet
As someone of Jobs' age I would be _most_ pleased to discover that there are
still some human/silicon interfaces waiting to be dramatically polished to
_someone_ 's sense of perfection.

When someone else amasses both the will and the capital to achieve what Steve
has then more power to 'em.

------
adolph
Maybe the author intended to make more of a statement about Apple's emphasis
on the relatively full featured operating system over Google's Chrome OS
operating system as web browser host? The link at
<http://news.ycombinator.net/item?id=1084725> expresses this better.

I'm pleased that Google is there to keep Apple working hard unlike Symbian,
Mobile Linux and Microsoft. Checkmate? More like "please keep playing!"

------
CWuestefeld
I thought this was awfully shallow by O'Reilly standards.

I didn't catch a single compelling reason that anyone should want to use this
device, particularly in preference to iPod/iPhone or a larger netbook. A
statement like

 _But the final bit of noteworthy, and compelling, good about iPad is that
this just feels like the device that real people (read: non-techies) are going
to flock to._

really doesn't come close to a real argument.

Also, the paragraph

 _the iPod and iPhone that came before it were truly revolutionary devices,
offering wholly new functionality, delivering new value chains, and
fundamentally changing the relationship that consumers had with, first their
media ... and then their communications._

Seems incorrect to me. iPod was another MP3 player, of which we've had a
zillion. iPhone, too, is just evolutionary, in its melding of phone + PDA;
really, is it that much of a revolution to add a better UI (even if that UI is
great by all accounts)?

And if it's this UI revolution (if it is one) that is going to carry this,
then -- as the article admits -- it will do so by cannibalizing existing Apple
customers. In that case, how does this affect Google's prospects at all?

------
ajross
FTA: _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.

------
pyre
> _(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.

~~~
jws
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.

------
teeja
Not only is this an insightful article, but the one it refers to at its bottom
is _deeply_ insightful about iPad as a reader ... iTunes LP viewer ...
educational potential, etc. [http://radar.oreilly.com/2009/09/rebooting-the-
book-one-appl...](http://radar.oreilly.com/2009/09/rebooting-the-book-one-
apple-i.html)

------
briancooley
It is weird to see "75,000,000 people already know how to use it" as a selling
point for a device that is also sold as extremely intuitive to use.

~~~
scott_s
An intuitive interface is one that is easy to learn - but it still requires
learning. That people already know how to use it is orthogonal to how easy it
is to learn to use.

~~~
briancooley
While there are certainly many factors that go into determining the number of
users who know how to use a device, orthogonal is a poor word for describing
the relationship between people who know how to use the device and ease of
learning. The two are definitely correlated, IMO.

Consider the extremes. Something that was impossible to learn would have zero
users that know how to use it. Everyone would know how to use a device that
required no learning.

It's this latter hypothetical to which the iPod/iPhone/iPad aspire. So why
should Apple care to make the point that so many people already know how to
use it?

After some thought (and I may be slow to the conclusion that everyone else has
come to already), I think it is because they knew that "It's just a big iPod
Touch" would be one of the main objections. This particular point about the
75MM users was an attempt to turn an aspect of the device that could be
perceived as a big negative into a postive.

For me - the relatively uninitiated into the world of pitchmen - it's an
interesting piece of marketing.

------
fjabre
A touch screen based ChromeOS would seem to be the logical next move.

Problem with this is the web was developed with point & click in mind.

