This is not going to be a post on how great the iPad will be. That I’ll reserve until I hold one in my hot little hands. No, it seems that the entire tech press has gone out of their way to proclaim the iPad a resounding failure or at least a wrong headed idea.
I don’t know about any of that. I watched Steve Jobs intro the device and one thing I noticed that maybe no one else did was that Steve was very low key in his actual use of the iPad. He described the iPad in superlatives because that’s his job, but when he used it he tried to convey the sense that surfing the ‘net on the iPad will be kind of mundane, almost as mundane as turning on a light, or picking up a remote and turning on the TV.
That’s the point.
I hang around with computer hobbyists. Most are proud that they can build a PC, or install and use Linux, etc. I read tech blogs and sites all day long. These are constantly reviewing things and giving out tips, tricks and other useful information to computer users. They are cognizant that the audience for their sites are the same as they are, so when they give advice, they expect the people reading it have a certain level of knowledge.
I am in tech support. I answer people’s calls about our product. We have a lot of customers and more signing up every day because we provide online backup and storage. People have a need for this, and for the vast majority of our customers, it works fine. I’ll give you a typical example of a call I take every day:
Me: Thanks for choosing <PRODUCT>. Steve speaking, how can I help you?
Customer: I see on my credit card statement that I’ve been charged $9.95 on the first, and then $12.54 on the fourth for your service. What are these for?
Me: Well, the charge on the first is your normal monthly renewal and the one on the fourth sounds like a quota overage. I’d like to check. Can I get your <PRODUCT> username or email please?
Customer: Well, there’s a problem right there, I don’t know my username. I don’t even know if <PRODUCT> is backing up my files.
The customer signed up, configured our software and walked away but didn’t read our terms on quota overages and they never expected that there would be a problem with “us backing up their stuff.” In reality, our system relies on the user to do most of the administration of their account to keep the costs low. That call could go either way at the point where I stopped. I’ll also cop to the fact that we set the expectations of the customer in the wrong way.
Apple has for years done the same thing. Computers are not easy to use, but they would like you to think that Mac OS X is the easiest computer OS out there, and it is for the vast majority of its customers. It isn’t dead easy however. Macs (and all computers, by the way) are complex machines with moving parts and even if the software works flawlessly, there’s no guarantee that any of it’s going to work reliably for the long haul. This is why hard drives are rated on a mean runtime until failure.
Steve Jobs knows this. He also knows that the technology is now almost in alignment with his dream of making computing as easy as toasting a bagel. If you look at the iPhone or iPod Touch, the iPad’s older siblings, you will notice a few things.
- Very few moving parts, namely the toggle switches and home button
- Only one I/O port (two, if you count the headphone jack)
- SIM card tray
- A solid state drive
- A camera
- Speaker and microphone
- Sealed battery compartment
All of the controls for applications and making calls (on the iPhone), except the home button are walled into the touchscreen, including the keyboard. This lessens confusion. The iPad has exactly the same configuration. Why get off a winner? The only things the iPad lacks are a camera, and the ability to make phone calls. So, charges that this is “just a large iPod Touch” may be valid. That’s only part of the story. There have been complaints leveled at the iPad’s bezel. That it’s too thick, and that it takes away the from the screen. There is a reason for this too.
Take a look at your iPhone and note the areas above and below the screen. The top houses the phone receiver, and the proximity and light sensors. The bottom has the home button, the mic and speaker. These locations are great places to grab to the phone so you don’t register a touch on the screen should it be active for some reason. Jony Ive, Apple’s senior vice president in charge of design, describes the iPad this way:
…there isn’t even a single orientation, there’s no up, there’s no down, there’s no right or wrong way of holding it…
This is why the bezel is the way it is, so you can flip it around and not register a touch or obscure something on the screen. Like, while you’re watching a movie lying down on the couch.
I got off on a tangent, but you get the idea.
