I’ve been mulling over the idea of the killer app for the iPad in the same way that we look at killer apps for computers. I think that I can summarize the PC (Windows, Mac or Linux) has three classes of killer apps:
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Business
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General public
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Gaming
For the business world, the killer app is pretty much Microsoft Office for a number of reasons. It became sufficiently ubiquitous that you can exchange files with just about everyone and replaced a whole slew of less efficient means of managing documents. It’s clearly not the only application used in business, but it’s the baseline key component that pushed business to really start investing in computers.
For the general public, the killer app was internet connectivity. Getting access to the web, and being able to communicate with people via email and eventually chat was the impetus for many many people to buy a computer for the home, mostly despite the limitations and learning curve associated with the operating system.
Gaming of course was the driver for many computer purchases. To the advantage of Microsoft and the detriment of Apple and Linux.
I think the biggest difference with the iPad is that it addresses the needs of the general public, with an OS that doesn’t require the same learning curve and administrative overhead. The only user managed component of the iPad is the amount of storage used by applications, documents and media.
The difference here is that I don’t think the iPad will have a platform-level killer app. What’s going to happen is that individuals will find their personal killer app that will justify the purchase. This killer app for the first time will be by individual and not by platform
The geek crowd will be looking for the iPad to fulfill multiple roles and will probably use it for many more things that the average person. This is a normal outgrowth of the geeks’ view on what computing is for and how it should be used.
The average person (and by definition, there a lot more of them than there are geeks) will be swayed by their killer app. The iPad will become the platform for their personal killer app - and it conveniently does lots of other cool stuff. Individual use cases will be widely varied, but they will be often based on the basis of a device that “just works” and carries no additional administrative overhead. No disk defrag, no anti-virus, no complicated uninstalls, no disk partitioning, no memory management…
It might be SketchUp, it might be Crosswords, it might be Epicurious, it might be OmniGraffle, it might be Stanza, it might be PocketCloud, it might be OmniOutliner, it might be iWork, it might be MarsEdit, it might be Oracle Business Indicators, it might be Aperture, it might be TapFolio, it might be iFitness, it might be Brushes … and it will probably be an application that hasn’t even been written yet because this platform didn’t exist before.
Related posts:
iPad round 2 - AT&T vs Verizon
iPad round 3 - Thoughts and reflections