

Disruptive - wensing
http://minimalmac.com/post/9113339945/disruptive

======
hvs
Less than an "iPad Market" or a "mobile market" I think we are simply seeing
the beginning of a world where you think less about the gadget that you are
using and more about _what you want to do_. Now, the only reason this will be
possible is because the gadgets are/will be designed so well that you are able
to start ignoring them.

For instance, I have my contacts in Gmail on my Android phone and when I
update them in one place, I have access to them everywhere I use Google. Why
can't my GPS use my google contacts so that I can find directions? Why would I
have to check my voice mail from my phone (I don't with Google Voice)? etc.

Apple understands the gadget aspect of this. Google understands the "cloud"
aspect of this (Apple is catching on). What people want -- normal everyday
people -- is not PCs/tablets/iPhones; for the most part, they hate computers;
they want to interact with people and things made easier for them. They stick
a key in their car and it "just works". They wash their clothes in a washing
machine and it "just works". As hackers/developers/etc, we love computers for
what they are, everybody else just wants an appliance.

~~~
cbs
>Why can't my GPS use my google contacts so that I can find directions?

Because you haven't installed Google Latitude?

~~~
TimGebhardt
Even more: because you didn't click on your contact's name in your contact
list?

I click on my dad's name in my contacts list and it shows his home phone, cell
phone, and address. Next to each is an icon allowing me to "call the phone
number" or "launch Navigation for this address".

------
joebadmo
John Siracusa explained on an episode of his podcast that part of the reason
long-time Mac users experience so much schadenfreude about PCs and PC market
share is that Mac users have felt like the persecuted minority despite being
advocates of what they saw as a superior product for so long. It's a very
emotional thing, he explains.

That does not explain, however, why a Mac user imagine himself, just because
of his association with Apple as a consumer, that he had anything to do with
Apple's success, or that his advice to anyone would be in any way meaningful.

Especially when that advice is "be disruptive." Disruption's easy to see in
hindsight. But it's almost impossible to see before it happens. That's why
it's called 'disruption.'

And anyway, Google is a force of disruption. On many vectors. In mobile,
Google has introduced a business model that's so disruptive that all the
industry players feel threatened enough to resort to litigation. (I'm
referring to licensing of Android, wherein the manufacturers actually _get
paid_ for using the OS, through some ad-sharing deal that's never been
completely explicated as far as I know.) They're also still quietly working on
ChromeOS, another potentially disruption.

My point is, saying "be disruptive" is about as valuable as saying "just win!"

~~~
erikpukinskis
_My point is, saying "be disruptive" is about as valuable as saying "just
win!"_

I agree it's not the most prescriptive advice, but it's not the same as "just
win!". The term "disruptive technology" was coined by Clayton Christensen, who
has written several books on the topic. In _The Innovator's Dilemma_ he
describes several disruptions in many industries in great detail.

The scenarios he describes (which the OP is referencing by using the term
"disruptive") are not generic "here's a company who won!" situations. They are
very specific. Namely, a competitor introduced a new technology that was
inferior to established technologies in many important ways, but which was
vastly superior in at least one. And importantly, it was superior in a way
that could not be "backported" to the mainstream technology.

We talk about defensibility here sometimes, and each of these new technologies
has a clear defensibility strategy.

Every Google Doc has a URL your coworker can click in an email, and be
immediately editing the document, on any computer, whether or not they've paid
for Office. That is a feature that will _never_ be added to Office. It _can't_
be added to office.

Telling Google (or HP, or Amazon) to be disruptive is telling them to focus on
finding features that Apple _won't_ or _can't_ add to the iPad, and building
your products around those.

That's a hell of a lot more to go on than "just win".

~~~
joebadmo
And _Innovator's Dilemma_ was written like fifteen years ago. I'm pretty sure
anyone at any position of authority understands the concept. That's not what
stops large companies from being disruptive. It's fear, bureaucracy, risk
aversion, any number of things. But it's not because they've never heard of
disruption before.

So, I stand by my point that the value proposition for the sentiment "be
disruptive" is equal to that of "just win," namely: zero.

------
Magnin
"You are the company that names your beta builds after candy, ice cream, and
sugared cereals. Apple names their betas after things that will eat your
things along with the tasty human wrapper that eats that crap. Do you honestly
think anyone can take you seriously?"

