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iPad: Computer for a new "casual user" market? Redefining "personal computing"?


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iPad: Computer for a new "casual user" market? Redefining "personal computing"?
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Kickaha
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2010-01-28, 15:57

Quote:
Originally Posted by zippy View Post
Agree.

In fact, this:
http://images.apple.com/iphone/home/...e-20090608.png is way more computer than it is phone.
Absolutely. I've been telling people since it came out that it's more micro-tablet than phone.
 
curiousuburb
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2010-01-28, 16:06

Quote:
Originally Posted by Roboman View Post
I think it's a computer. It computes, ergo, computer. Seriously, how is it not a computer? It hits all the computery notes. It does most people's computery things. It's just not a "traditional" computer, as we know them today.
"Traditional" computer = humans
In many cases = women
 
Kickaha
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2010-01-28, 16:21

Quote:
Originally Posted by pscates2.0 View Post
Someone buying it and expecting more...that's one thing (they made an uninformed purchase). But if you know that's all you need...why not? $499 for this, vs. $999 for a MacBook you're not going to install Office or whatever onto?

^^--- This. My dad is techophobic, but wants to be in contact with family and friends online.

He bitches about losing his files (user-exposed filesystem is a negative for him).

He bitches about not knowing what's running when (multi-tasking confuses him).

He bitches about the cost of a new machine ($499? nice).

The iPad does, AFAICT, everything he wants to do, it's small, light, portable, has ubiquitous communication, it's cheap *AND* it looks dirt simple to use. He's the target market for this thing, IMO.

And there are a LOT of people out there like him. They want an appliance, not a PC.

(If only it didn't need a host PC for backups...)
 
zippy
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2010-01-28, 16:28

Quote:
Originally Posted by Kickaha View Post
(If only it didn't need a host PC for backups...)
But we really don't know this yet so.....

Just keep your fingers crossed.
 
Robo
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2010-01-28, 16:28

Kick, how often do you see your dad? There's no reason the "host" PC has to be *his* PC, is there?

Or maybe we'll see Time Capsule/Mobile Me backups at the requisite March OS 4.0 event.
 
Kickaha
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2010-01-28, 16:29

Quote:
Originally Posted by Roboman View Post
Kick, how often do you see your dad? There's no reason the "host" PC has to be *his* PC, is there?
He lives across the continent. :P

Quote:
Or maybe we'll see Time Capsule/Mobile Me backups at the requisite March OS 4.0 event.
That's what I'm holding out hope for. A TC unit to get him WiFi and backups in his apt, or a MobileMe account for the backups.
 
ezkcdude
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2010-01-28, 16:52

Quote:
Originally Posted by Roboman View Post
I think it's a computer. It computes, ergo, computer. Seriously, how is it not a computer? It hits all the computery notes. It does most people's computery things. It's just not a "traditional" computer, as we know them today.
An abaqus computes, too. So does a calculator. Are those "computers"? No. The main job of a computer traditionally was to crunch numbers in a programmable way for some useful (productive) work. More and more computers are being used for less and less of that. They're still mostly designed for that purpose, though. The iPad is not designed to be a computer. Yes, it *can* do some of those functions. But that's not its intended function. Clearly. The primary function of the iPad is to consume media.
 
ezkcdude
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2010-01-28, 16:55

Quote:
Originally Posted by zippy View Post
You mean like a laptop?
Ah, no, not quite. A laptop is a computer. See above.
 
BuonRotto
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2010-01-28, 16:59

Semantics. Please move along. We can debate whether the iPad is truly a "personal" computer and what we've been calling PCs are home workstations, but it's a moot point. I got the gist of what was meant by "computer" the first time. PC versus computer versus appliance versus toy. They have connotations that we're pitting against technical definitions. "Computer" sounds technical, "toy" sounds derogatory, "PC" sounds conventional, "appliance" sounds forgettable.
 
zippy
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2010-01-28, 17:01

OK, you seriously need to get over this "It's not a computer" and "People who call it a computer don't get it."

If I recall, you were always one of the bigger nay-sayers on this site about the whole tablet thing to begin with, while I've been one of the more vocal supporters. And yet suddenly you "get it" and I don't because I call it a computer?

