Venkatesh Rao (ribbonfarm) on iPad: Why Apple’s design approach may not work

First really good iPad discussion I've seen:

"In innovation theory [ Apple currently does ] the fast-follower strategy. But it may not work for Apple this time, because there is nobody to follow. Nobody has gotten tablets – a radical-disruptive problem – even roughly right yet."

He cites two reasons:

"Open Innovation: For anything truly radical-disruptive, it takes many democratically-contending peers with different aesthetic visions to build the first working instance...."

"Metaphor Incoherence: Central conceptual metaphors haven’t yet cohered, and vestiges of inherited metaphors remain..."

And he explains how what Apple is doing with the iPad doesn't match the requirements of the problem at this point.

Followed by quite a bit more. Highly recommended, especially if you're a Clayton Christensen (The Innovator’s Dilemma) fan as I am.