Another weblog

29 January 2010

Unless you’ve been living in a cave, you’ve undoubtedly heard about Apple’s spanking-new device: the iPad. And while this is one of the most hyped products ever—people have anticipated it possibly more than the iPhone—some have their doubts about it, even calling it an iDud. Just because they won’t be getting one.

In my opinion the only duddish part about the iPad is the fact that it’s not going to be available for another two or three months. I think this will reduce sales—unless Apple makes a new and improved version of it (such as by releasing iPhone OS 4.0) before it comes out.

Why do I think the iPad will be a great success? I offer two reasons:

• Some people don’t want a full-fledged notebook computer.
• Some people don’t want a full-fledged notebook computer.

In all seriousness, these are two distinct reasons, because they identify two different classes of potential buyers.

The first class consists of people who have no use for anything except email, Internet, music, photos, film and light word-processing. They just want an affordable device that does not have the burdens of a full-fledged notebook computer. It should be intuitive and simple to use, efficiently doing the things they want to do.

Netbooks aren’t the answer. All a netbook does is take a notebook and scale it down. What’s left is a device that does what a notebook does, badly. The iPad, on the other hand, is redesigned from the ground up. Though it is less expensive than a notebook, it not only does what people want it to do—it does it better than anything else. From what I can see, the iPad is unparallelled for web-browsing, private video-watching, photo-sharing and maybe even email.

Here are three sub-reasons why the iPad is better than a notebook at what it does:

• For $130 more, the iPad has 3G capabilities. That means that a person can have unlimited Internet access anywhere for $30 a month—or less for limited access—with no contract involved. This is perfect for people who want email on vacation, and cannot be done with a notebook or netbook.
• iPhone apps give this device advantages that cannot be had on a notebook—at a reasonable price.
• Reading books on an iPad is far better than reading them on a notebook computer. (This also means that the iPad may take over much, if not most, of the Kindle sector: for only $10 more than the Kindle DX, a person can have a device that does so much more.)

The other class of people consists of those who already have an iMac or some other desktop computer. It’s not that they don’t do anything except read email and ebooks and watch films and look at photos; it’s that they already do those things on their desktop. They don’t want a notebook that merely duplicates what they already do on the iMac; they want a gadget that does something else and does it well, and for less money.

Some people are disappointed with the iPad because it isn’t what they wanted it to be. But just because the iPad doesn’t (yet) have a camera and sophisticated photo- and film-editing software doesn’t mean that a great many people will find it the most satisfying electronic device available for what they want to do. The iPad is a product for consumers, not creators, and should be evaluated as such. Yes, the iPad is a toy. But it’s no less of a toy than the iPod. Just because you’re not making spreadsheets on it doesn’t mean it’s useless.

In any case, I want to go to the Apple Store in March just to hold one in my hands.

Posted in Technology |