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« Last post by wraith808 on April 09, 2010, 08:36 AM »
The big thing about this 'closed ecosystem' mentality is that for most people for most devices, this has always been the case. Cell phone? Unless you get a smartphone, it's pretty much closed in any case. And people want their phones to work first and foremost as a phone. That's why I defected from WinMo... as much as I wanted to be on a platform I could actually program for using my existing skillset, the fact that my phone crashed so often was a disconcerting thing. And it didn't get better at a speed that made me comfortable. My last WinMo phone was only a little over a year ago. And my wife had to use it after me for a bit until I could get her iPhone.. she's not a techie by any means, though she does have a bit of technical know how. She longed for her LG Shine over the WinMo phone that I gave her, and was ready to throw it out of the window. Closed ecosystem or not, the iPhone just works, and she's not in any way frustrated with it. Before the phone it was the MP3 player for Apple. Again, how many people *really* did anything out of the ecosystem of MP3 players? What difference does it being closed matter to most people? Not much, I hazard to say. And the iPod, again, just works. I loved my Rio Karma, but in the end, the experience between the Karma and the iPod were night and day.
So now they find themselves getting into a different market. I think that's the reason that books are so important on the iPad. The eBook readers are, again, a closed system. Sure you can do some thing with them outside of the manufacturer's thinking- but for most people, they are just book readers. But where I think Apple is going to have to adjust is at the same place they had to adjust on the iPhone... price. No matter what they say, the price point puts it at the same place as devices with a lot more functionality. And no matter the additional functionality, perception puts it not much above an eReader or iPhone. Maybe they can get past this without lowering the price... but I tend to doubt it.
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