Thoughts on the iPad…
Yesterday was a huge day. Tons of activity, conversations with friends and colleagues about the iPad. SO much discussion. There are definitely flaws in the design. This post captures the biggest of them, I think:
http://www.gizmodo.com.au/2010/01/8-things-that-suck-about-the-ipad/
But though this post does point out a number of things that Apple could improve on (and I suspect they will, over time), bottom line, I think the post misses the bigger picture. Apple has created something new and incredibly useful. Right out of the gate, I can see two markets where the iPad can really shine.
The most obvious of these is the eBook market. Great for me, the avid reader, great for me, the writer, great for Apple’s shareholders. Though I am a big fan of the Kindle (do almost all my reading on one), the iPad definitely makes my Kindle look old and dingy. There has been an explosion of eBook readers over the past year, and the iPad just leaps over all of them, much as the iPhone did over its smartphone competitors. And books are typically more expensive than CDs (those round shiny things from the old days), so more revenue for Apple, less dead trees. And as an author, Apple gives me a much more efficient path to the marketplace. Win, Win, Win.
The less obvious, but no less important marketplace for the iPad is in health care. The iPad has an important role to play, putting the latest patient data in the hands of their doctors and nurses, ensuring that a patient’s history and current drug regimen is front and center. The iPad can add intelligence and rigor to that process, ensuring that a doctor doesn’t forget about a particularly subtle condition noted several years ago, or about a newly released drug interaction warning. This market is particularly underserved right now, and the iPad is stepping in at the perfect moment. The fact that it shares an OS with the iPhone and iPod touch means a wide range of choices for health care professionals.
There are many markets where the iPad will change the status quo. To me, focusing on perceived shortcomings of a device that has not even arrived is incredibly short-sighted. The iPad is a leap forward, no doubt in my mind. And I can’t wait to get my hands on one.
– Dave
I want one so much I can taste it. And I was not disappointed. I was hoping for something that was not a laptop. Apple’s built a device so much like Star Trek the Next Generation I am giddy with excitement. Its not meant to be a computer but rather the next thing that changes the way people use computing technology.
I had a few complaints from my techie friends at work yesterday but mostly they wanted to hack it and install this or that, etc. Linux folks, you know how they are. I figure, they can just buy your book and write whatever it is they don’t think the iPad has.
60 days. Time to start saving. We don’t have 3G coverage out where I live, so I would be fine just trying out the lowest model on my home’s wireless network for now.
I feel the same, Melissa. Can’t wait to have one to play with. Wish I had one now so I can build something and test it on the device…
– Dave
Now, I’ve never been one to love reading on a computer screen (I will when I have to, but I print what I can), and I really enjoy the kindle experience. Gray and lifeless though it may be, there’s very little eyestrain involved in reading a kindle text as compared to one rendered on an LCD monitor. While I concede that the iPad will be gamechanging for both newspapers and glossy magazines–media typically consumed in shorter ‘bursts’ than traditional books, and with a clear use for the high-def color screen–I’m not yet sold on the iPad as bookreader. Have you had a chance to sit and read a book on it yet for more than a few minutes?
Until I have an iPad of my own, hard to really comment on its usefulness as an eBook reader. But I am very confident the form factor will be no worse than the kindle. There are a number of problems with that form factor, and I am astonished that no one has made a well-crafted holder for it. I am certain someone on the Apple 3rd party side will do a much better job, and that will make all the difference.
I have no issues reading extensively on my Apple display. The backlighting more than compensates for any glare.
Another question is, will book pricing be more expensive on iPad? I hope not…
– Dave
I read Great Expectations on my iPhone recently, didn’t notice any eye issues. Battery issues, yeah, but my eyes were fine.
Wow, Stu, Great Expectations, now that’s commitment!!!
I found your blog starting from amazon.com looking for something about iPhone (really iPad) development.
Some thoughts and whines of my own about the iPad:
I’m turned off by Kindle for several reasons. One reason is the lack of Kindle editions. I ran some checks counting paperbacks vs Kindle editions for the same search criteria. The rusults were, I thought, pretty bad. Just last week, I checked for Kindle editions of 10 items on my book wish list; only one had a Kindle edition (even the one fiction item–the huge 3 vol “Annotated Sherlock Holmes”–had no Kindle edition (???)). I just ran a check–not to be mean or anything–on Kindle editions of your Apress books. Only 1 has a Kindle edition!. Anyway, I have to ask myself whether it’s worth getting an expensive eReader if I’m only going to put a few books on it. BTW, the class of books that I’d most like to see as eBooks would be “computer” books. When I think of the mountains of those things I’ve bought over the years….
So, for the IPad, I found a line by Jobs saying that the publishers he’s lined up will offer all of their books for the iBookstore. Really? Wow! (If I had Apple stock, having NYT bestsellers for iPad would be something I’d want to see for sure. But, since I don’t have stock and I don’t buy bestsellers, having them available is completely meaningless to me.) Offering complete catalogs is a very big deal and I’m glad to hear it. But–still worrying–I wonder about what the other publishers will do. Are we going to have only the megapublishers at the iBookstore or will guys like “Prometheus Books” be able to participate if they want. Would Apress–or most publishers–really put their entire catalog on iBookstore even though they don’t now have Kindle editions of everything, thus giving up micro management?