Really? That's his biggest dig against Google is that they like to have fun
with their beta names?

~~~
jff
Apple fanboy takes cheap shots at Google for eating Apple's smartphone lunch,
film at 11 :)

------
jordan0day
So what about the Kindle and the Nook? They seem to be doing okay, and would
anyone really call them a different market? I mean, they're obviously
specialized as e-readers while the iPad is more general-purpose, but I don't
see why Kindles and Nooks won't morph into more general-purpose devices as
well (the Nooks already are fairly general-purpose)?

That is to say, are Kindles and Nooks _fundamentally_ different from iPads,
and therefore would be considered to serve different markets, or is it much
more like Apple computers vs. PC's in the 80's? One had a much larger market
share than the other, and they were _different enough_ that we had a divide
between "Apple Computers" and "Personal Computers", even though they largely
did the same stuff?

~~~
acabal
I like the Kindle (and the new Nook, not the old ones) for two reason:

1\. the e-ink is easy on my eyes when reading for hours; I would never
seriously read on a backlit tablet device.

2\. The devices really are ONLY for reading. I spend my entire day in front of
a full-blown computer, so when I have a break I don't want another full-blown
computer in front of me. I want a book or a reading device. This is the same
reason why I don't own a smartphone. I think I'm in the minority of geeks, but
in the majority of regular people when I say this. I think most people would
say, "Why would I want to check my email on my book?"

From that perspective I think they're hugely different markets than the iPad.
It bummed me out to hear that Amazon is jumping on the tablet bandwagon with
their unreleased Kindle, because like I said in another thread (and like this
article says), people don't care about tablets, they care about iPads. I'd bet
that any tablet not made by Apple is doomed to failure for at least the next 5
years, because only Apple knows how to put together such a slick and seamless
user experience.

------
megaman821
Why is anyone happy that it is only an iPad market? Do they expect Apple to
continually innovate in a non-competitive market? If you like tablets and not
just Apple, you want to see more contenders in the market not less.

~~~
BigZaphod
"Do they expect Apple to continually innovate in a non-competitive market?"

Probably, yes, and I would argue there is some reason to believe they would do
so. Look at what happened in the MP3 player market: Apple utterly dominated
that market long ago, and yet they kept messing with the product lines, adding
models, changing the feature balances, etc. There was and still is a lot of
experimentation going on there and there's essentially no real competitors in
that market anymore. "Portable music player" and "iPod" are practically
synonyms.

Apple (with Steve Jobs at the helm, anyway) is different from many companies.
They don't see themselves as competing with other companies. Instead I believe
they consider Apple of the previous year to be the competitor to beat for the
current year.

~~~
icebraining
_> Apple utterly dominated that market long ago_

Was that true outside the 'States? I don't remember the iPod ever dominating
here, while in the tablet market the iPad does seem to dominate.

~~~
ljf
Interested to know where 'here' is for you. In the UK ipod did and still does
dominate the public perception of modern portable music.

~~~
icebraining
_> Interested to know where 'here' is for you._

Portugal. There were iPods, but as far as I'm aware they didn't dominate the
market - in fact, I believe Creative players were more popular.

------
CesareBorgia
"You are the company that names your beta builds after candy, ice cream, and
sugared cereals. Apple names their betas after things that will eat your
things along with the tasty human wrapper that eats that crap. Do you honestly
think anyone can take you seriously?"

Funny, because Android has 20% of the market.
([http://venturebeat.com/2011/08/12/android-tablets-peel-
away-...](http://venturebeat.com/2011/08/12/android-tablets-peel-away-20-of-
ipads-mega-market-share/))

And that's without having a compelling price point. Right now a rooted Nook is
the only value product point out there in Android, and Google still has a 20%
OS share. When somebody inevitably figures out how to pump out an equivalently
featured tablet at the sub $200 range, volume market shares will change
dramatically. This does not, of course, mean that the iPad will not continue
to earn the vast majority of the market's profits. But that's a different
story...

As to the main thrust of the argument, I think that disruptive innovation from
Apple's competitors will continue to be exceptionally rare (rather than the
norm, as it is at Apple) as long as product development is feature driven
rather than UX driven. Please correct me if you think there are other
structural factors in play.

------
StrawberryFrog
Main takeaway points:

1) The iPad is disruptive. Interesting evidence for that from HP, but the
point is not surprising.

2) In order to be very successful, do something "disruptive, mind blowing,
magical" (which the author hasn't thought of yet). No Duh.

------
scdc
"Make the iPad as irrelevant as the iPad seems to be doing to the consumer
PC."

I don't think this is wise goal in the short term. The iPad/tablet space is
just ramping up. There is certainly room for competitors here, but I just
don't see a vector for disruption right now. Maybe in 5 years.

There are plenty of other markets to disrupt, though. Look at Sonos-- they
blew up the (hugely expensive) whole-house audio market. Or Flip (rip) with
their camcorder.

