I think he's betting on being able to implement better than apple.
He states:
My biggest challenge isn’t winning over converts from my competitors: it’s explaining what Instapaper does and convincing people that they actually need it.
So if apple deploys this everywhere, more people will understand it. Since Instapaper already has such a huge user base, established users will (supposedly) say 'oh, I use instapaper. It's much better'.
So apple creates new users, which are then drawn to Instapaper's superior service.
This is all dependent upon Instapaper actually implementing substantially better, but so far apple has sucked at multi-device syncing of, well, just about anything.
I don't buy it. If Apple creates new users, more often than not they will keep them. I wouldn't count on Instapaper's huge user base (which I'm guessing is mainly the tech crowd) influencing normal, everyday users.
Sherlock beating Watson was a prime example where Apple's execution was somewhat similar (some say worse), but it still killed that product.
I'd argue that apple is largely responsible for android's success - normal, everyday people knew they wanted a touchscreen smartphone only after apple made it possible to own one, but more importantly, made it popular to own one with the iPhone. As long as there is enough of a difference between them to choose one over the other, I think he's right to bet on it being a net-win for him.
He states: My biggest challenge isn’t winning over converts from my competitors: it’s explaining what Instapaper does and convincing people that they actually need it.
So if apple deploys this everywhere, more people will understand it. Since Instapaper already has such a huge user base, established users will (supposedly) say 'oh, I use instapaper. It's much better'.
So apple creates new users, which are then drawn to Instapaper's superior service.
This is all dependent upon Instapaper actually implementing substantially better, but so far apple has sucked at multi-device syncing of, well, just about anything.