It has been several days now since Apple announced the iPad, and there has been no shortage of discussion and debate online regarding the device. Considering the gigantic amount of hype leading up to the announcement, it’s not surprising the amount of post-announcement discussion that has been posted online.
Any time a new device is announced, there inevitably are two distinct camps that form and begin debating: those who love the device and those who dislike the device. Immediately following the initial iPad announcement, I found myself leaning toward the ho-hum dislike side of the fence. After thinking it over the past few days and reading anyone and everyone online who has posted on the topic, I think I’m now firmly entrenched on the approval side of the fence.
What I had to get past was the fact that the iPad isn’t designed or intended for someone like me.
When you think about it, a computer truly is a very detailed/technical/intricate piece of equipment that requires a lot of knowledge to use properly. The fact is, the vast majority of people in the world don’t need, and probably shouldn’t even be using a computer in the first place (based on technical proficiency).
Sure, over the past two decades we have seen great leaps forward in computer “usability” that have made the “personal computer” something that the average consumer can at least feign proficiency in using. But all fancy desktop graphics and UI enhancements do are simply mask and hide the very technical aspects of a computer. A very small percentage of the population is truly technical enough (or interested enough in the technical aspects of computers) to use a computer properly.
Hand a novice user an iPhone or iPod Touch and they can quickly get up an running in roughly 5 minutes or so. Now, try getting a novice user up and running quickly on that new HP desktop they just brought home from Best Buy (or even on a new iMac brought home from the Apple Store).
The fact is most consumers simply don’t need a computer as we know it today, and most probably shouldn’t be using one anyways. The iPad will do exactly what 90% of consumers need a “computer” to do for them. Email, photo/video sharing, web browsing, casual gaming, social networking, etc…
The iPad is intended for this group of people, and that is why Apple was correct in calling the device a completely new category of computing equipment.
If you are the type of person who wants to write code, create and edit digital media, use bittorent, or have SSH access too all your machines, then the iPad simply isn’t intended for you (until it’s jailbroken that is :)). I count myself a member of that group. The iPad isn’t intended for me, and that is fine.
That being said, will I still buy an iPad? Yes, most likely. I’ll need one around as I’ll be writing software for it (and also to appease my geek technolust). But, in the end, my wife will probably end up using the iPad much more than I do. If the iPad gets (or already has) an application that can do cropping and basic photo editing, then there will be nothing that the iPad can’t do as demonstrated during the announcement that will prevent my wife from using the device as her full-time “computer” on launch day.
So, that’s were I stand at the moment on the iPad. Apple once again has a product on their hands that has the potential to become the same kind of success the iPod became. The iPod was slow to gain steam and understanding amongst the “technical” crowd as well, because it simply wasn’t intended for us. The iPad is another one of those devices that we may be scratching our heads about now, but will come to see in a clearer light after a product revision or two.
(BTW, if this post is a bit rambling, I blame it on the Wordpress app for the iPhone. I had been writing this over the past two days in chunks on my iPhone, and today the Wordpress app decided to completely delete the whole post content on me.)
