Redbean - It has been interesting listening to people discussing the iPad in the past week or so with the conversation revolving around “would you buy one?”. One group mockingly think of it as a large phone and mime putting this large device up to their ear which always gets a good laugh. The other group tries to extrapolate down from what they do on their laptop today and wonder what it will be like to use a screen keyboard and where will I save my documents? etc.
Both are genuine concerns of course but both have missed the point of the iPad. I first spoke in public of this device when working with Apple in 1992 and have been anticipating its release ever since. And amazingly the form factor and functionality is not far from what we imagined in those early days at Apple. Yet the technology and market was way behind the concept.
One of the only ways we can understand new technology or a new paradigm is to extrapolate from our existing knowledge and behaviour. We change in step fashion. People need examples to build upon. That’s why truly revolutionary products fail. People just can’t get it.
Now both of the examples above come from the same paradigm which is the production paradigm. Or what we have mostly been doing with computers to date. One uses a laptop to produce (music, movies, stories) and even an iPhone has a particular purpose - to produce communications.
The iPad comes from a new and growing paradigm which is to consume. It won’t compete with previous devices because it is for a whole new growth market - low cost subscription consumption of digital media. This is an enter/info/edutainment device beyond compare. Rich interactive media connected to the ether to browse, find and consume content like never before possible in one device.
Most current web content is texty, 2D, and non-interactive and this will shift to rich graphical, 3D and highly interactive, but also highly connected, content. The days of pulling out of an application to go to Google to search for a related piece of information will largely disappear as these connections are made seamlessly behind the scenes. The concept of Find will replace Search.
So who is going to buy this thing? Mainly people you haven’t met yet. That is a whole new audience. The people that iPhone and laptop users don’t mix with. ie the other 80% of the population.
Apple is on a winner here but this time they will be sharing the spoils with Nokia, Sony and Panasonic and the like since now they are firmly in the mobile consumer market. And a very competitive market it is.
February 19th, 2010 at 7:51 am
I wonder if some of the confusion around the iPad is related to the increasing drive for ‘one’ device in the market. The humble mobile phone now does everything except wash the dishes (there’s probably someone somewhere working on that app right now!). Was the market expecting that the iPad would replace everything in one device - phone, camera, video camera, laptop, web browser, digital book etc. To me the size Apple have chosen makes the purpose clear - it is for enjoying digital content on a decent size screen. If that means that you have to pull your phone out of your pocket when it rings, you’ll survive! I’m looking forward to seeing an iPad in the flesh to see what it can do.