Last Wednesday’s keynote announced the Apple iPad, and it produced a colossal wave of feedback in the digital (and even analog) worlds.
The Minnov8 gang dedicated their whole weekly podcast to this new gadget, and the reaction there was largely positive. I believe it was Phil Wilson who suggested that, even if version one of the IPad lacks certain much-wanted features, the device still stands to be a game-changer over the next several years.
In the geek gadget community, reaction leaned negative. Engadget and Gizmodo focused on what the iPad doesn’t have and doesn’t do. Still, I noticed that the gadget hound sites, which were blasting insults full-force on Wednesday and Thursday, are quickly walking back, making certain that search results going forward show summaries that are more wait-and-see than the earlier point-and-laugh. Why are they doing this? Look no further than a brief, Slashdot review from 2001 of the iPod, in which Apple’s then-new mp3 player was dismissed as “lame.” Ooh. That stings.
I tend to care little about the impressions of Apple products from people who don’t use Macs as a primary computer, or who’ve never used a Mac for work at all. When it comes to evaluating Apple products, existing users matter. John Gruber at Daring Fireball writes various and assorted thoughts and observations regarding the just announced iPad. He’s mostly bullish, pointing at the end to price (starting at $499), the one piece of Steve Jobs’ presentation that truly astonished. All by design, says Gruber:
Clearly they’re more interested in unit sales than per-unit margin. The mobile computing landscape is in land-grab mode, and Apple is trying to stake out a long-term dominating position.
Still, there is honest skepticism out there, and it bears repeating. Steve Yelvington points to the many missing elements in his review: Regarding the iPad, I am Dr. Buzzkill. He also curbs the idea that iPad presents a new way to kickstart paid content options for newspapers.
You aren’t prevented from selling your content by lack of technology and tools; you’re prevented by a lack of market demand.
I concur. In the run up to the announcement, plenty of folks, including me, were skeptical of a tablet device presenting a new business model in itself for content creators. It’ll be interesting to see what, if anything, magazines and newspapers do with iPad that couldn’t be done before.
Yelvington follows up with an interesting post today, about the wars which are now being waged. The iPad announcement is positioned most commonly as Apple vs. Google (Android), and perhaps Apple vs. Adobe (due to Flash, which the iPhone and iPad do not support, and which might well be eclipsed by HTML5). But above all, says Yelvington, the technological advances of January present the new ecosystem vs. Microsoft.
I was too busy during the initial hubbub to configure any real opinion of Apple’s iPad. But over the weekend, as I’ve gathered it all in, I’ve come to a conclusion I didn’t really expect a week ago. I want one.
Despite all its limitations in comparison to iPhones and Powerbooks, I see the iPad as an ideal device for simple Web browsing, limited reading, and other media consumption. Today, in our house, we often leave computers turned on nearly consistently (albeit in sleep mode). And it seems every half hour or so, me or my wife will wake it up to get some question answered on the Web: Find out how late the library is open. Check on whether store X has that thing we need to get tomorrow. Grab some info from the school. Buy a new song on iTunes. Check email. Remember who that actor was in Repo Man. And on and on.
There’s simply no question that the iPad would be more convenient for this stuff, and would allow us to shut down the Powerbook and the iMac desktop unless there is serious work to be done. Similarly, at coffee shops, meetings, ballgames and other places where wifi is available, the iPad presents a decent little working tool that doesn’t have to be flipped up, fired up, lapped or tabled.
At a price of $1000 (which was expected), iPad would have been a luxury perhaps too steep for the value. But for $500, I can totally see owning one, even in its first iteration. And within 5 years of iPad and its competitors’ advances, I can totally see one in every household that has the means, not unlike the iPod.
