iPad Development

A friend and I discussed the impending release of the Apple iPad and my likely participation into its application development. He is acutely aware of my ongoing participation and interests in multimedia, programming, and visual communication hardware and software.

This details our discussion:

E: Apple's problem is every company's problem that has propietary technology. They want to keep their systems closed so that no one can piggyback their technology. But in this case it may work for apple because there is no group more royalty paranoid than book publishers. They WANT an absolutely rigid and closed system. They want every penny in regards to their publishing rights. There is no reason apple can't accomodate the major book houses from a tech standpoint. A locked up device where everything comes from ibooks and no sharing. The publishers can monitor it all. If it were too open i doubt they would even use it. Fortunately ( or unfortunately) apple has perfected the closed system model. You can develop for their devices but strictly by their protocol. Apple became who they are by going to colleges and universities first. I am almost certain they will go the same route with this device. They would be crazy to release this device with too many multimedia limitations knowing what its primary use will be on campuses. It would be a waste of money and development time for apple.

My reply: I don't doubt that Apple will do what's necessary in the end but what stagnated Apple's growth as a dominant player has also attributed to their recent successes; playing to a niche market, maintaining stringent development protocols so as not to introduce a ton of crap products to the market, protecting their software and hardware from viruses. That was the chief concern with Flash. It poses some potential corruption risk and Apple platforms never ran quite as smoothly with Flash based media as opposed to PC platforms. There already are a few workarounds apps but even they haven't overcome some of the limitations of the Apple structural paradigm and its encroachment into full multimedia integration. While there are many opponents of Flash that many think will be solved by HTML5 and the like, players like Flash still dominate a considerable portion of the market of computer media players. The apps are the key which is while early development of apps will be the ultimate decider of the iPad as a practical and useful device. Furthermore, iPad will have to play to business users above all else. While they've taken steps to improve their desktop application business software packages, they have to make greater strides toward cross compatibility such as with virtualization software applications like Boot Camp and hardware changes like Intel based Mac chips all without compromising who they are and abandoning their niche.

They have to be careful though because if any in the Apple consumer market feel that Apple has abandoned their niche for market share then its over. It will be a short run and consumers will abandon their primary hardware purchases. Therefore, Apple can't make too many concessions and it will be finding that balance that will help them with their successes.