Do you know where children get all of their energy? - They suck it right out of their parents!
 
zippy
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2010-01-28, 17:13

I suspect Roboman is right about iPad being the default name for this particular style of computing device.
 
stratotom
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2010-01-28, 17:16

I think a lot is going to rest on what sort of apps get designed specifically for the iPad. Porting the current touch apps onto is OK, but it is really not enough for such an app-centric device.

The NYT app that was demoed, for example, I found really exciting. It was designed for the iPad, and all the little bells and whistles (like in-line video streaming) complement the device really well. I mean, reading a news article, with video playing, on such a sleek, almost magazine-size screen - it feels like reading a paper with movies in it.

There's definitely something in it. I'm not excited by my computer playing videos in news articles. It's a powerful device, and viewing video on it isn't exactly new tech. My iPhone usually needs to open a seperate app (YouTube, or the QT player) to deal with the video, and there is a distinct feeling of moving away from the focus of attention. Reading a news article and watching a video that's on the article page are two seperate things, and it's not (so) exciting to read news on an iPhone, and the same for watching video. This is all OK though; it's a mobile device, I don't expect as much from it.

But the iPad; it's a mobile device, it's large (this makes a difference, because we're used to the larger screens of notebooks/desktops, hence looking at the iPad screen raises our expectation of what it can do), but, you're holding it in your hands! It feels like a paper, or a magazine, or to an extent, iPhone. And yet apps could be written to make it perform almost like a computer. This is what really gets me about it (and I know I haven't held it personally, but I'm guessing), when we interact with it, all our habits from using any sort of handheld (& multitouch) device are triggered. Yet with the right apps, it's suddenly transformed into something completely new (like an interactive newspaper).

This is where the distinction between iPhone and notebook comes into play. We're holding it, traditionally any device we've held and used with our hands is inferior power-wise, so it is definitely not a "computer". We don't hold "computers". But then, it's so much more than anything of the existing "held" products. I imagine not to feel underwhelmed that it's not more "computery", but overwhelmed that it's more advanced than my touch smartphone/equivalent product.
 
ezkcdude
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2010-01-28, 17:17

Quote:
Originally Posted by zippy View Post
I suspect Roboman is right about iPad being the default name for this particular style of computing media device.
FTFY.
 
Kraetos
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2010-01-28, 18:24

The big picture here is that iPad, like iPhone before it, is a massive step forward in usability. It brings us closer to computers as appliances and therefore makes them easier to integrate into our everyday lives.

A touch interface is fundamentally easier to use than a point-and-click interface, or even a stylus-driven interface. We interact with the world with our fingers, why wouldn't we want to interact with our computers in the same way? A touch interface, because of the size of our fingers compared to a pointer, forces everything to be bigger and therefore easier to find and manipulate. An infant can use an iPhone. Think about the first time you used an iPhone or an iPod touch. Did you have to read the manual? You probably didn't. The way the interface worked with your fingers, made everything easier to find, and reacted to your inputs made the experience seamless and intuitive.

A touch interface sacrifices the precision and power of a point-and-click interface for intuitiveness and flexibility. In nerd terms, it's a new level of abstraction. Abstraction hides the details of how something works in order to make it easier to use.

Years of failed Windows tablets have taught us that trying to paste a touch interface over what is meant to be point-and-click interface is a recipe for disaster. Your fingers are far too cumbersome to replace the precision of a mouse and keyboard which are required to interact with a traditional desktop operating system.

iPad is a reinvention of personal computing, designed to make "computing" so easy, it isn't even really computing anymore. You can pick it up and use it, without all the headaches of using a "proper" computer.

With iPhone OS, many things have been abstracted away from the user, much like an automatic transmission abstracts the need to shift gears away from the driver. This means less power, but it also means that the entire thing is easier to use and gives you less headaches. There are many people (myself included) who prefer a manual transmission because it provides more power and control than an automatic, but most cars sold these days are automatics. Most people aren't interested in the filesystem, multitasking, etc, just like most people aren't interested in clutching and shifting. They want their car or computer to just work and more often than not, the things that enthusiasts want to give them more control over a device add unwanted complexity for the average user.

