“Don’t look now but this may be the year when Apple’s market cap does the unthinkable and surpasses Microsoft’s. Congratulations will be in order but so will condolences. For a company preoccupied with products is in danger of becoming a company preoccupied with strategy,” Holman W. Jenkins, Jr. writes for The Wall Street Journal. “And by ‘strategy,’ we mean zero-sum maneuvering versus hated rivals.”
MacDailyNews Take: “We?” Is Holman hearing those voices again?
Jenkins continues, “Oh well, it’s a fallen world we live in.”
MacDailyNews Take: Yes, it certainly is.
Jenkins continues, “Take the iPad, which instantly shed the moniker ‘Jesus tablet’ once it saw the light of day. It’s a blown-up iPod Touch [sic], rolled out not to be insanely great but to give Apple an entry in the netbook derby. The iPad may not be the best Web-browsing machine simply because Apple refuses to support Flash, which delivers 75% of the video on the Web. But the iPad (an anagram for paid) looks like a good device for consuming the e-books, music and video sold through Apple’s online service. In fact, let’s not mince words: The iPad looks like a device optimized to patronize the iTunes store.”
MacDailyNews Take: That’s why Apple developed iWork for iPad, of course. And why it does email, contacts, calendars, etc. That’s why apps will stream video and audio to iPad from sources that have nothing at all to do with Apple. And anyone who thinks iPad is a “blown-up iPod touch” is foolish, as are people who are presented a very clear picture, yet pick and choose what to see while turning a blind eye to everything else that doesn’t at all mesh with their conceits. By the way, iPad is also an anagram for iPDA.
Jenkins then goes on and on and on about Adobe’s shitastic Flash and how, because Apple’s iPad doesn’t support it, Apple is “succumbing to the seductive temptations of ‘network effects,’ in which the all-consuming goal becomes getting its mobile devices into more and more hands simply for the purpose of locking more and more users into iTunes Store.”
MacDailyNews Take: Except Apple’s not locking anyone into iTunes Store with the iPad. Here’s just one example: You’ll be able to download various e-book apps that allow you to buy books from various sources, like iPhone and iPod touch users can today from (for only one example among many) Amazon via the Kindle for iPhone app. Simply download the free Kindle app and use that if you don’t want to use Apple’s iBooks app that’s connected to Apple’s iBookstore. Music, videos, and much, much more are available from non-Apple sources for iPhone, iPod touch and, very soon, iPad. So, where’s the lock-in? Obviously, there is none.
Jenkins continues, “Network effects can be a path to power and riches, but (as Microsoft has shown) much of the proceeds can also end up being squandered on defensive and paranoid attempts to secure the privileged position. Pundits have wondered what might become of Apple once its chief aesthete and perfectionist is no longer calling the shots. An Apple that rolls out increasingly junky devices merely to lock more and more customers into the iTunes-App Store mall is one gloomy possibility.”
Full illogical tripe – “The Microsofting of Apple?” – here.
MacDailyNews Take: Apple’s becoming Microsoft because they unveiled the iPad and Holman doesn’t understand it at all and because some unnamed “pundits” wonder if, after Steve Jobs retires someday, Apple might begin to roll out increasingly junky devices that supposedly “lock customers into” Apple’s iTunes / App Store even though today’s products do no such thing. Holman’s theories are illogical. If he wants to worry about any company becoming the next “Microsoft,” he should take a look at Google and their bespectacled mole of a CEO Eric Schmidt.
What a piece of shit. I was surprised to learn this garbage came from the Wall Street Journal. I expect better from them.
Google is the new Microsoft, wanting to invade and control all aspects of the computer and Internet. Google…
– search
– OS
– browser
– on-line apps (productivity, graphics)
– navigation/map app(s)
– email
– phone (with subsequent app store)
– high-speed Internet service (testing phase)
have I forgotten any???
Gee, this guy really doesn’t get it.
Microsoft built a huge aftermarket for IT specialists because their OS sucks, runs on hardware they have nothing to do with and needs techies to fix it. Apple built a huge aftermarket because their OS is so good and they own the whole experience from the hardware side too.
Comparing Apple to Microsoft is like comparing GlaxoSmithKline to Exxon – f*cking irrelevant.
I’m surprised WSJ even prints this crap.
I am so tired of these idiots spewing the same old sh-t from their mouths.
The best thing that Apple has ever had is that it has always competed by the merits of there own products. Except probably during the Mac clone era. But aside from that, Apple’s products have always brought a more elegant, simpler solution to the table. The iPad is simply, more of this philosophy. Sure, you can buy your media from other sources to use in you iPod, but the iTunes store is much better integrated solution with competitive prices.
Blown-up iPod Touch? Yes, pretty much (with the exception of iWork).
Email? Calendar? Contacts? Photos? Streaming audio/video? eBooks? These sound like things an iPod Touch/iPhone can do very well. Not to mention we can actually take photos and videos with an iPhone, and email them immediately to our contacts! Sounds like a great feature that the iPad should have.
