At the Ann Arbor Briarwood mall Apple store, the iPhones were for the first time feeling lonely and bummed out. I could almost hear them saying “what’s the big deal, he’s just like me, but he won’t fit in your pocket!” In a way I sympathized – the iPad essentially has the functionality of the iPhone, and not much more. Both devices currently lack a multitasking operating system, but are slated to receive this in their next upgrade. The interfaces are basically the same. The only difference is scale.
A tiny computer, or a huge phone?
A larger screen makes it possible to see more and do more. This benefit costs mobility. I think that the success of the iPad will depend on app developers’ ability to differentiate the publicly perceived purpose of the iPad from that of the iPhone.
We now know quite a bit about how people use mobile devices. Social functionality is the name of the game. Take ten people using an iPhone or similar device, nine will be emailing, twittering, facebooking, or using some other app through which they are exchanging information with another person. People also use iPhone’s a lot when they are bored, e.g. sitting in class or riding a bus.
But we haven’t yet nailed down the niche of the iPad. Is it an eReader? A substitute for a laptop? A mobile device? Optimistically, the LA times had this to say:
And it’s not just a device, it’s a platform that can enable new approaches to media. Just as the iPhone gave rise to applications that enhanced computing with the unique capabilities of a mobile device, so may the iPad lead developers to find new hybrids of interactivity and narrative, linear entertainment.
Many have focused on the iPad’s superior ability to display video and large visualizations. I could actually see myself watching a movie on an iPad, maybe on an airplane. But I’m not on airplanes very often. The question of usage location is central to the question of how the iPad will be used, and who/how many will use it.
Computer world wrote about the academic environment as a perfect set of locations and users for the iPad. Indeed, the possible world where every student has one iPad instead of 50 expensive textbooks sounds great. But unfortunately I believe this scenario is a long way off. The entire academic market would have to participate in a massive digitization effort for the iPad to become a live option as a textbook replacement. And I can guarantee that those who owned the rights to the information in the textbooks would find a way to make the digitized versions cost almost as much, if not more due to some premium assigned to their being digital.
However, I do think that in the upper echelons of academia (grad/phd students, professors), the iPad will find a solid market. At conferences, the iPad provides a way to quickly browse pdf files and edit presentations on the fly with keynote.
I am hopeful that the iPad will find its niche beyond the e-reader market. PC world explains many of the device’s shortcomings in this respect.
Instead, think the iPad will in time supplant laptops and desktops as a home-computer for most people.