Just like Steve said during the keynote, the success of the product will be based on it’s ability to do key things better than anyone else. This, for me, has been the major problem with all of the existing tablet computers and netbooks. Up until recently with the advent of Android based tablets slowly coming to market, all you had with a netbook or a tablet was your bog standard desktop OS crammed into a smaller package with little or no effort towards adapting the way you interact with the system that took into account the limitations and advantages of the platform. (despite some good efforts in some Xandros distributions).
For my current use cases, the compromises of the current tablets and netbooks vs my iPhone MacBook combo largely outweigh the portability advantages. The iPad is another question.
When is a computer not a computer?
One thing that I see from many of the reviews and comments surrounding the iPad is an inability to see past the fact that it doesn’t fit any of the current convenient definitions that we use for computers today.
There’s an excellent article over at stevenf (tip of the hat to Daring Fireball) that expresses much of how I feel about the subject better than I could explain it. I confirm his idea that this type of device appeals to both an older and a younger generation. It’s us stodgy Gen Xers (plus or minus a few years) that have the hardest time integrating what the iPad can mean since we have integrated a very specific view of what constitutes “computing”.
It’s Magical
I think that the magical message that keeps cropping up with the marketing is related to the classic quotation by Arthur C. Clarke that “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic”.
That’s what Apple’s been aiming for with the tablet. The suspension of disbelief involves the fact that when you touch anything on the screen, it reacts immediately as if you are manipulating a physical equivalent. From the reports of those lucky enough to have had a chance to manipulate the iPad, the consistent message is that it’s really really fast. Just watching the demonstration of the web browsing shows this clearly. Unlike the iPhone that pauses to render parts of the page that are off-screen, the iPad has pre-rendered everything so when you swipe, the impression you get is that there really is a page under the glass that you’re moving around. The suspension of disbelief is never broken by a delay between the action and the reaction, like some CPU heavy activities on the iPhone and very often on any of the Windows Mobile and Android phones I’ve used.
One size fits all, but stretches differently
One thing that has really struck me about all of the people I know that have iPhones is the amazing variety of uses and priorities that different people have. The iPhone is definitely a one-size box (storage differences aside), that is transformed by the application suite that people add to it.
This is a huge factor in defining the market for the iPad. Previously, the market for smart phones was limited to the modern business road warrior (the old fashioned ones just call their secretaries or assistants to keep up to date), and the über-geek. The definition of a smart phone was defined by the needs and wants of these two communities.
By taking a big step back and starting from scratch, Apple democratized the market for these devices, by showing that if you tailor the interface to the advantages and the limitations of the device, you can make complex technology accessible and useful to a wide audience.
Now there’s the issue of what this size of screen will enable for additional applications that simply weren’t viable on the iPhone. My imagination is running amok. A sheet music player that moves the music across the screen, synchronized with a metronome speed that you’ve selected. Go one further and make it work like all the guitar hero/tap tap applications so it flags the notes you get wrong. The ultimate musician’s practice tool. Annex to the iBooks store : Scores.
Do the reverse, and have it automatically annotate the music that you’re playing since it’s got a pretty significant chunk of horsepower. Or just straight recording for post treatment.
Imagine that you have a piano keyboard with a Dock Connector instead of a typing keyboard? Or a mixing console? Or DJ platters?
Given the Wyse PocketCloud how hard would it be to imagine a Back to My Mac client? Access to your computer from anywhere for MobileMe customers.
Convergence does work… when it’s done right
What’s also very important is that convergence without coherence doesn’t work very well. This is exemplified in today’s current desktop computing environments. The learning curve is often brutal and one of the reasons that many people have a bad image of computers. One of Apple’s strengths has always been a draconian approach concerning the user interface. As long as the reaction to a given action is consistent, the average user can move from application to application easily because the basic assumptions about how you use it remain the same.
I think that the interest is that it’s a general purpose tactile device with a consistent UI and and optimized SDK that will eventually mean that it will be many different things to many different people who will each buy it in order to meet their specific needs. I’m no longer an active musician, but I can imagine the possibilities. At the same time, this has pretty much pushed the Kindle purchase off the list, since I’ll be reading eBooks on the train, with the option to troubleshoot my VMware environments, thanks to a VDI connection. I probably won’t even load any music on an iPad since the iPhone is significantly more convenient for that. But expect that others will happily pop it into their knapsack with the headphones trailing out the side.
All of this without the specter of it being a “computer”. For a lot of people that aren’t technical this is a big deal. Especially when taken in the context of people that have been exposed to the iPhone, whether they own one or not.
The hidden message behind iWork
iWork is meant as an inspirational work as much as a product in it’s own right. Apple’s goal here is to showcase to developers that the iPad can handle this kind of complex application and to pioneer the appropriate interface guidelines for advanced object manipulation. I look at any number of applications that I use daily on the iPhone and can quickly see how they could profit from the additional screen real estate. I’m looking forward to seeing what the iPad version of NetNewsWire will look like, along with the Stanza and Kindle apps.
The other key take-away here is that applications on the iPhone center around the 99¢ mark, and serious applications for the iPad will center around $10. That will attract developers that develop for vertical and niche markets since it should be easier to turn a profit on fewer unit sales. Not to mention that many of the the application ideas that were non-viable on the iPhone due to screen limitations are suddenly possible.
Related posts:
iPad round 2 - AT&T vs Verizon
iPad round 3 - Thoughts and reflections