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The iPad: They're onto something...we're just not sure what
I carry a laptop because I need it for work which obviously can't be done on my phone as I can not take out my laptop everytime somebody calls.
The iPad doesn't do anything more than what I can't do with those two devices. It may offer a better experience,but that I can only tell after spending some time.
I ll give you that the iPad with the closed apple system will propably be a great product for the computer-illiterate. Hopefully that will have some impact on the devices for the rest of us.
Though I would spend an extra 500 for one fitted in the place of my macbook pro keyboard, that would also help me get rid of my wacom! It would just be an extra 200 euro from what i spent for my intuos.....
Let me explain, from a technological hardware and software perspective there is a lot of interesting new stuff going on here but non of it is really radical technological innovation, they are purely incremental improvements from previous products.
{This is where most tech heads live and this is what they usually criticize which is ignoring the larger user value proposition.}
From a meaning perspective we have a product the iPad which has made a statement about what it is and isn't with respect to other products, it isn't a phone and it isn't a laptop, Jobs has also said it isn't a net book, and for all intensive purposes you couldn't define it in the same category as an eBook.
It is in this re-proposition of what the product idea is and what it means to the user, that it creates a lot of consternation between consumers.
People don't know what to make of this product, it doesn't marry up to any of their pre-understood meanings of products that they have used, and when they to compare it to a product they understand the meaning of it falls short.
Why is this? because this product was not designed to exist within this pre understood category.
It's like introducing a brand new never before seen fruit and comparing it with an orange or banana.
If we take this scenario we can quickly work out what consumer expectations will be, the first phase will be a polarization between people. These two groups will be made up of those people who compare this new fruit to their favorite fruit and respond with a negative reaction and the second group who are a bit more open minded.
Thing is in this second group, it is typically much smaller then the first, and this is where niche markets come into play, nothing becomes mainstream straight away, it typically starts off in niche markets.
This is because only niche markets are able to initially understand and accept the brand new meaning of product (This is human nature there's a lot of literature about this)
The more radical the meaning the smaller the market. New product and category meanings also take time to be adopted and accepted, this is because it requires a pretty big change in market perspectives and behaviors.
So if your innovating on meaning, you not only have to create a new product category but you also have to create a new market segment as well, that's a hard thing to successfully do, and it's something which Apple, Nintendo, Google and other company's of successfully used as a strategy time and time again.
Finally you also have to remember that whether or not this product succeeds or fails, the learnings apple will gain from this product will create insights which would place apple ahead of the pack in the innovation stakes.
It's primarily a home appliance, not something you lug around the city all day. When you're sitting on the couch or in bed, better this for reading/browsing/e-mailing than the iPhone or a MacBook.
Also better for plane rides, weekend trips, etc.