mikemchargue.com

The iPad is the next Mac.  The iPad is the future of computing.  These 5 articles say it better than I can:

stevenf.com - Old World vs. New World Computing

Fraser Speirs - Future Shock

Mike Rundle - The iPad Is For Everyone But Us

Jim Stodgil - The iPad is the iPrius

Rob Foster - On iPads, Grandmas and Game-chaninging

There are many people that use computer out of necessity, but don't understand them.  Often, they fear or resent them.  The iPad is a computer that doesn't ask them to become conceptual computer people to use it.

My 2 year old can use my iPhone without instruction.  She can launch games, and play them.  The iPad is equally discoverable.

We nerds will cling to out windowing systems, our terminals and our customized interfaces.  We will add the storage we want, and push the envelope of configuration.  Everyone else will enjoy a simple computing device that lets them accomplish their tasks and then move on.

I just read a very insightful piece on SeatllePi about the iPad, and the split it represents in computing.  Go read it.  It's better than anything I'll write here.  The premise is that the iPad is the first in an oncoming wave of computing devices that represents as large a shift in computing as the microcomputer did.  For the non-nerds among us, you know the microcomputer as the Personal Computer.  Before the PC, computers came in mainframe and minicomputer sizes.  A minicomputer was furniture sized.

The above article does an excellent job putting a point on thoughts I've been having since the iPhone came out.  The iPhone and iPad completely hide and eliminate all the "power" features that I love about computing–and that frustrate everyone I know who isn't a geek.

Clearly Apple is a leader in this movement.  I think people forget that Google is trying the same thing with Android and Chrome OS.  The action in computing appliances is Apple and Google, and I would not be surprised if this becomes a market that is much larger in units and revenue than the PC market is today.

Where's Microsoft in this?  They dominated the PC era, but they seem as flatfooted in the NC era as IBM was in the PC era.  Surely the brains in Seattle are waking up to this threat–but Windows 7 and Windows Mobile represent a pitiful response.

IBM has thrived by maintaining ownership of Big Computing.  They're still the dominant mainframe company.  Perhaps Microsoft will do the same with PCs, and step aside as someone else takes the lead for the next generation.

Here's to hoping no one gets a monopoly this time.  Our world is a better place with Apple and Google keeping each other on their toes.

It’s nearly impossible to visit a website today that offers news or user posting today without running across Apple’s new iPad.  Mashable’s coverage shows Twitter mentions at truly obscene levels.  Love it or hate it, you can’t deny the impact the device has already had.  I believe the praise, and the criticism, are well deserved.

I’m a serial early-adopter.  I own most of the devices the iPad seeks to supplant.  Here’s my early assessment of the iPad and it’s role in the market.

iPad the eBook

I’m a Kindle user.  I had the first Kindle, and I have a Kindle 2.  I’ve watched the Nook, the Skiff and the Que with great interest.  I’m also an avid reader.  I read several books a month, subscribe to multiple magazines.  I read my news online, as I find the latency of newspaper bothersome and the format cumbersome.  The Kindle has been a dream for book reading.  I have a large library of new material available via the Kindle store anywhere there’s 3G coverage.  The e-Ink display is quite easy on the eyes for multi-hour reading sessions, largely thanks to its reflexive nature (there is no backlight–as you see with the printed page).

It seems to me that the iPad may reverse this equation.  The LED backlight supporting the IPS LCD display means the announced iBooks app renders books far more artfully than the Kindle, and in color.  The ePub format offers native support for GIF, JPEG and PNG images.  I’m concerned that the bright screen may ultimately fatigue the eyes over continuous hours of viewing.  You don’t state at your phone or computer screen for as long or as intently as you do a book in most cases.  Likewise, LCD screens aren’t all the readable in sunlight, and I see little support that the iPad screen is any different.  The iBooks app has a much smaller library than the Kindle as well, although I find this mitigated to a large degree by the availability of a Kindle app for the iPhone.  iPhone apps, of course, work on the iPad.

The Kindle clearly wins on battery life.  Frequent travelers know that it’s often trying to get charge time while on the go.

Of course, books are not the only content available on the Kindle.  You can get magazines and newspaper subscriptions as well.  They are easy to purchase and are automatically delivered to the Kindle.  Unfortunately, the magazine experience is poor on the Kindle.  Glossy, 4 color printing really defines what it is to read a magazine.  Rich photographs and illustrations mix sublimely with the copy.  For content that isn’t time sensitive, like product reviews and deep analysis of current events, the magazine offers a superior experience to not only the Kindle, but indeed to the web.