Perhaps the biggest issue for me is lock-in. I have a big iPod but I’ve not bought a single iTunes store CD or song. I could, rather quickly, get a converter and have my lossless wavepack archive library ready for a new device from any manufacturer. If I could export iBookstore content–such as ePub books–from iBook and import ePub books from, e.g., Project Gutenberg, the iPad would start looking a whole lot better. (I have no clue at this point whether I can do these things or not.)
You made a good point about the medical market. What casual users often don’t know is that professional users can really have needs that are hard to guess. I saw some blog comments yesterday about the lack of a camera on the iPad. Some thought is would be useless. But, some guy who does field inspections wrote that he wanted to take pictures with the iPad and integrate them into his written report on the iPad; he said this would save him a lot of work.
Rats! No Hulu? Let’s hope Hulu offers HTML5 movies soon. I wonder if that will be a heavy cost to Hulu?
I believe (or guess maybe) that I could snyc an iPad with my iTunes library. But, even the high end iPad flash memory wouldn’t hold all my music (I now have a 160GB–a disk drive– iPod over half full and mine is really only a modest collection.) A 160GB iPad would make a lot more sense to me.
Oh yes. I must not forget to rant about the “magic” b.s. I don’t know what was in Job’s mind. He surely knows we’re not stupid. I can’t think of any audience on which I’d use the “magic” gimmick–kinda insulting I believe.
Done. I’m off to find a developer’s site (maybe this site?) to see if I want to get in on the fun.
Mel, thanks for the comments. Lots to process, but thoughtful and provocative (in a good way). Bottom line, there’s a lot of room for evolution in the iPad as presented. I think the app makers can bring a lot of the missing functionality to the table. But there are core items that only Apple can change. For example, I don’t believe I can write an app to suck in an eBook and email the text to myself. I can’t understand the thinking behind the “missing” camera, but I am certain that was a consideration that was pushed off for a logical reason, just not a reason shared with us folks. My guess is, the next rev will have a camera. And perhaps a smaller bezel. And lots of other things.
Personally, I am in awe of Apple’s design prowess. I see Steve Jobs and company as artists. Obviously, they are technologists and business people, but they hold true to their art. And I am loath to tell an artist the path to take to reveal their inner vision. I just love to watch them work…
– Dave
Hi Dave,
I do not disagree with your ideas of iPad’s usage in healtcare but I don’t agree either. I am not sure how trustable, secure and robust will be the gadget itself. There were many similar gadgets who failed in such critical and hard conditions.
Apple knows how to do the marketing and how to present the marketplace, that’s why I think the iBookStore will in anycase be succesful.
Aydin.
Aydin, I agree with you, the healthcare privacy issue is incredibly important and sensitive. I think the solution lies with the app builder and the hospital IT staff. In my opinion, at the very least, patient ID data needs to be at least one level of indirection removed from their true identity. In other words, the patient’s true identity info needs to be secured and not stored on the iPad. The iPad should hold a “customer number” that refers to a record on the hospital or doctor’s IT system with access to that system secured and encrypted.
– Dave
This is great Dave. I’m glad you wrote this and pointed out some of the iPad’s future potentials. I’m also certain that there will be other avenues we haven’t even imagined for the iPad to grow into; and as those markets or niche grows so will the capacity and performance of this device.
On my Facebook page I’ve come to realize that I’ve been doing a lot of the same thinking / commenting – it’s potentials, me wanting one, etc.- and reactions from a few friends have been nothing but negative and misdirected. For whatever the iPad strongly lacked in their eyes, I can only guess that they want one just as much deep inside. Something they may never admit till they get one for themselves (like many iPhone users who’ve never used an Apple product before).
I have to explain to them that this isn’t meant to replace their laptop (otherwise it’d cannibalize apple’s own laptop line, duh!). Regardless, many keep running in circles unable / unwilling to think outside the box saying, “… it can’t do this, can’t do that;” their glasses always half empty.
But this is what great visionaries do, they shake things up. Jobs is great with envisioning the future of the digital lifestyle. I’m pretty sure Apple’s done it’s homework as a group and didn’t just pull this out of their rear slots. You either get it now or you play catchup later on.
For example Flash may not be there… but hey HTML5 in a few years will be adopted. Maybe? … Also, since when did the web finish evolving. There’s always holes here and there cause it’s alway changing. Anyone who’s been on a university knows the construction never ends on campus.
If there’s a real world challenge in our future digital lifestyle (and I don’t just mean in entertainment) someone will write a program for it and the iPad is right at the crossroads of all this.
Couldn’t agree more, Chris. It’s easy to be negative, but Apple has been so consistently on target with their products in this new era that there’s no reason not to trust that they will get this one right, too.
– Dave