{"id":96,"date":"2010-01-30T19:08:01","date_gmt":"2010-01-31T02:08:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.jusquici.org\/blog\/?p=96"},"modified":"2010-01-30T19:16:52","modified_gmt":"2010-01-31T02:16:52","slug":"appeal-to-the-masses","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.jusquici.org\/blog\/?p=96","title":{"rendered":"appeal to the masses"},"content":{"rendered":"

Obviously, it has been some time since I last wrote. \u00c2\u00a0I usually save my rants for private conversation, but for whatever reason (which will be explored), I feel the need to explain my thinking about the reaction to<\/em> the iPad.<\/p>\n

Speculation about Apple’s entry to the tablet market has been persistent since OS X’s introduction, particularly given the context of Apple’s technical achievement with the Newton<\/a>. \u00c2\u00a0Like the iPad, the Newton was intended to re-invent personal computing. \u00c2\u00a0Another possible parallel is that the end product was pronounced to be complementary to the Mac rather than its replacement.<\/p>\n

In the lead-up to the announcement, rumors set expectations that the product to be released would be a tablet Mac<\/em>. \u00c2\u00a0The introduction of the MacBook Air gave some credibility to the idea that a nice tablet Mac was technically feasible – subtracting the keyboard and flipping the screen would give a thin, light, and adequately-powerful tablet.<\/p>\n

Still, I didn’t understand how such a Mac machine would make sense on the software side. \u00c2\u00a0OS X software is built with a certain interface paradigm in mind: \u00c2\u00a0the mouse and keyboard. \u00c2\u00a0The size of the controls and the flow of interaction in general are based on this set of input tools. \u00c2\u00a0On the other hand, the iPhone OS was designed from the beginning to be “OS X touch” – the internals are similar, but the UIs of the operating system and the applications for it are radically different to accommodate multitouch input – so much so that it is seemingly the only<\/em> input method considered.<\/p>\n

Additionally, if stylus-based input was deemed insufficient for the iPhone, what sense would it make given a display many times the size of that of the iPhone? \u00c2\u00a0The larger display does not eliminate the problems with an on-screen keyboard, but certainly if people have adapted to typing on an iPhone display, doing so on the iPad display is going to be considered “good enough” to accept the trade-offs of implementing something like handwriting recognition.<\/p>\n

On the day it was released, there were few positive reactions. \u00c2\u00a0My initial reaction was disappointment, more or less – I wanted a Magical Mac Tablet as much as everyone else. \u00c2\u00a0But then I started to remember.<\/p>\n

I remembered the day in 2001 when Apple was known to be releasing the iPod and the famous cmdrtaco reaction<\/a>. \u00c2\u00a0The limitations seemed staggering: \u00c2\u00a0it used FireWire, which no sane PC manufacturer (save Sony) included on their consumer PCs at the time. \u00c2\u00a0And iTunes wouldn’t even be available for Windows for another 2 years. \u00c2\u00a0It wasn’t the wireless-data-beaming, PDA-mashing device everyone hoped for. \u00c2\u00a0The MP3 player had been on the market for years and the AA-eating Nomad had been providing gigabytes of storage for some time. \u00c2\u00a0Things seemed bleak. \u00c2\u00a0Yet somehow, it eventually caught on. \u00c2\u00a0The Windows issue was resolved, USB was adopted, and the Dock Connector promoted a self-perpetuating accessory bonanza. \u00c2\u00a0It survived Microsoft’s (epic or half-assed, whatever your view) effort with the Zune. \u00c2\u00a0As of this quarter, Apple has sold 250 million iPods. \u00c2\u00a0Somehow, it worked out.<\/p>\n

Logically, then, I remembered 2007 when the iPhone was launched. \u00c2\u00a0Several<\/a> prominent<\/a> figures<\/a> believed there was “no chance” that Apple would gain significant market share in smartphones. \u00c2\u00a0This time, Apple raised a high-enough profile that everyone was sure to prophet its demise over \u00c2\u00a0one or many of its “missing features”: \u00c2\u00a0multitasking, copy and paste, MMS, native SDK, Flash support, A2DP, support for other carriers, Outlook support, user-replaceable battery, physical keyboard, among them. \u00c2\u00a0Yet thanks to the magic of software<\/em>, several of these shortcomings have been addressed. \u00c2\u00a0Some remain unaddressed. \u00c2\u00a0In either case, people bought the damn thing<\/em>, shortcomings or not. \u00c2\u00a0Several of them liked it. \u00c2\u00a0And several of those are exactly the same people predicting its failure.<\/p>\n

Fraser Speirs<\/a> had a great explanation about why those who know technology well are not inherently good predictors of what will happen with a technological product:<\/p>\n

People talk about Steve Jobs’ reality distortion field, and I don’t disagree that the man has a quasi-hypnotic ability to convince. There’s another reality distortion field at work, though, and everyone that makes a living from the tech industry is within its tractor-beam. That RDF tells us that computers are awesome, they work great and only those too stupid to live can’t work them.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I don’t know if I agree that present demand is what has driven the creation of the iPad, but certainly, I agree that there is a desire for a computer that enables The Real Work instead continuing our notion that pointing and clicking equates to work getting done.<\/p>\n

So that, then, amounts to my poorly-reasoned<\/a> argument of why I think the iPad will sell well. \u00c2\u00a0It has nothing to do with Apple having some sort of superior exclusive technology or killer app today<\/em> – things like that evaporate quickly in this industry. \u00c2\u00a0It’s that they have laid the groundwork for a new product space in the same way they did with the iPod and iPhone. \u00c2\u00a0The iPod changed what we expect when we enjoy music and video. \u00c2\u00a0The iPhone changed what we expect from a mobile phone. \u00c2\u00a0I think that in the same way, the iPad will change what we expect from software. \u00c2\u00a0And the best part about software is that the new killer app is just a click away.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Obviously, it has been some time since I last wrote. \u00c2\u00a0I usually save my rants for private conversation, but for whatever reason (which will be explored), I feel the need to explain my thinking about the reaction to the iPad. Speculation about Apple’s entry to the tablet market has been persistent since OS X’s introduction, … Continue reading appeal to the masses<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_markdown_editor_remember":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,7,8],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jusquici.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/96"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jusquici.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jusquici.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jusquici.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jusquici.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=96"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.jusquici.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/96\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":100,"href":"https:\/\/www.jusquici.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/96\/revisions\/100"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jusquici.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=96"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jusquici.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=96"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jusquici.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=96"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}