What the iPad means
Now that it's here, and also now that we know almost all of what the new features of it with OS 4.0 will be (See the video of the 4.0 announcement a couple of weeks ago for details), it's time to take stock of the impact it's had in the mobile marketplace.
Microsoft's cancelled one of their tablet projects. HP's cancelled their Slate, and instead are buying Palm so they can have control of a mobile OS (I suspect it's a doomed union, as almost all defensive purchases turn out to be). Windows Mobile 6.5 is the end of the line, and the forthcoming Windows Phone 7 will look pretty, but feature-wise not even be quite up to iPhone 1.0's full capabilities. Every vendor has started to push into the tablet space (though virtually nobody has a shipping product), and most interestingly, the shine has really started to come off the netbook market. Who wants a cheap underpowered PC when for about the same money you can have a more elegant device?
The real impact is that Apple's pretty much put all their cards on the table at last. They are designing products for a post-PC, cloud-oriented future. And they are also basing it on an ecosystem they can control and manage. You may or may not agree with their system, but they tell a full, complete story about the Apple world of devices. And other vendors are going to have to do something similar if they want to stay relevant.
Remember about a decade ago when Apple was all but through? How's that working out now?
posted by jht @ 10:47 PM
