Apple vs the world?
Which super hero will not appear on iPad electronic comic?
If we could scroll back in time to watch how the news media covered iPad, it's interesting to note that the same new-sources that spat at iPad with skepticism & product-naming jokes flipped like a switch with all praises & wonders after the launch. But this thing with Adobe & Apple started with Flash. No, not the guy who runs very fast in red leotard but the thing that delivers Youtube videos. Jobs made some pretty harsh statements (or at least what was reported) and the decision to not support it in iPad triggered some dissent amongst the Flash developers & Adobe folks. Again we see "news" with "insights" that Flash (amongst other deficiencies in iPad) is a big problem with consumers. I guess the opening sales showed that more than hundreds of thousands of consumers see otherwise. Fancy video-intros are a thing of the past except maybe for the YouTube generation. It is too early to say that the iPad alone will induce an exodus of developers heading towards the promised land of HTML5. There seems to be some traction and it has to do with economics, not loyalty to a particular technology. Most consumers don't really care how it works. Enterprising software developers can and will pick up or ditch technology tools to get to where the gold is for now: Apple App store. Apple decides which App gets in AND what language can be used to write them
Like as if dropping out Flash wasn't enough for Adobe, Apple went on to "deny" non-Apple programming languages. An Adobe evangelist even went on to rant about how noble Adobe was when it comes to creating tools that helped developers write great apps that run everywhere..blah blah blah, how Adobe & Apple have helped each other reached this juncture and Apple pulling such strong-arm tactics to block Adobe products. Makes me wonder why would Apple drop the bomb on the Adobe that shares the artistic/creative consumers. Let's look at two sides of the story before forming a conclusion. Read: http://innerdaemon.wordpress.com/2010/04/10/sorry-adobe-you-screwed-yourself/. And if the history is written accurately between these two entities, then it is fair to say:
Adobe's evangelists should go for some corporate-history classes before ranting & business-decision makers should consult a fortune-teller before placing bets on the right platform. Consumer is KING... or more like marketing, usability and consumer information
The first portion is true at least for most of us who believe things we like/dislike form the baseline for everybody else. Mind you, I am not an Apple fanboy. I use an Android phone and once wrote Windows Mobile Apps and device drivers. My iPod touch has since lost its novelty and I don't carry an iPhone as a fashion statement. I use OSX, Windows and Linux extensively as desktop and servers on a daily basis. Will I buy Apple hardware? It depends, part of me feels the operating system is great but the hardware is simply not worth the money. There are plenty of consumers who value quality and usability over technical specifications like GB of RAM, GHZ of clock-speed and are willing to pay. I believe most of the consumers didn't make their buying decision under duress or at gun-point. Are Apple products made in China? YES but not everything is designed in California by Apple. Just walk into an Apple Retail store and look around you offline and online, you will know about usability and marketing works very well together. What happened to recession and economic crisis?
Perhaps one day fridges will generate consumer data for Google to crawl. The mean time, desktop computers are still the most used device to surf and search online. This reality may soon be altered when portable devices and high-speed wireless networks becomes a norm. In the domain of handling huge amount of information, Google reigns. If Google can step out of China, then being "displaced" from the upcoming iPhone 4 is probably insignificant. To be fair, there's nothing wrong to change the button label to "Search" and removed "Google". It doesn't do Apple's shareholders any good to reinforce the idea that Google is synonymous with search by labeling Google within the mobile Safari browser. Google gives Android away to various phone makers to harvest more user information that they can profit from. It doesn't take a MBA grad to figure out which direction to head for once you have the platform, developers and fan-base. I don't believe Apps can go on selling forever, but advertising? It's a no brainer. Can Apple do without Google? I guess not for now since iPhone 4 will still depend on Google's for search and maps. Is Apple obsessed with weeding out "competition" at the expense of users? Maybe, but why approve Opera iPhone browser? Are there "anti-competitive" denial of 3rd party Apps? It really depends on the market share and numbers. Perhaps the day when Windows is the minority operating system, the so-call unfair practices by Apple may be deemed as "anti-competitive". If Consumers were really the Kings in control, I seriously doubt they would want their music, apps and what-not be locked into a particular brand of devices or be told that their not-so-old iPhones 2G are no longer good enough for their new shiny operating system. Or perhaps most consumers don't see it as locked-in because they like it that way.
