Is there a tablet market or just an iPad market?

I was having dinner with a few friends the other day when we started talking about tablets — yes, having dinner with me really is just as awesome as you probably imagined — and it got me thinking about an old post by Marco Arment: there really isn’t much of a “tablet” market, there’s an iPad market. Then just this week, AllThingsD came out with a similar article that claimed that consumers don’t want tablets, they want iPads:

A theory: Though consumers desire the iPad for the functions it performs, they want it more for what it is. Just as many preferred the iPod to the generic MP3 player, so too do they prefer the iPad to the generic “tablet.” In the US, we find that Apple has more than double the brand appeal of BlackBerry, HTC, Motorola, Nokia and Samsung combined. These manufacturers have a very high level of brand equity and visibility in adjacent categories. It is striking that they hold so little appeal for consumers in tablets.
More recently, Harry McCracken wrote an article asking a simple question to other tablets: “why should somebody buy this instead of an iPad?”:

And yet no Apple competitor has started selling anything that clearly answers a fundamental question: “Why should somebody buy this instead of an iPad?” Sure, it’s easy to point at specific things that other devices do better (or at least differently) than the iPad, and some of the people reading this article can explain why they chose another tablet and don’t regret the move. … Still, sales figures for tablets show that when consumers compare the iPad to other choices, an overwhelming percentage conclude that the iPad is the best option.
The iPad may have jumped out to a huge lead, but if I’ve learned anything, it’s that no lead is insurmountable — see 2004 ALCS. Just don’t bring this up to me in person. Thanks.

Reeder for iPad

I’ve been using Reeder as my primary Google Reader app on the iPad and it’s really great. I emailed creator Silvio Rizzi yesterday when I noticed a bug regarding momentum scrolling, and not only did he respond within minutes, he also told me that he planned on submitting the next update within 24 hours:

Yes, this is a known issue, should be fixed with the next update which I plan to submit in the next 24h. Best, Silvio

The update doesn’t seem to be live just yet (it’ll likely take a few days to get through Apple certification) but it’s nice to know that he’s on top of things and committed to supporting his apps. I highly recommend it to anyone looking for a beautiful interface for using Google Reader. [Reeder]

Is there such a thing as too awesome?

Someone actually returned his iPad because it was “too good.” The crux of his argument is that the iPad is so accessible and easy to use that he was no longer ever bored — and his best ideas come to him when he is unproductive. It’s an interesting position, and one that I tend to agree with.

Let’s face it, my attention span has pretty much gone to crap thanks to my iPhone and Google Reader. I’m pretty much consuming information from the moment I awake until the moment I get ready for bed, which often leaves me with precious time to sit down and think to myself. In fact, I find the best time for this is right before I fall asleep — which sometimes isn’t more than a few minutes — and there’s definitely something to be said about taking a break just to sort everything through your brain.

So maybe boredom really is good for you after all. Just don’t expect that to stop me from getting an iPhone 4 and second gen iPad. [HBR via Silicon Alley Insider]

The case for staying out of Steve Jobs’s walled garden

I miss having an iPad — I even tweeted as much just a few hours ago — but Gawker founder Nick Denton makes the excellent point that media companies would be better off worrying about the ‘boring old web’ than making crappy iPad apps. Business Insider nailed the pertinent blockquote, so I’m not even going to try to use a different one:

“Every single time something new comes out and people wonder what’s the killer app, the answer is the same. It’s the Web every time.The boring old Web,” Denton says, or rather writes, since we were doing the interview via IM, Denton’s preferred mode of communication. Denton has looked at some of the news-media apps and says he’s unimpressed. “Wasn’t it obvious when one played with the WSJ and Time apps that the apps were a massive step back?” he says. “I loved the look of the Time app, but then I tried to select and copy a paragraph to send to a friend. I did the action automatically, without even thinking.” And guess what? You can’t do that. “You can’t e-mail. You can’t bookmark. It made me realize how much the experience of reading has changed. Nobody really just reads anymore. They copy text, send links, tweet,” Denton says.

In the iPad’s defense, I believe that apps will integrate such features in the (hopefully not-too-distant) future, but Denton makes a great case for the ‘open web’ that I really can’t argue with. Don’t get me wrong, I love the whole iPhone/iPad app experience, but it’s just a little too closed off for it to become the de facto standard for information. And that’s what the ‘boring old web’ does so well: totally unregulated access to anything you could ever possibly want… as well as some things you don’t. [Newsweek via Business Insider]