The nerds, of course, don't get it, because they are so adept at dealing with the headaches brought on by complexity that they don't even register anymore. (This is also why engineers make horrible UI designers.) But this doesn't mean the snags created by complexity aren't significant. They are very significant and tend to get ignored by the very people who have the power to fix them.

iPhone OS excels at abstraction. It gets the computer bits out of the way so you can use it as a phone, web browser, game device, or more than a hundred thousand other things.

iPad is the computer so easy to use, it can do anything. And although iPad appears to be lacking in some places, it's much, much better to add features to a product in the future than it is to pack them in too early and risk making the product too complex.

iPad (which builds upon iPhone, of course) is nothing short of the third generation of computer interfaces. First we had text interfaces, which were really only suitable for nerds; users who truly grokked what was going on underneath the hood of their computer. Then Apple popularized the GUI interface which brought computers to the masses, but not quite everyone. Even a GUI requires training, experience, troubleshooting and maintenance.

The touch interface is an entirely different beast. Almost anyone can use a well-designed touch interface because it requires you to be familiar with nothing more than your fingers.

The original Mac was considered to be nothing but a toy by power users in 1984. Today, I don't know a single person who doesn't use a GUI as their primary interface. Even users like myself who are comfortable using a command line interface prefer the GUI because it is easier to interact with on a day-to-day basis. It does a better job at getting out of your way when you need to do something. A point-and-click interface makes the same tradeoffs over a text-based interface that a touch-based interface makes over a point-and-click interface: precision and power for intuitiveness and flexibility.

For this third generation of interfaces, the leap forward is less extreme. The point-and-click interface has almost completely replaced the text interface; only programmers still need to use a command line. In contrast, touch interfaces and point-and-click interfaces will live side-by-side.

But, if the task you are trying to accomplish doesn't require the power and precision of a point-and-click interface, there is no need to deal with the associated overhead of the point-and-click interface. You don't need a mouse to read a book. You don't need a mouse to watch a movie. You don't need a mouse to look at a map. Hell, you don't even need a mouse to surf the web. Why deal with the additional complexity when you don't have to?

The portability and connectivity of iPad is the other piece of the puzzle. You will use iPad to do things you would never use a computer to do because a proper computer would be too cumbersome. Read a book or watch a movie on the go. Use it as a map in an unfamiliar city. Use it to draw with nothing but your fingers. Use it on the couch, the classroom, or the meeting room. With the App Store, we've barely scratched the surface.

iPad is the "magical" third device that finally moves our consumption of media of all types—written, spoken, and watched—into the digital realm, and will even begin to blur the lines between the different ways to consume media. (Imagine an issue of Sports Illustrated with pictures that, when tapped, become videos.) Some people argue that there's no room for such a device, and the failure of Windows tablets proved this. I argue that the key to success for a device such as this is simplicity. A device designed for simple tasks needs to be simple. It needs to do what you want it to do, it needs to do it fast, and it needs to do it without you having to put any thought into how you are going to do it. iPad is this device.

Removing this complexity means we finally have the device we need to move away from dead trees for good. The only options we had until yesterday morning are inadequate. The laptop computer is too cumbersome. The smartphone is too small. The netbook is small, awkward, and slow. The Tablet PC is too complex. The eInk reader doesn't do color or video. The iPad, however, is perfect.

iPhone, of course, can do these things already. But iPhone is and always will be hindered by a small screen and slow processor. A bigger screen and a faster processor makes for a better experience, but even if the next-gen iPhone has a bigger screen and faster processor, it won't be on the same level as iPad simply because iPhone needs to be pocketable. These two enhancements make the device more intuitive and flexible than even an iPhone, and that's the entire point of this third generation of interfaces.

As we march forwards into the future, iPad will become both cheaper and more capable, and other players will enter the market. Pad computing is computing for the 21st century. It will integrate technology with our daily lives like science fiction has been predicting it would for decades.

iPad will be huge because the abstraction it provides simplifies the computing experience in a way that allows it to be integrated with our daily lives. At $499, this thing is going to fly off the shelves.

(Also, this is a draft of an article I'm writing. Thoughts?)

Logic, logic, logic. Logic is the beginning of wisdom, Valeris, not the end.

Last edited by Kraetos : 2010-01-29 at 01:23.
 
alcimedes
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2010-01-28, 20:39

Quote:
Originally Posted by Messiahtosh View Post
I don't know....I almost would say that getting a used MacBook Air for $900 would be a better call. :/
For almost everyone at this board, yes.

