No Domain Name Killer, Nor a Kindle Killer — iPad is

My thoughts following a couple days with the iPad.

My wife bought an iPad for me for Father’s Day. She can’t keep a secret so she gave it to me as soon as it arrived in the mail. I’ve had a couple days to play with it, which has given me time to reflect on what apps might do to domain names.

So far I’m going to agree with Jason Fry. Basically, the apps that correspond to web sites are subpar at best, and the actual web sites suffice. Score one for navigating by domain names.

That’s not to say that firms won’t try to move traffic from their web sites to paid apps. When I visit Cardinals.com to get a score update, I can’t view the score. Instead I see a message asking me to download MLB’s $15 iPad app. This sort of bastardization of the web, courtesy of Apple’s own ideas of what makes the web good (e.g. no Flash), does not result in a good user experience. Nonetheless, if I want to see how the Cardinals are doing, I either need to go to ESPN.com or buy MLB’s app.

But most apps are from big web sites. That just means less traffic for typosquatters since users will directly navigate to the content via an app instead of (mis)typing the domain names.

The iPad isn’t a Kindle killer, either. The iPad is a poor choice for an eBook reader if you read full length books. Compared to the Kindle it’s much heavier and bigger, strains your eyes, and can’t be read in sunlight. If people use these to read books we’re going to have a whole generation of people with long term wrist injuries. That stated, the iPad presents a much better experience for reading news, which could cut into Kindle’s revenue for periodical subscriptions.