Kenny Hemphill
Apple’s new tablet may have its many detractors, but don’t let them fool you because the iPad will change the way we all use computers forever.
There are many reasons to doubt that Apple’s iPad will repeat the phenomenal success of the iPod and iPhone. For one thing, it seems to be a platform without a purpose. Whereas both the iPod and iPhone entered markets that were already well developed, and grabbed enough of a share to establish Apple as a force to be reckoned with, the iPad, by the company’s own admission, is plugging a gap between the smartphone and laptop markets.
For many people, that gap has already been filled by the netbook – mini-computers that have more in common with the laptop than the smartphone, although they lack the power of one and convenience of the other. The iPad takes a completely different approach and is much closer to a smartphone than a notebook.
Additionally, the iPad lacks support for Flash, meaning that around 75% of online video streams won’t work in its Safari browser. It doesn’t have a USB 2 port or a card reader, or even a camera. It’s too big and bulky not to need a bag for it when you’re commuting, and if you want to run applications on it, you’ll have to buy them directly from Apple.
And yet, despite those not inconsiderable shortcomings, it will not only sell by the million, it will be the computer that changes the way we think about and use computers forever. It will be the device that, when we look back in 10 years time, will be identified as the template for home-based computers for years to come.
Initially, its success will be built on something that we Mac users have always understood. That while other technology companies build devices that are tolerated as a means to an end, Apple builds objects that inspire wonder and bring real joy to those of us who put often very sensible objections to one side and buy them.
Take a walk into any Apple retail store once the iPad starts shipping and you’ll see exactly why these tablets will sell as quickly as they can be manufactured. Pick one up, use it and watch the reactions of others in the store as they do the same. If the reactions of those who were able to spend some time with an iPad following the announcement in San Francisco are a guide, then the iPad will be a very easy sale to close.
It takes more than a bit of ‘wow’ to establish a new product, let alone an entirely new market, and sustain long-term growth. And a great deal more to change the face of computing. Luckily, the iPad has plenty more going for it. First, it’s made by Apple, which means that there are already thousands of accessory manufacturers, developers and content owners lining up to make their stuff available to iPad owners. Unlike most companies that try to create markets, Apple can count on an entire industry evolving almost overnight to support its new baby, partly thanks to the strength of its brand and partly because of the iPad’s close relationship with the iPhone. And that makes the iPad vastly more attractive to prospective customers.
Then there’s the most important feature of all: the user interface. If Apple has been about anything for the past 10 years, it’s been about enabling. It has enabled millions of us to easily and painlessly legally download music and video, and consume it wherever we choose. It’s easy to forget that before 2003 when the iTunes Store launched, buying music online and downloading it was a pretty horrible experience. And before the iPod, transferring music to a digital player and listening to it on the move was barely worth the effort involved.
Apple – Steve Jobs and Jonathan Ive in particular – understands how people use technology. It recognises exactly what we want from it and what we’re prepared to do to get it. For example, it appreciates that reading a magazine or newspaper, or watching video while sitting at a desk in front of a big screen, might be the experience we’ve become used to, but it isn’t the one we’d choose. Surfing the web with a notebook balanced on our laps might have seemed liberating once, but it’s far from ideal.
So, as it did with the Mac, the iPod and the iPhone, Apple designed a better way. A way to read, view and interact with digital media that has far more in common with the way we consume books and magazines than it does with computers.
In doing so, it left a few things behind, such as USB ports, as they have no place in the living room or kitchen. But it also changed how we will use computers at home in a way that we’ll come to see as revolutionary in the next decade as broadband Internet access was in the last one.