If we could scroll back in time to watch how the news media covered iPad, it's interesting to note that the same new-sources that spat at iPad with skepticism & product-naming jokes flipped like a switch with all praises & wonders after the launch. But this thing with Adobe & Apple started with Flash. No, not the guy who runs very fast in red leotard but the thing that delivers Youtube videos. Jobs made some pretty harsh statements (or at least what was reported) and the decision to not support it in iPad triggered some dissent amongst the Flash developers & Adobe folks. Again we see "news" with "insights" that Flash (amongst other deficiencies in iPad) is a big problem with consumers. I guess the opening sales showed that more than hundreds of thousands of consumers see otherwise. Fancy video-intros are a thing of the past except maybe for the YouTube generation. It is too early to say that the iPad alone will induce an exodus of developers heading towards the promised land of HTML5. There seems to be some traction and it has to do with economics, not loyalty to a particular technology. Most consumers don't really care how it works. Enterprising software developers can and will pick up or ditch technology tools to get to where the gold is for now: Apple App store. Apple decides which App gets in AND what language can be used to write them
Like as if dropping out Flash wasn't enough for Adobe, Apple went on to "deny" non-Apple programming languages. An Adobe evangelist even went on to rant about how noble Adobe was when it comes to creating tools that helped developers write great apps that run everywhere..blah blah blah, how Adobe & Apple have helped each other reached this juncture and Apple pulling such strong-arm tactics to block Adobe products. Makes me wonder why would Apple drop the bomb on the Adobe that shares the artistic/creative consumers. Let's look at two sides of the story before forming a conclusion. Read: http://innerdaemon.wordpress.com/2010/04/10/sorry-adobe-you-screwed-yourself/. And if the history is written accurately between these two entities, then it is fair to say:
"Sorry, Adobe, you screwed yourself. You made a business decision in 1996 to screw Apple when it needed you most to gain credibility for its fledgling OS with the creative crowd.".
Adobe's evangelists should go for some corporate-history classes before ranting & business-decision makers should consult a fortune-teller before placing bets on the right platform. Consumer is KING... or more like marketing, usability and consumer information
The first portion is true at least for most of us who believe things we like/dislike form the baseline for everybody else. Mind you, I am not an Apple fanboy. I use an Android phone and once wrote Windows Mobile Apps and device drivers. My iPod touch has since lost its novelty and I don't carry an iPhone as a fashion statement. I use OSX, Windows and Linux extensively as desktop and servers on a daily basis. Will I buy Apple hardware? It depends, part of me feels the operating system is great but the hardware is simply not worth the money. There are plenty of consumers who value quality and usability over technical specifications like GB of RAM, GHZ of clock-speed and are willing to pay. I believe most of the consumers didn't make their buying decision under duress or at gun-point. Are Apple products made in China? YES but not everything is designed in California by Apple. Just walk into an Apple Retail store and look around you offline and online, you will know about usability and marketing works very well together. What happened to recession and economic crisis?
Perhaps one day fridges will generate consumer data for Google to crawl. The mean time, desktop computers are still the most used device to surf and search online. This reality may soon be altered when portable devices and high-speed wireless networks becomes a norm. In the domain of handling huge amount of information, Google reigns. If Google can step out of China, then being "displaced" from the upcoming iPhone 4 is probably insignificant. To be fair, there's nothing wrong to change the button label to "Search" and removed "Google". It doesn't do Apple's shareholders any good to reinforce the idea that Google is synonymous with search by labeling Google within the mobile Safari browser. Google gives Android away to various phone makers to harvest more user information that they can profit from. It doesn't take a MBA grad to figure out which direction to head for once you have the platform, developers and fan-base. I don't believe Apps can go on selling forever, but advertising? It's a no brainer. Can Apple do without Google? I guess not for now since iPhone 4 will still depend on Google's for search and maps. Is Apple obsessed with weeding out "competition" at the expense of users? Maybe, but why approve Opera iPhone browser? Are there "anti-competitive" denial of 3rd party Apps? It really depends on the market share and numbers. Perhaps the day when Windows is the minority operating system, the so-call unfair practices by Apple may be deemed as "anti-competitive". If Consumers were really the Kings in control, I seriously doubt they would want their music, apps and what-not be locked into a particular brand of devices or be told that their not-so-old iPhones 2G are no longer good enough for their new shiny operating system. Or perhaps most consumers don't see it as locked-in because they like it that way.
