Ikea's model seems better suited for a web business anyway. This idea matches more with the physical, custom retail experience. My question: Same day delivery? (Of course not, I know, but will they do better than the eternal wait times for other custom furniture shops?)
Reading into this more: While we surely need an easier way to swipe for a subway ride, other than buggy MetroCards, why is .24% usage considered a success? Worth the cost?
Think of them in terms of what they threaten, and they seem like a failure. But measure them in attention they've brought to this cause, and they're a pretty significant success. Planned or unintentional?
It's a CEO Speedwagon! The story is a nice antidote to the Pearl Jammed version of Ticketmaster's evilness. There's lots of nuance. And, though it might have made a grab for fees early on, Ticketmaster--and Live Nation--finally seem to be innovating, creating services that actually make concerts better.
There is tons of smacktalk coming from HP on this. Is the confidence justified? WebOS has plenty of lovers, but iPad's a market share monster. Competition, still, is healthy.
It doesn't matter how strong Apple is... 2nd place is still profitable, and honeycomb tablets have been pretty lackluster in sales.
If HPalm can take a solid niche (better UI than iPad, free-er than Android) and make 2nd place out of it, they will have a sustainable foothold to re-establish the WebOS brand.
I agree. Competition is healthy but I'm sick of companies trying to jump on a bandwagon just to scrape whatever profit they can. It's so uninspired. It does nothing but clutter the market with things we really don't need. Now, if HP were truly doing something new and innovative, that would be different. But all they're doing here is leaching and creating more trash for landfills.
Mostly what I'm seeing (watching the video) are what look like garbage-collection hitches, and instances where the demonstrator has to repeatedly hit the same spot on the screen to make something happen. It doesn't look anywhere near as smooth as a first-gen iPad. This stuff matters, as it turns out.
As for the rest of the demo, well -- shrug -- it looks like iOS. I tend to agree with the downvoted grandparent: bring something new to the table, or don't waste my time. My guess is that few people other than patent attorneys will end up making any money from this product.
Well, no, the task-switching UI is better than iOS, I do agree with that. It's perplexing that someone at Apple of all places thought the double-tap home thing was a good idea.
In any case, if someone at Apple were to load up on Red Bull and pizza and camp out in their office for a weekend, iOS's task-switcher could look and work exactly the same. They apparently believe they're doing it the right way now, though, for whatever reason.
I'll echo the other reply to your post -- have you any experience with webOS?
I've gone back and forth between webOS and iOS phones over the past couple years, and while webOS is not better in every way, and is significantly handicapped in some ways, it's also significantly better than iOS in some ways. I really don't see webOS phones as poor attempts to jump on a bandwagon just to scrape whatever profit they can. This is much more a case of healthy competition.
I too expect Apple will eventually adopt a similar multitasking paradigm for iOS (you could call it Exposé-inspired, or webOS-inspired, as you wish), negating webOS's most obvious advantage. Which you could attribute to the effects of competition. Or maybe Apple would have inevitably done it once the hardware got powerful enough -- who knows.
The forces in HP's favor in the tablet market are pretty different from the forces in Android's favor in the phone market.
But that said, I agree the tablet market is just heating up. The iPad is a pretty formidable competitor, not just because of its existing market share but really because it's a good product. Still, there's room for more than one product.
My impression (from reading press, not from firsthand experience) is that a few Android vendors (notably Samsung and Motorola) and RIM have all stepped up to the plate, took a swing, and pretty much struck out. Maybe they'll get better over time -- probably they will -- but it looks like they shipped too early and quality suffered as a result; the reviews I've read have been largely negative. Meanwhile Microsoft doesn't have anything coming soon.
All that means HP has a really good shot at the #2 spot right out of the gate.
If that's enough to get developers to return to webOS, the platform might still have a chance.
A long time ago, some friends and I rented out a wave pool at a Disney water park so we could have the waves all to ourselves. So after the tourists were kicked out, we put on our own music on the sound system and shared waves, a group of 10 friends. I think it cost $100 each. This is the same thrill, I'd imagine.
If we were able to say why, definitively, something went viral, then viral wouldn't seem so unusual or special, would it. We're all left to guess when something like this takes off in an organic, viral way. What's more interesting than guessing at that is what the fallout will be for business--and the publishing model. That's what this story explored.
