Yesterday, Apple revealed its latest toy, the iPad, to ambivalent reviews. Immediately after the big announcement by iGuru Steve Jobs, my facebook and twitter feeds were flooded with mostly negative comments about the new too-big-to-be-handheld device.
“I want a smaller macbook not a larger iPod.”
“iYawn… who would buy this thing?”
And, while I’m also struggling to see exactly how the iPad fits into the marketplace and what uses it serves that aren’t already present on my phone or laptop, I’m not willing to dismiss it, for one simple reason.
Apple is fucking genius.
Apple develops products and the demand for them simultaneously. In other words, we can’t grasp our need for their new consumer technologies until months, sometimes years later, as the technology generates its own necessity. For example, when the iPhone came out, it did so not without its critics. In its first year on the market, the iPhone sold 5.5 million units; not too shabby, but nothing compared to the 20+ million it sold in 2009. The reason for this is because we didn’t NEED the iPhone in 2007 like we need it in 2010. The iPhone now has over 120,000 applications designed specifically for the device – it can do practically anything.
Now its time to sit back and watch developers create uses for the iPad that we can’t even comprehend.
Lets all just sit back and watch our collective Christmas 2011 list unfold before our eyes.
Apple hasn’t revitalized the consumer market with this product. If they think book publishers are as ignorant and panicked as the music and movie industry, I think they’ve greatly underestimated tangible, tactile media products.
Just look at Google’s febbled attempt at digitizing the worlds print media.
Innovation is defined as the introduction of something new…and eBooks were hardly invented or surging in demand before Apple came along. Apple’s innovative, but this product is not. A company as forward thinking as they are can occasionally miss the mark. Did you buy an Apple TV?
I guess my point is that we’re not able to full grasp the uses of a new mainstream medium (right, they’re not the first to create eBooks, but iPod also wasn’t the first mp3 player) until we start to see app developers and others carve out the multiple uses for the size and capability of the product.
I will say, though, that there are definitely some items they have to work out on the iPad. it’s far from flawless (still no multi-task?), but that too comes with time.