But not for everyone. We're all geeks here though, so not sure we're the target audience.
 
psmith2.0
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2010-01-28, 21:09

We're not.
 
thegeriatric
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2010-01-28, 21:12

Agreed.
 
Chinney
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2010-01-28, 21:18

Quote:
Originally Posted by Kraetos View Post
The big picture here is that iPad, like iPhone before it, is a massive step forward in usability. It brings us closer to computers as appliances and therefore makes them easier to integrate into our everyday lives.

[snip]

iPad will be huge because the abstraction it provides simplifies the computing experience in a way that allows it to be integrated with our daily lives. At $499, this thing is going to fly off the shelves.

(Also, this is a draft of an article I'm writing. Thoughts?)
(Snipped just so that I could make a general reference to the post, not to emphasize the parts I left in.)

I think that this was a great post. There has been a lot of sniping about this product, or damning with faint praise. I think that you explained in greater detail some of the reasons why the iPad makes a difference.

When there's an eel in the lake that's as long as a snake that's a moray.
 
psmith2.0
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2010-01-28, 21:31

Sometimes I wish I didn't do what I did. I wish I just wrote and blogged and reviewed things...no Adobe, no music stuff, etc.



I could have a little iPad and nothing else (well, my iPhone). Talk about life being simple again.

Been reading a lot of reviews, impressions, hands-on write-ups, etc. all over the place this evening. The consensus does indeed seem to be "you can't properly judge this thing until you get it in your hands", and that makes a ton of sense.

Everyone is raving about the speed and responsiveness. It's stuff like that - not the numbers behind it - that will amaze people and draw them in. It just works. And works simply and without a bunch of extra stuff all around.

While the keynote had an odd, almost-incomplete vibe about it, I don't think it's pointing to anything bad or weird. Just because that crowd (think of who comprised the bulk of that audience...people more geeky and demanding than any of us here, most likely) was quiet and didn't seem all that moved shouldn't point to anything either (they're the same people cooing and giggling all over the web today, having gotten to spend time with the iPad post-keynote).

Yeah. It's going to build and hit. Big.
 
Wrao
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2010-01-28, 23:14

More I think about it, the more the iPad strikes me as about as far away from a 'nerd-approved' product as you can possibly get. Which, considering that it is a piece of consumer grade high-tech, is pretty impressive.
 
Brad
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2010-01-29, 02:16

(I've split this ongoing discussion about the iPad and its fit for a "different" market into a new thread from The new iPad!.)
 
beardedmacuser
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2010-01-29, 05:13

The iPad is all the computer my Dad needs; MobileMe email and the web. He can't type so the absence of a built-in physical keyboard is no big deal. In fact I'm sure he'd get more into podcasts if he weren't put off by iTunes on his iMac and could listen to them somewhere more comfortable.

Oh, damn it, I've just remembered he uses Skype for video chats with family. The iPad is almost all the computer he needs...
 
psmith2.0
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2010-01-29, 10:18

I just saw this at CNN.com and thought it was funny. On the bottom half of their homepage, they have a 3x4 block grid divided up into various topics (US, World, Business, Politics, Tech, Entertainment, Sports, etc.). Each category has seven bulleted headlines/top stores (that link off from there).

Each category has a wide range of stories about different things in that particular section, but I just saw the one for tech:





All iPad. That's some coverage right there.
 
photoworks
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2010-01-29, 10:23

Quote:
Originally Posted by RyanPaige View Post
I'm not at all new to technology and I'm certainly not a young child, but I am really only interested in what technology does for me, and from what I've seen of the iPad so far, it looks like something I would have a lot of use for.

I can see using it as a web browser/reading device around the house - in the living room when my wife is watching some awful reality show that she's addicted to or in the bedroom when she's trying to go to sleep and I am not ready to go to sleep.

I can see using it as a web/reading device while waiting for/sitting on the train.

I can see using it as a media device - in the car when we're driving to see the relatives (I have gone through more than one portable DVD player solely to keep the kids entertained. An iPad could replace that), or at my relative's house (we stayed at my Dad's house over Christmas and he didn't even have a TV in the guest room. What kind of crazy person doesn't have a TV in the guest room?)

I can see playing games on it (my wife has an iPod Touch, and I think 95% of the apps she's downloaded are various games).

I could see watching dailies or reading scripts on it (productivity!)