------
rrrazdan
Bookmarked and probably will throw it at the OP's face in 5 years. 30 million
odd iPads sold does not mean anything. Yes iPad is a spectacular success, but
it hardly is the end of the PC era. There is a world beyond the United States
as well, they do have a little say in determining the market.

~~~
wensing
I wonder ... At what point in Facebook/Microsoft's history was it justifiable
to say that they were going to dominate the market so entirely that every
other entry was destined to be a chimp, not the gorilla?

~~~
webwright
There was a point in MySpace's history where lots of folks said that.

------
pedalpete
Wow, if you're not a fanboi, that was really tough to get through. But what
the author fails to realize is that it isn't about hardware. If Tim Cook had
truly 'locked up' the components channel, competitors wouldn't be flooding the
market (which they are).

I agree with the author that this market already needs to be revolutionized.
Google and Microsoft aren't just playing copycat. The Kinect isn't the only
technology coming out of Microsoft that truly changes the game.
[http://www.conceivablytech.com/8886/business/beyond-
windows-...](http://www.conceivablytech.com/8886/business/beyond-
windows-8-patent-hints-to-a-future-streaming-os)

------
nextparadigms
"You will never be able to build at the same cost they do and produce anything
even close."

Umm..the Galaxy Tab 10.1? Also the Asus Transformer tablet is pretty close,
too, and $100 cheaper.

And speaking about the Transformer. I think this it. That is the new market.
The evolution of both notebooks and tablets - the Transfomer style notebook.
You get iPad style consumption by detaching the tablet, and you get
productivity, too, by attaching it to the keyboard dock. Although, having a
keyboard and 50% higher battery life (Asus Transformer with keyboard lasts
15-16 hours) will not be enough for "productivity". You also need some
productivity apps, and Google should work harder on that. But luckily for
them, and Microsoft, the world is moving to HTML5 web-apps, and the tablets
are catching up quickly in performance with most notebooks.

Why did I say for Microsoft's sake, too? Because whether Microsoft or Intel
likes it, the world is moving to ARM based machines. And when Microsoft will
do that with Windows 8, they'll have _zero_ legacy apps on it. They'll have to
start from scratch. This is why they need HTML5 apps, and are trying to
promote them over Silverlight apps, because they think it's the quicker/easier
way to get into the market.

So yeah, think about it - the Transformer style notebook/tablet. It's both a
tablet and an evolution of the notebook. It's the best of both world's and
this way the tablet can also become a "necessity" not just a luxury item,
because you won't be using it just for consumption anymore.

Yes, there is an "iPad market" out there, and although it's growing, it's
still tiny and I don't think people will ever consider them their main
"computers". They could consider their main computers a Transformer style
tablet, though. Two years from now they'll have enough performance and apps to
do just that for everyone. But the trend starts today, and Asus is leading the
pack.

The others should follow them if they want to outsell the iPad and make
themselves relevant for the future. They need to make the tablet something
that is a _necessity_ for everyone, just like a phone or a notebook is (the
iPad isn't). And the Transformer style tablet/notebook is the way to do that.

There's a reason why Apple promoted a keyboard with the iPad from day one.
They felt the iPad is an _incomplete_ product without it. And it is.

------
crxpandion
This guys has a major stick up his ass. His comment that Google fails in the
tablet market because they have silly beta names is ridiculous. Google does
not even manufacture the hardware and as such cannot guarantee the UX.

On top of that his suggestion is blatantly obvious - Apple dominates tablets.
So if you want to make money its probably easier if you go for the lower lying
fruit.

to paraphrase: steve jobs is so frickin' awesome its not even worth trying to
compete with him. So go and find greener pastures.

~~~
pedalpete
His writing style is annoying with it's 'Apple holier than though' attitude.
But I think you've missed the overall point of the article.

If you can ignore such pedantic arguments as the beta names, he actually makes
one good point. At the same time, I think he completely misses the fact that
it isn't the hardware manufacturers that will differentiate, it's the OSs. The
hardware difference between the iPad and other tablets is minimal at best,
which is why Apple is suing Samsung for copying the design.

------
bobbles
So it looks like we've now got the term "iPad effect" to represent when
someone creates a new market... Wonder what the next one will be...

~~~
guildchatter
I'm rooting for Augmented Reality eyeglasses and contact lenses.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Augmented_Reality>

=]

------
czue
You can replace "iPad" with "iPhone" and "2011" with "2008" to see how silly
this argument is.

------
andrewcooke
what's with so many sites recently having poor kerning? is anyone else seeing
this? is tumblr doing something strange with fonts?

------
alphadogg
What the author carefully sidesteps is that, according to Gartner, Apple
market share is DROPPING fast. And, that Android has reached a critical "over
20%" market share this year.