The bottom line is, the iPad strips away all the layers of complexity from the computing experience. Is it easy to use? Dead easy, but you pay a price. For this, you have limited if any access to the device itself, so it is not “hackable” unless you know what you’re doing. You must install only applications that Apple has approved through its App Store screening process, and you are going to have to go to Apple to change out the battery and it will have a limited upgrade life.
For the vast majority of folks that will buy an iPad, these are actually benefits. For one thing, I don’t think you can point to a single virus caused by an iPhone app. Second, if your iPhone/Touch should lock up for some reason and it’s under warranty Apple will just replace your device no questions asked.
The question you’re probably asking yourselves now is, “Is Steve getting an iPad?” Yes, three in fact. One for me and one each for my wife and daughter. As a portable computer, it’s a no brainer. I asked myself pointedly what I did on my netbook that warranted my using it, and all I do on it is surf the ‘net, do email, write an occasional blog post and watch movies. That’s it. The iPad does all this better and costs a little more. I have a 160 GB hard drive that I am barely using 8 GB of, so 16 GB could be about right for me. I just haven’t decided if I want to go with AT&T’s data plan yet and wait the extra month for the 3G model.
The real bottom line for me; I want my wife and daughter to use their computers a little more, but I don’t want to go through the hassle of tech support every weekend. I would like to post to my blog and watch more movies, not swap out hard drives.
The iPad looks interesting. It is good for someone who does basic stuff vs a power user who does almost everything. I am curious to see what upgrades will be available as they improve it.
Once we get over the media's jokes and the comments by a 12 year old, I think people will be more serious and look at it for what it is.
I still wish that Apple had done their 'touch' screen so that it was reliant on pressure, not skin. My old Sony Clie and the Palm handhelds had this and it worked perfectly. As a person who has fingernails that I'm not actually willing to cut off just to use a device, Apple has pretty much closed the market to me and those like me, unless we use a stylus, which for me defeats the purpose of the 'pad'.
Liz
Hmmm. I dunno. I mean, it looks great, and even if this early version is lacking in some way, I'm sure iPad 2.0 is going to kick some serious booty. This could be the Total Gamechanger that the iPod and the iPhone, but they may depend on how many people just take their laptops out of the house to exclusively surf the web or, as CaptSerek pointed out, if they are going to do some actual *work*.
This might replace your laptop, but only if you have a desktop computer as well. JMHO. YMMV.
You are Mr. 2.0. I would say that if you look at the iPhone in particular, it really hasn't changed much except the software. So I don't think extras like a built in camera, iChat cam or any of that other stuff is going to get added. There is already a keyboard dock that you can get, so you can type a novel into Pages. Also, the iPhone and the iPod/Touch have eco systems that built up around them so I expect a lot of stuff could be piled on the iPad to make it do exactly what you want. You guys are hard on computers anyways. How about a computer, made of Al and glass, with no hinges and battery life beyond the two or so you get with a used powerbook? iPad.
If you look at the presentation SJ gave, one of the first things he pointed out was that the iPad could be used as the middle ground between an iPhone and a full computer. As far as capacitive vs. resistive (pressure sensitive) displays, the iPhone OS has some gestures (pinch/expand and the keyboard in particular) that rely on multitouch and they can only get that using capacitive technology. That said, I've heard that some enterprising souls are trying to overcome the fingernail problem with conductive polish. Another alternative would be to use a glove with a conductive stylus built into the first finger, which exist and are on sale now.
im loving the ipad personally. what do you think of it now? was it upto your standards?
I have written two articles on the IPad on my blog, I am holding off on doing any more until I can at least go and see one and experience it. From what I've seen and read, using it is more of a experience and its hard to quantify. I also have very limited readership on my blog.
As a tech and classic movie lover for many years I have watched the evolution of media and technology over the last 10 years. Because I have been using media in its many forms for many years, I have a different outlook and sense of where the technology is heading. I have been writing a blog for the last couple of years, which I discuss my ideas on tech and media and the directions thats its heading, particularly in relations to consumer rights to use the media that have purchased.
I said all of this as a invite to read my blog and and comment either directly or on the blog.
Ken Lawson
Great information here. Thanks for sharing again!