Core77

The iPad: They're onto something...we're just not sure what

By Rain Noe - January 28, 2010

in Object Culture

Yesterday I had trouble seeing the iPad clearly, because when I looked directly at it I was blinded by the haze of media hype, excitement, disappointment, adulation and hatred that the blogosphere laid over it. This morning I've spent the past few hours trying to see the device for what it really is and asking myself, "How will people end up actually using this thing?"

The short answer is: I'm not sure. When the iPhone first came out, I picked one up right away for the bling of the visual voicemail and the convenience of reducing the amount of devices I carry by one, ditching my iPod and putting music on the phone. I never foresaw the importance of the App Store, and things like the convenience of having books with me (via the Kindle app) wherever I go, which greatly increased my reading; whenever I was stuck on a line somewhere I'd pop the iPhone on, and I read in bed with it just about every night, given that Amazon has a world of books available instantly. I also never foresaw the awful misery of having call after call dropped by AT&T's network, which would also occasionally deliver voicemails to me hours after they were recorded, with no indication that I was missing out on anything.

The iPad is clearly different than the iPhone in that it's one more thing I'd have to carry, not one less; Apple's party line is that the trade-off is worth it because it is a superior, and more intimate, way of interacting with the internet and things like photos than a laptop or smartphone. The demonstrations to back this up definitely looked cool, and as a person interested in working with my hands I love that Multitouch harkens back to an era when we manually manipulated things rather than aiming a mouse cursor; but until I get my hands on an iPad to try it, my internal jury will sit in the jury room silently eating sandwiches and waiting for instructions from the judge.

The lack of multitasking capability seems it would prevent the iPad from being the main machine--it's like a patrol car that can only round up one suspect at a time, whereas my laptop is Central Booking, with a multitude of handcuffed hookers, perps and cops running this way and that.

The unitasking nature of the iPad again harkens to an earlier era, one when we would focus on only one thing at a time. Given that the way we work has changed, probably irreversibly for me, I think the iPad could only serve as a recreational device for me. But it might be very useful for, say, a computer-illiterate parent for whom unitasking would be a boon. Hitting that un-computered market segment is surely a worthwhile goal.

As for myself, one thing I'd be curious to try is having, say, six iPads arrayed around my desk: One for photos, one for e-mail, Tweetdeck, word processing, web browsing, and the calendar, at a minimum. The increased screen real estate would surely improve my productivity and efficiency, as my extra 20" monitor has when pared to my laptop; but even if I had the three grand to pull this off, if this Brady Bunch cannot all talk to each other, I'm dead in the water. Perhaps future versions will allow you to gang them up?

As per my initial experience with the iPhone, I suspect that the real utility of the iPad will not become obvious to me until after I buy one and spend some time with it. Presumably an App developer will think of something super-useful, or Apple will expand the device's capabilities through software, or this early shot at Multitouch for the masses will spawn tons of imitators and lead to pervasive and permanent industry-wide change.

Come springtime yes, I will be buying one, partly out of experimentation and curiousity and mostly to use as an e-book reader. The Kindle is $489, and the iPad model I'd buy is $499. But I'm guessing a lot of undiscovered potential lies in that $10 gap.

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Ken J

15 years ago

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They let politics get in the way of good product design. No Flash support is crippling this thing. There isn't a full web experience without it.
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Jotoid

15 years ago

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I carry a mobile phone because I need to make and receive phonecalls.
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.....

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Jay

15 years ago

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I think this is another excellent example of design based innovation driving innovations in meaning.
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.

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Jay

15 years ago

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This is the first unbiased, undramatic initial critiques I've read. I agree that it is one more thing to carry, but for me it sort of fills the gap there when I want to go online, but I don't want to worry about my laptop dying, or dealing with a 3.5" screen.
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Ralphy

15 years ago

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"The iPad is clearly different than the iPhone in that it's one more thing I'd have to carry, not one less"

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.
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