Seriously, the iPad may or may not be a success, but there is no denying the striking similarity in both appearance and function to a “blown-up iPod Touch.”
Go ahead, call me an idiot. Or better yet, show me why the iPad is so special. What if Dell made the exact same product? Would you be impressed, or just call it a rip-off blown-up iPod Touch?
I agree with R2.
Let’s make this really, really simple: Microsoft produces crap and sells it as gold and its user base loves and accepts it, suffering all the time.
Apple doesn’t.
Pretty clear cut, yes?
And Wall St Journal is an anagram for: Slur on, Tall jaw.
You’re surprised the WSJ’s opinion articles are pretty much worthless? Guess you don’t read that paper much.
I subscribed to the WSJ for years, and found their news articles among the best written in a daily paper, and their marketing pieces were essential reading.
But the opinion page? Not so much, no. Except, perhaps, for the small fraction of the country who isn’t sure the President is, you know, a citizen.
By the way, I canceled my subscription shortly after Murdoch took over control and the editorial page madness started spewing over to the front page (not much, but a bit).
Interesting. WSJ does have an occasional clueless writer working for them. How embarrassing for the WSJ.
Unthinkable?? Maybe to all the PC fanboyz everywhere but there were plenty of us Macheads who knew the day would eventually come when Apple would surpass Micro$loth. Why? Because Apple is in warp drive and M$ is standing still.
This is NOT the 90s. We are now 10 years into the new millenium. Welcome to the future, beyotches!
Peace.
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Olmecmystic
Opinions are opinions. They can be easily dismissed, depending on the person.
What if Dell made the exact same product? Would you be impressed,
———————–
@Bongo
No, because Dell doesn’t make software, and Dell doesn’t have a media ecosystem. The iPad hardware and design is nice, but it’s the software/hardware and the Apple integration and ecosystem that really make it so compelling.. Dell could NEVER do that.
Remember, just as iPad is an anagram for “paid,” Holman W. Jenkins, Jr. is an anagram for “Man Jerk Howls Jinn.”
@WriterGuy,
Based on your comment, I don’t believe you have ever even picked up a Wall Street Journal, much less subscribed to it. That, or you’re a paid shill for the Soros/MoveOn network. One CAN disagree intelligently with WSJ’s opinion pieces and editorials, but they are clearly better-argued and more fact-driven than those in any other nationally recognized newspaper.
BTW, the WSJ has never trafficked in the “birther” nonsense. Even your silly example doesn’t hold water.
@Bongo,
From all Iʻve read from those who have actually gotten their hands on an iPad, it is a great deal more than a blown up iPod Touch. People with no imagination look at the hardware or photos of the hardware and make all kinds of analysis.
If you read the reports of those who have tried one it apparently has way beyond the functionality of the iPhone and iPod Touch in very new and different ways. I expect you will have to try one to find out “why it is so special.”
I thought it was actually a pretty decent article. As usual, MDN and the fanboys completely miss the point of it. The author was pointing out that Apple could fall into the trap a lot of other companies fell into – not that it has happened or will happen, just that it could happen.
And if you don’t think a big part of Apple’s plan is to extend their control of content and the distribution it, you have your head in the sand.
IPad is just a big ipod touch, get over it. It does nothing more and nothing less….
Just because vomit has an apple logo attached to it doesn’t make Vomit the best of anything…. Everyone ignore MDN and gather your Apple news from a creditable source.
@Bongo
You are an idiot. Happy?
@ Bongo
” … Blown-up iPod Touch? Yes, pretty much (with the exception of iWork).”
Okay – to make people like you happy we will hereby change the name to –
“Huge Fuckin iPod Touch”
I’ll be getting my Huge Fuckin iPod Touch on day one. Along with thousands of others, millions to follow. You’ll be getting one too but you just wanna whine agreed?
@R2: “What a piece of shit. I was surprised to learn this garbage came from the Wall Street Journal. I expect better from them.”
Surprised? I see you’re not a regular reader of WSJ opinion pieces, let alone its editorial page. Jenkins, hack that he is, is one of their more reasonable writers.
The news sections, by contrast, used to be top notch, but even they’re beginning to deteriorate under Murdoch’s ownership.
I remember when Apple announced they would NOT be putting a disk reader built into their desk top computers… it was the end of Apple! Who in their right mind would buy a machine that couldn’t use disks??
Apple simply stated that CD/DVD drives and USB hubs would be the future… sure enough they were correct.
Flash is on the way out, to be outed by a more aggressive, more talented way of viewing video and gaming. Granted, it will take the IT guys for Windows a few years to figure out they are years behind again, but that isn’t anything new.
RP3 – you will be proved soooo wrong…
Google just has no style!
Boy, school must be out. The children are in good form here today. No matter how many time you say it is just a big iPod Touch doesn’t make any difference. So just call it Touchdown because that is what it is. If it sells like the Touch I think APPL would be very happy.