So here's my take on the new iPad. First of all I don't like the name. It sounds like an electronic Playtex. But then again, I didn't like 'Wii' at first either.
In general, whether we realize it or not, the iPad lived up to most expectations.
It's actually faster, less expensive, and has better battery life than anyone predicted. Like Apple's first generation 'electronic accessories' (read: not a stand-alone computer) before it, the tech crowd is decrying the iPad's missing features. This is something that I would expect. The original iPhone sold like hot cakes despite lacking 3G, video, MMS, copy-paste, GPS, and probably a lot of other things I've already forgotten. On paper, my motorola KRZR should have been a better phone. The original iPod also looked terrible on paper when it was released in 2001. It had less HD space than competitors and none of the features manufacturers were experimenting with at the time like bluetooth and FM. Engadget writer Nilay Patel reminds everybody that the original iPod was considered lame. But eventually (or more suddenly for the iPhone) these products not only became successful, but ubiquitous.
Why? I'll give you a hint, it's not because Apple has mastered voodoo. These products had a focus that no other similar product could match. The iPod redefined the MP3 experience. As other electronics companies were looking for the next feature to get a leg up on the competitors, Apple transformed the experience where by music goes from CDs and files, then to the computer, then on your MP3 player, and finally finds itself in your ears. The iphone transformed the process where the powerful hardware in cell-phones, after being neglected for nearly a decade, was finally taken advantage of.
Both of these products were lambasted by the tech crowd on day one. But this tech crowd is made up of the same type of person who developed the motorola KRZR, the sony mini-disc player, and, hell, modern PCs in general. All of which made my past tech life miserable. What each of these electronics lacked was focus on the consumer experience. What the tech community doesn't see, the consumer does.
And that is where the iPad will blow every netbook, every MID, every UMPC--really everything between an iPhone and a Laptop--out of the water. The minute young John Doe goes over to his wealthy Mac-fanboy uncle's house and is handed the iPad, where he can flip through his uncle's entire Movie library, watch each of them on a gorgeous screen, sample his uncle's music library on the couch, then play it throughout the house, read books, watch the newspaper, play gorgeous, uniquely interactive video games, and surf the internet seamlessly (and do all of this for an entire day without plugging in), John Doe will be asking for two things, to spend more time at uncle Jim's and an iPad for Christmas.
Without leaving the living room the iPad bests it's different competitors in their niche. It is better at books than eBooks. It's better at the (non-flash) internet than MIDs. It can hold it's own with the video game innovations of the DS(i). Movies and music are better than on any PMP. Moving outside the living room, it's the size of a paperback book, with the weight of a hardback. Think coffee shop, public transportation, airplanes.
The iPad, like the iPhone, is a door opener. It's lacking in several respects (multi-tasking, flash support, camera) but it will effectively connect users with the foreseeable and unforeseeable possibilities offered by it's sophisticated and refined (yet in some important ways lacking) hardware. The devices current highlights, iWork, iBooks, web browsing, the NYT app, are just previews.
Will I buy this iPad? No, it's not for me right now. But this isn't because of any of it's missing features (I don't ever miss multitasking or flash websites on my iPhone, I wouldn't need for it to be stand-alone capable, I prefer to read real, cheap, used books to eBooks, and I would always rather video chat on something bigger or smaller than an iPad). I am talking about whether or not it will be successful. And mark my words, it will be a success. The key to understanding this device, or any of Apple's accessory electronics, is to not compare it against competitors on the basis of features, but instead, the user experience. Most consumers will never know what an ebook reader, MID, PMP or UMPC is; why would they need to when they could just own or envy an iPad?
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