iPad Revisited
I noticed that Whale Oil was moaning about the short comings of the new iPad in a post the other day and a number of other people I have spoken to have decried it in a similar vein. No USB, no Camera, no 1080p playback, no flash etc.
That’s OK, whale. You are not the consumer we are looking for…
Fraser Speirs at Macworld.com hit the proverbial nail right on the head with this excellent article:
“The Real Work is not formatting the margins, installing the printer driver, uploading the document, finishing the PowerPoint slides, running the software update or reinstalling the OS.
“The Real Work is teaching the child, healing the patient, selling the house, logging the road defects, fixing the car at the roadside, capturing the table’s order, designing the house and organizing the party.”
Exactly. While all of us techogeeks love to fiddle with the ins and outs of our operating system, the vast majority of computer users don’t give a rip about this – they just want their computer to be useful. Apple do not always entirely succeed in making their computers easy to use, but I suspect the iPad, with several years of iPhone and iPod Touch experience behind it, will be as close to this goal as possible. Sure there will be plenty of bits left out, some of which would have been genuinely useful, but that is what future generations of the device will tackle. But, in the meantime, the device will make portable computing finally accessible to the majority simply because it does not have flash, USB or a camera (did you REALLY want to take pictures with it, Whale?).
The iPhone rapidly dominated the smart phone market not because it was a better phone or had more features (neither of which is true) but because it is dead easy to use. End of story. (well, apart from the fact it looks nice). I recall the bellyaching about the lack of cut and paste on the iPhone when it first came out. It is now in the current version of the software. I have used it twice. I am certain there will be a few who use it daily, but the majority don’t care and don’t need it. This is the wonderful world of consumer electronics and Apple does it better than anyone.
In the meantime, Whale, I suggest you stick with your laptop… ;-)
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Jan 31 10 4:12 pm
No no no, you have missed the apple point. If you put all the goodies in then you won’t be able to sell all the apps.Like most things these days that’s where the money is.
Feb 1 10 12:56 am
Actually Apple still makes most of it’s money from hardware.
Gotta love those high margins….
Jan 31 10 4:54 pm
It has been very interesting reading all the commentary on the net regarding this device – mostly from high end tech geeks. They just don’t get it with all their criticisms, and are backward looking not forward looking. Our family will be buying a wifi 32GB ipad as soon as it is released here in NZ. My wife uses an old Toshiba M3 surplus to work requirements as her laptop at home at the moment. The sum total of her computing requirements are:
-web surfing
-trading on Trade Me
-on-line purchasing
-emails – from lists she has subscribed to, friends etc
-the odd u-tube video
-looking at photos
-facebook
-reading the few blogs she follows
That is it. The ipad is going to be absolutely ideal for her. I am sure she will add music to the list. The children will add games, books and movies. The fast start up (compared with the Win XP enabled Toshiba), ease of use and intuitive interface, coupled with – it just works, and great for 5 minutes free between children / tasks mean it is a no brainer.
This is what all the tech-boys are missing. It isn’t particularly designed for them, although they will all end up using one as set out below.
Looking forward – within 2 years MS Office and a whole heap of mainstream and enterprise apps are going to be ‘cloud’ deployed and only needing a decent browser/GPU to run. In a similar vein we will purchasing very cheap, highly secure web based disk / server back up from cloud providers. All the techie screams about lack of storage, mainstream (read microsoft or adobe) apps usage etc will all be moot with a more fully deployed cloud. At that point the ipad comes into its own for many business applications as well. Apple have done very well with this, and will in my opinion, capture a much larger market than many are predicting over the next 2 – 3 years.
There will always be a need for higher (laptop or tower) hardware specs for high end specialist application using techies (most of the commentators), but for most people who view content rather than create it, then an ipad class product will be more than enough. Coupled with cloud deployed back up and enterprise products I can’t see there being many problems with is as product.
I am looking forward to using an ipad as soon as it is available here
Feb 2 10 9:48 am
I second that. The ipad will be the first computer invented that my mother will be able to or will want to use- fullstop. A laptop or netbook was never going to be her style but the ipad will be, especially with that old-school calendar and appointment diary app they have included.
It is the perfect computer for the older generation to use (for cooking recipes, while watching tv, for map reading & voip, you name it), and for the very young generation (learning, games, school).
Feb 4 10 9:01 am
Sorry to point out the obvious, but the iPad does not support flash, so no youtube (and by implication videos on any blogs)
Feb 4 10 5:16 pm
The iPhone (and hence the iPad which runs on the same operating system) has an app that runs YouTube video.
Jan 31 10 6:16 pm
The trick with any device like this is to identify the features and functionality that is needed, and no more. Get the basics in there, enough to do key things and leave people to use desktops for everything else – that’s what they’re for.
Camera? What would you use that for on a big thing like this?
USB is an interesting omission though. The lack of an SD reader is even more questionable. I guess we’ll see how it goes.
scrubone´s last blog ..January Halfdone NZ Blog Stats
Feb 1 10 1:00 am
I understand the omission of USB. If Apple put in a USB port they would have to include basic drivers for all USB devices instead of the more limited handful of bluetooth ones – also it needs quite a bit of power and space inside. None of Apple’s stuff has an SD slot. in an iPod/iPad it would simply occupy too much premium space.
Jan 31 10 7:15 pm
Absolutly perfect for my work.
And everyone who wants JUST an internet browser- an ever-increasing market.
Jan 31 10 7:28 pm
Camera might be useful for Skype?
Would you like to listen to music while you work?
Backup all that work you’re doing to a place that is not in the cloud?
Easily get new media from a variety of sources?
etc
Feb 1 10 1:08 am
If you want to video Skype on a 3G connection, feel free. I long ago gave up masochism.
There is plenty of space for music and the iPad has a built in speaker – though I suspect earphones will be the way to go.
Backup can be done on your home computer (remember, the iPad is designed to be a second computer for those who don’t need the full capability of a laptop everywhere they go.)
Media can be downloaded wirelessly or through 3G or through you home computer. – I don’t see much point for an SD slot (nice to view your pictures on holiday perhaps)
Jan 31 10 9:06 pm
I reckon apple became a bit old-fashioned by omitting multi-tasking, as a growing number of us are using social networking aggregators such as Digsby or Fring that are always running in the background. It is way too much pain to have to log in to either of these on an ipad everytime we want to check our feeds or our email.
Apple should at least develop an advanced mail app that can take care of all these different info sources, along with Growl integration, or an Apple equivalent. Sounds obvious to me.
Feb 1 10 1:09 am
Makes sense to me too.
Feb 1 10 4:46 pm
The mail app can actually do some things in the background. See here,
http://lifehacker.com/5460709/current-crop-of-e+readers-compared-ipad-vs-the-rest
However it needs an update IMO so that it can monitor feeds from facebook, twitter, IM services, and so that the user can see in realtime whether other contacts are online.
Jan 31 10 10:42 pm
Indeed I will, a nice new Macbook Pro for video editing.
I could see this being useful, but it was way overhyped, interstingly not by Apple but by tech writers.
Whaleoil´s last blog ..I wonder what the Minister will say about this