Jan 30
People are griping about the iPad – and rightfully so.
We expected more. We got a big iPod Touch.
We expected to be blown away. We were left feeling underwhelmed.
We expected magic. We got slight of hand.
But the sentiments on the internet seem to mirror the original sentiments people had about the iPhone and we all know how that turned out.
My take is this: Apple did a lousy job presenting this device and making people understand what they would use it for.
This is not a device anyone needs. It’s a device that, eventually, no one will be able to live without.
With the iPhone Steve and Co. did a great job of telling us why we needed it…how it would supplant our laptops for more mundane tasks and would always be with us. We didn’t get that with the iPad. We got Steve awkwardly browsing from 50ft away. The iPad is not a visual experience it is a tactile one. Sure the press hands on time helped, but even at that – I saw a lot of people being walked though the device by Apple’s people. If anything they put a finger or 2 on it. They held it for a few minutes at best. This is not how you sell a device that is, visually at least, basically a photoframe with a touch interface.
Let people have it. Let the press roll around with it in bed. Let them take it out to dinner. On a vacation. Let them form an intimate bond and then get up on stage and say “When we first met, iPad and I didn’t really get along. But now that we’ve been together for a month I can’t live without it.” It is a device that will grow on people as they use it. I will cite my wife as an example; when I gave her an iPod touch she said “what am I going to use this for??” After a month it was never out of reach. And she doesn’t use it for music at all. She grew to appreciate it’s convenience. She downloaded apps that made her daily routine easier or better. She shared photos of our son with people she works with. It has become an extension of her existing notepad, wallet and iMac.
What Steve did was show us a bunch of apps – many of which were simply iPod apps uprezzed. He didn’t show us WHY we would use them. Why do I need Keynote on this device? Because it allows me to give impromptu presentations to small groups of colleagues without dragging out a projector. Why would I need the fancy (and arguably nicest looking app they showed) Calendar on this when I have one on my phone already? Because the month view, sitting in a dock is an interactive always visible planner. People are thinking “portable” – which it is. But think “docked” as well. Look at what Mimo is doing with 7in USB monitors. Now think about the iPad again – this time sitting docked next to your desktop machine and not under your arm at Starbucks.
There were so many apps they COULD have shown that would have been better as well. 10 in screen and 1.5lbs? I’m not playing Need for Speed on that without my shoulders aching from steering the dang thing.
Show me apps like:
- Mind Node for Mindmapping by touch – fluid and intuitively
- Instaviz for diagramming quickly in a meeting or on the go
- Kindle reader so I don’t have to repurchase my books through iBooks
- MyWiki for notes
- Evernote for a mobile brain
- Reeder is a fantastic news reader interface
- TouchTerm and TN3270 and Jaadu VNC for in the field troubleshooting
- Instapaper and ReadItLater for consumption of web content
- Regator because it’s iPhone interface is fantastic
- HandBase or Bento for mobile data collection
- Momento for a journal
- Quickreader – speed read without eye strain.
- Music Studio for an incredible pocket studio
- Sketchbook / Layers / Brushes – digital sketchpads for any creative type
- PhotoForge for big screen portable photo editing
- Mark On Call for interior designers in the field
- Star Voyager for a hand held star atlas
- But if you must show games – what about:
- Toy Box – 10in screen physics sandbox
- Scrabble – suddenly much more playable with more of the board visible at once
- Field Runners – the consummate tower defense game
- Civ Rev – again, larger screen more of map to see
Hardware wise – this is a device that is meant for media consumption yet the cap is 64gb with no external storage (that we know of today). How do I fit my music, pictures, videos, movies and now books in 64gb? I can’t. Why no camera? GPS? This could have been a fantastic tool for surveyors, insurance assessors, contractors, real estate agents and on and on – if it only had just those 2 pieces of hardware in it. I am pretty confident we will see them in the future – but they should have been in there today. It would help people understand the possibilities. This is a non descript hardware platform…make it whatever you like through software.
No Flash support? This, much to Adobe’s chagrin, will become less and less an issue as time goes on. HTML5 is taking flash’s place little by little and it will eventually fade away or evolve. Adobe’s flash plugin on OSX – even on the desktop machines – is horrendous. It’s slow, crash prone and a huge memory hog. If Adobe can’t get the plugin right – I don’t blame apple for leaving it off and, honestly, I don’t miss it on my Touch or Android device.
So, in summary I think Apple really dropped the ball on this presentation. I don’t think a lot of thought went into how to show off a device that no one truly needs. Jobs himself seemed uncertain – so much so that he questioned himself at the end – “can we pull this off?” Â I think they can – but I think the initial hurdle is going to be big. Once the device is out there – in people’s hands – where they can feel it, work with it, see how fast it is – then the momentum will pick up and the iPad will change the way we compute. Count on it.