And if I spent some time thinking about it, I'm sure I could come up with a lot more places/instances I could see using it, but just from those few things alone, it's already worth the price to me. Sure, I have a MacBook Pro, but for a lot of uses, I could see it not being as easy or comfortable to use as the iPad would be.

And I can certainly see my Dad or his wife using it (some of the non-tech people you mention). Over Christmas, I tried to show her how to put pictures from her camera onto her (Windows) laptop. There were just too many steps involved, she couldn't do it. But she uses her iPhone all the time with no problem. For her, an iPad is probably a very useful device, but I don't think she's the only potential market for the thing.
i totally agree.

I think the ipad is paving the road of the future on how people will interact with computers. I am sure that the "missing features" that people are ranting about will be implemented in future version of the product.
I am sure that one day, there will be a "ipad macbook pro".

As many people said above, the device is perfect for people that use a computer for surfing, typing letters, watching videos of listening to music.
One more thing to consider is the flow of apps from third party developer which will enrich the device enormously, the way they did with the ipod touch. Initially bought my ipod touch to listen to music on the road. Now it has become an inseparable device for me. In a way it has become my personal assistant. Before buying my ipod, i would never have considered playing games ;now i have become addicted. I think it would be the same with the ipad for a lot of people.


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psmith2.0
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2010-01-29, 10:34

Neat article at AppleInsider: Apple to target iPad at business users through new features.

Interesting tidbit halfway in:

Quote:
Sources who talked to Apple's business unit also say the company is working on some additional features that haven't been publicly announced yet. These include support for direct network printing from iPad apps, as well as support for accessing shared files from a local file server.
I know this is office/work-centric, but I imagine that would filter down, and apply to, everyone else?

Point is, Wednesday was just the start, and tip of the iceberg. Between Apple, third-party developers and all the cool accessory companies out there, this iPad stands to carve out a real place for itself in the months, and years, to come. IMO.

It's only going to get more powerful and full-featured, so for something that's already pretty damn impressive, that's saying something.

Think about it...if Apple can take something like iWork, rebuild it to run on this processor, screen size and be all touch-based, what does that mean for other major, popular software applications down the road? If this thing, 18-24 months from now, proves to be an iPod/iPhone-level success and is in homes, offices and classrooms all over the place, what keeps Microsoft, Adobe and others from taking a similar approach with some of their flagship applications?

Neat stuff to ponder.

Five years from now, will desktops and laptops as we know them be something only the high-end, "power users" (animators, artists, musicians, etc.) need and use, while the rest of us carry around increasingly more powerful - but streamlined, efficient and intuitive - digital slates? Docking them to larger displays when needed, having them recognize one another for automatic networking/file sharing, cubicles consisting of little network boxes/keyboard docks, and the pad is inserted or removed as needed, taken offsite, etc.

Last edited by psmith2.0 : 2010-01-29 at 10:47.
 
Kickaha
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2010-01-29, 10:35

That would be obvious, and awesome.
 
Satchmo
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2010-01-29, 11:37

Some pundits in my home town have suggested that if this iPad does take off, it will cannilbalize Apple's other products (namely MB's), and hurt Apple's bottom line.

Jobs himself said it's way better experience to surf the internet with an iPad. He almost seemed to say not only were netbooks crap, but all notebooks. And if developers port OSX apps into this thing, who knows...the iPad may very well be more of laptop killer than a Kindle killer.
 
Kickaha
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2010-01-29, 11:39

Quite true. OTOH, as Jobs is reported to have said when asked if the iPhone wasn't going to cannibalize iPod sales: "If sales are to be cannibalized, better by us than someone else."

I think this will eat into MB sales... but the resulting total sales will be many times what it takes from the MB line.
 
Kickaha
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2010-01-29, 11:40

Piece I wrote for another site...


iPad explained for geeks.

How many times have you heard (at least in your head), an SUV owner saying that they just don't get little SmartCars, Priuses, and so on? "You can't haul anything in them." "They do so *little*!" "Sure, the mileage may be great, but I need room for four kids, not four grocery bags." "They're just not *fun* to drive..."

And often times, the (stereotypical green-oriented) geek's response is "But not everyone needs an SUV!"



And not everyone needs a PC.

Think about it - the modern PC is a massively overpowered piece of kit for the average consumer. I don't mean the average geek, I mean the average *consumer*. Nearly everything we love and adore about a general purpose computer, is a painpoint for the average consumer.

