The iPad: Imperfect, But Enough for Me!

Posted 29 January 2010

I’ve been lusting after a great tablet device for a long time. The iPad has its faults, but it’s the first that really appeals to me. Bottom line: I can’t wait to get one.

Is it an entirely new category of device, as some have claimed? It’s true, of course, that it’s not much more than iPod Touch Jumbo. From a technical perspective, it’s cool, but not earthshaking.

From the perspective of how it will be used, however, I think it will create a new category. It is the most intimate merger yet of computing and consumer electronics.

A Clear View, Not a Short Distance

A dozen years ago, I wrote an editorial for Microprocessor Report about tablets being the future of news, and suggested that they would become common living-room appliances. As futurist Paul Saffo is fond of saying, never mistake a clear view for a short distance. My vision was clear, but the distance was a decade more than I anticipated.

My previous startup, PhotoTablet, was founded to build a tablet that would be a consumer’s digital photo world. For a variety of reasons, it wasn’t realistic, and PhotoTablet turned into Fotiva, a software company.

So it was with some interest that I’ve watched the emergence of the iPad. As usual with any major Apple introduction, it was way overhyped by some of the press, and it’s been attacked by many in ways that just miss the point.

An iPod Touch Jumbo is enough for me, and I expect it will be quite successful. I think this will be an excellent living-room device. It feels (or, I should say, it looks like it will feel) much friendlier than a notebook computer for reading the news while drinking my morning coffee, or to share photos while sitting on the couch, or to casually look something up on the web while away from my computer.

I expect it will also give eBook readers a run for their money. Will users choose a dedicated device without color or video but with a lower price, longer battery life, and possibly an easier-on-the-eyes display, over one with many uses and color video? My gut is that most will not, and that over time Apple will match or exceed the available libraries for the dedicated devices.

Not Without Its Limitations

It does have a number of limitations, of course, but as the first member of a family it looks pretty darn good.

The limitation that frustrates me the most is the lack of Flash support, which makes Apple’s claim that this is the best Web experience ever just wrong. Apple could surely put Flash on it if it wanted to. The lack of Flash support must, I believe, indicate some sort of pissing contest between the two companies. There is no shortage of bad blood between Apple and Adobe, and there is every appearance that Apple would like to see Flash die, though I don’t understand their motivations.

I don’t see this as a business device, or as something I would take traveling. If I’m going to take something this big, I’d take my MacBook. It is not just the lack of a keyboard and physical protection, but the lack of multitasking and rich applications. I would take it over to a friend’s house to share pictures, though.

The Long Road

No company could have built a device like this from scratch. Apple was able to do it by cleverly extending its product range over an extended period.

The iPod started out as nothing more than a slightly better MP3 player, which was catapulted to dominance by its iTunes integration and great marketing.

Then Apple added the ability to play tiny videos.

The big leap was merging with a phone and adding applications, which initially were proprietary Apple apps only. Apple would have had a very hard time jumping into the phone business if it were not for the iPod, which gave lots of people a strong reason to buy an iPhone independent of its quality as a phone.

Then Apple opened up the App Store, and the iPhone became the most important new computing platform since the Mac and Windows.

And now Apple is leveraging all of that design evolution, and the momentum of the iPhone, to create the first really exciting consumer tablet.

It’s the kind of strategy that few companies have ever been able to execute on so well.