Consider the newspaper instead.  Color is less of an issue, but the power of a newspaper is not the quality of its printing.  Here the format is the king.  The large size of a newspaper makes it easy to scan a large, diverse body of information quickly, and then focus on content you want to review in depth with a couple of folds.  The very linear orientation of the Kindle UI works against this model–it’s easiest to read something from start to finish.  Scanning is painful thanks to e-Ink’s glacial refresh rate.

I see real potential for the iPad to revolutionize not only book publishing, but newspaper and magazine as well.  The iPad addresses both limitations: the screen is in brilliant color, and the Touch UI makes scanning a breeze.  Like the Kindle (and unlike computers) the iPad is a comfortable format for reading almost anywhere.

The New York Times app demoed today shows the promise here, but I think the app model is wrong.  Apps are too hard to develop, and I’d rather buy newspapers and magazines along side my books.  Apple needs to build an extensible format like ePub, but with greater support for interaction and rich media.  Heck, it could be HTML in WebKit for all I care, just make it easy for old media companies to make beautiful content for the device, but give them the ability to serve video and interactive elements alongside it.  People will pay for it in a way they will not pay for something seen in Safari.

iPad the Netbook/Mobile Internet Device

The computer and consumer electronics industries are focused on filling the gap that exists between the smartphone and the notebook computer.  We’ve seen netbooks running Windows and Linux.  We’ve seen netbooks oriented toward cloud computing with no local storage.  We’ve seen tablets and Mobile Internet Devices.  None have made the splash that the iPad did today.

Steve Jobs was very direct today that Apple believes the iPad is the right approach to a device and platform that fits that space.  As a rabid capitalist, I believe there’s plenty of room in the market for multiple approaches, and that the competition is good for the competitors and consumers.  The iPad does draw a strong philosophical line in the sand.

The iPad, like the iPhone, is geared toward simplicity and elegance over flexibility.  The technologically savvy cry against the lack of Flash, multitasking or ports.  In the netbook space, many people debate the merits of local vs. cloud based storage.  On a netbook, you choose what your OS is, and you can install whatever apps from whatever source you please.

On the iPad, you don’t have to know what Flash, multitasking, ports, Operating Systems or cloud based storage is.  You just use the device.  There’s no visible file system.  No obvious distinction is made between local and cloud storage.  Apps only install via the App Store.  This offers great protection from malware, but much less flexibility for developers.

The inclusion of iWork shows Apple is making the iPad a content creation platform, instead of a pure content consumption platform.  I’ll be interested to see if Microsoft Office comes to the iPad, and how Mac/PC application devs approach this development.

iPad the future of computing

It’s clear that Apple sees the iPhone/iPad model as the future of computing, and is actively migrating their product family toward it.  The iPod is evolving via the iPod Touch and the iPad pushes the iPhone model much farther into “computer” territory.  I wonder if Apple sees PCs and Macs as HAM Radios in 20 years: tools for a specific, passionate niche.

With the iPhone and iPad, you touch information.  There is less abstraction than we see with the keyboard and mouse, although Apple’s support of keyboard on the iPad shows they understand the efficiency of that device.  I hope Apple is busily pushing this model toward the Mac and OS X.  While touch-only is a poor model for displays on desktops and notebooks, the compromise offered via multi-touch trackpads and mice isn’t enough.  Why can’t we use a mouse and direct touch?

Also, when does the iPad get a camera?

;)

"People say, 'you have to have a lot of passion for what you're doing,' and it's totally true.  And the reason is because it's so hard that if you don't and rational person would give up.  It's really hard, and you have to do it over a sustained period of time.  So if you don't love it, if you're not having fun doing it and you don't really love it, you're going to give up.  And that's what happens to most people, actually.  If you really look at the ones that ended up being 'successful' in the eyes of society and the ones that didn't, often times it's the ones that are successful love what they did so they could persevere when, you know, when it got really tough.  And the ones that didn't love it quit.  'Cause they're sane, right?  'Cause who would want to put up with this stuff if you don't love it.  So, it's a lot of hard work, and it's a lot of worrying–constantly.  And if you don't love it, you're going to fail."

-Steve Jobs, 2007

Aflac has a new TV spot designed to create understanding about who they are and what they do beyond having a Duck for a spokesperson.  These commercials start airing on 1/11, but the Aflac Duck has posted the first one on his Facebook and Twitter feeds to share with his supporters before the rest of the world.  I think it's very much worth a look.

As a matter of disclosure, my company works with Aflac in a marketing capacity, and I personally work on the account as well.