Browsable filesystem: they lose their files.
Modularity and customizability: they have no clue where to start with the complexity.
RAW POWAH: for what, typing in Word?
Multi-tasking + WIMP UI: they can't tell what app they're in.

Sure, some of them will adapt, but a lot won't. Think about how many times you've had a tech support call from a relative, usually older, who is utterly lost. "Click on the Start Menu... no, it's in the lower left... yes, I know it says Start and you want to change printer settings, but... no, I don't know why it doesn't say Printer in that case... yes, just click on it... with the left button... no, there's no button on the keyboard marked 'Left', I meant the left mouse button... yeah... right. No, *left*! *headdesk*"



Alan Kay started the original Mac project with a very different vision than what finally came out: a computing appliance. It would do a single thing at a time, it would do it well, and it would be simple to use. Data would be owned by the app, sharing of data would be done through OS-handled requests using what we now refer to as metadata, and above all, it would be for the average consumer.

The average consumer wasn't ready for that, and the PC world is geek-centric, not interested in making such a device that doesn't cater to their needs. Oil, water. We may finally be getting back around to that though. The average consumer doesn't care about multi-tasking, if it means they get lost in the UI. They don't care about browsable flexible filesystems with redundancy, journaling, and distributed storage, if it means they can't find their data. They not only don't care about these things, they dread them. Frankly, I can't blame them. Think about the rather byzantine organizational systems we go through to keep our data where we can find it again. Just glancing at my own filesystem, my personal account file hierarchy is 14 folders deep at the deepest, and the widest directory has 37 folders in it. Think about the scale of that, and each folder name is a metadata tag, often redundant *and* duplicative. (Yes, that was on purpose.) Now we have tagging and searching tools such as Spotlight on the Mac and Google Desktop on Windows... and these are highly popular tools with even professional computer jockeys. Why? Because they remove some of our cognitive load. And we're trained in our lives to deal with massive cognitive loads... imagine what it must be like for the average consumer facing this world of complexity. Now, however, we are on the cusp of having cheap, portable, always-connected computing power that can be used not for eyecandy and pixel pushing, but to make the user's life easier through data organization that they don't have to do.



Until now, the PC world has been differentiated by the cost of the hardware, which is a measure of the raw power possible. Pay more, get more power... but you have exactly the same *experience* on each machine, just slower or faster. Windows and the Mac are, really, just two variants on the same theme: a geek machine. Consumers recognize they don't need a pro-level machine, so they buy something cheap... but it's just a *badly hobbled* pro machine, not a consumer machine. It's like recognizing you don't need an SUV, but your only option is an SUV body with 1.2L 4 cylinder engine. Kind of stupid.

Think about the tablet market up until now. Was it a new device? No. It's been a full computer crammed into a tablet. Same SUV, but now with spoilers, and sold as a race car. Urk.



All of which brings us to an interesting corollary: I predict that in this decade, we'll see a split in computing, on the same scale as the microcomputer/mainframe schism of the 70s. On the one hand, we will have the smartphones and iPad-esque tablets, aimed at the average consumer. They will do simple things, they will do them well, they will be extremely well connected into the internet, they will be geared for what a consumer does: consume. Lots and lots of media. Almost as a side-effect, they will be an organizational device, but their main purposes will be consumption of media, and communication. These devices will be (and are being) decried by the geek masses as underpowered, locked down, and useless toys.

And they will be everywhere. By the millions. They may be iPads, they may be from another company, but the dam is cracked, and in another year or so, it'll burst.

On the other hand, we'll have a more traditional PC: it will be geared for content producers, developers, and us geeks that need (or think we need) the power and flexibility. Prosumer vs. consumer... but just remember, there are a hell of a lot more of them than there are of us.



If you don't get the iPad, if you don't see the point, if you can't see how it's a useful device... that's okay. You're not the target market. You're a contractor with plywood to haul, who doesn't get the SmartCar. It doesn't fit your needs, at *all*. Or mine, really. I don't think I'll buy an iPad for myself, except maybe as a curiosity to play with... but you can bet I'm getting one for my Dad. And my grandmother. And probably my great aunt.

What, you don't want to cut down on tech support calls too?
 
zippy
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2010-01-29, 11:49

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