Second thoughts on the iPad
I had posted earlier that I did not understand what need the Apple iPad really fills, and what use cases and scenarios it enables that are currently not possible. I had concluded that the iPad had no clear purpose and no clear position.
Well, I’m being forced to reconsider my thoughts for two reasons. First, as a marketing expert, I should have known the power of emotional appeal. Everyone who owns the iPad that I have talked to gushes about how “gorgeous” the device is and how much they love the experience. When pressed about WHY and WHERE they use the iPad that the couldn’t use their iPhone or their Mac or their iPod Touch, people aren’t clear. But it doesn’t matter. The user experience is so intuitive and the device is so damn sexy that people are willing to vote with their wallets. Most people admit they don’t need an iPad, but they absolutely WANT one. And as we all know, in a battler of heart over mind, the heart wins every time. After all, 3 million iPads have been sold and counting. The lesson – understand the power of emotion. Apple is a true master at “selling lust”.
The second reason relates to consumer behavior in relation to computers. Ten years ago, if you think about what people did on their computers, you realize that we spend a large percentage of our time creating content and very little time consuming content. After all, there wasn’t much content to consume. There was no youTube, no iTunes, no Pandora, no Facebook and so on. We did word processing, email, spreadsheets and presentations. All these applications required creation of content, and hence keyboards etc.
But now, things are quite different. We have become voracious consumers of content. If you measure the percentage of time that people, especially younger people, spend consuming content versus creating content, I bet you would find that the vast majority of the time, we are in consumption mode. Particularly with all the applications on the iPhone, we are playing games, reading stuff, networking wih friends, watching videos and so on. And that’s what the iPad is about – it is a fantastic content consumption device. Content consumption requires a great browser, great multimedia, great display, great sound and an intuitive user interface. Hence the value of the iPad. If all we do in creation mode is email, and that too, we spend more time reading emails than responding to them, then the iPad does 90% of what we need to do with a laptop, and with a far superior user experience. And this trend will continue. All this bodes very well for the iPad.
In summary, the iPad will usher in a new era of “consumption-optimized” devices and will prove to be a big success for Apple. I stand corrected!
I believe you were right the first time about the iPad. It’s an oversized iPod Touch that costs more than a laptop with less than half the functionality. It sells on hype and Apple’s brand name. And that’s fine.
The idea that it will user a new era of consumption seems backward. That is the system we have had for decades and while it worked well then, it is far too limiting for the 21st century. The age of blogs and YouTube is not going to give way to the established gatekeepers. Cory Doctorow pointed out that the hype around the iPad’s return to content consumption was the same hype around CD-ROM, as the savior of magazines and mainstream content creation. But as we saw, that did not work out. And why would we want to go back?
Instead, the web exploded and user generated content thrived. iPad apps like Wired’s flashy magazine app, do more to break the web than add value. For $5, you can buy Wired Magazine’s iPad app, but you cannot send anyone articles you like. You can’t copy and paste text. You can’t bookmark it or even lend the copy to a friend (without giving up your iPad). The only benefit is it looks pretty and has some video, both of which could be done on the web available to iPad and any other computer user (rather than limiting your potential market to just iPad users).
Now Wired’s first issue sold well at 24,000 at the end of May resulting in $84,000 in revenue (after Apple’s 30% cut). How well will subsequent issues sell after people realize the entire magazine is free on the web or for the same price, they can get the print copy.
Of course we will continue to consume content. We have our phones, laptops, computers, TVs, and more to consume content. But all these also can easily create content. I can watch TV while building a web page on my computer. I can read blog posts on my phone while a movie plays on my laptop. All this technology is making content creation seamless to the point where we don’t even realize how much we’re producing. It’s the freedom and openness that innovative web products like Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, YouTube, and more offer that makes sharing and communication so easy. The iPad makes sharing and communication challenging to impossible.