What’s the surest sign that the iPad is the world’s hottest tech product right now? It may not be Steve Jobs telling us it’s magical and revolutionary, or the avalanche of coverage on tech blogs. Maybe it’s the arrival of cheesy ads that dangle free iPads in front of people–almost two months before the gizmo even goes on sale.
Earlier today, I was on Facebook, and saw this ad:
Free iPods for 45-year-old males? I’m 45! I’m male! What a happy coincidence! What a rare opportunity!
[NOTE: I wrote this last week as a guest post for FOLIO, the magazine industry’s trade magazine and Web site.]
In the weeks leading up to Apple’s launch of its tablet device Wednesday, a strange fairy tale started to gain currency. It cast the publishing business as a hapless Sleeping Beauty—and Apple CEO Steve Jobs as a Prince Charming who’d kiss the industry out of its slumber with a combination of hardware, software, and services that would instantly restore consumers’ willingness to pay for quality content.
As I sat in the audience at the event, I slowly figured out that it wouldn’t provide a ready-made happy ending for magazine publishers. Apple did reveal that the gizmo includes an e-book reader, iBooks—but as the name suggests, that software is meant for books, not periodicals. It also let the New York Times show off a handsome app for reading that paper. But the only magazine that came up during the event was TIME—and that was when Jobs showed how good its Web site looked in the iPad’s Safari browser. It mostly served as a reminder that it’s not entirely clear why many consumers would choose to pay for digital magazines when the same content is available on the Web for free.
What’s the single most worrisome thing about the iPad? It’s not the lack of a physical keyboard, or that third-party applications can’t multitask, or even the fact that people are still arguing that it’s unclear whether there’s a market for the thing. It’s Apple’s monopoly on distribution of applications. Absent jailbreaking–and I’m curious to see if Apple has done anything to lock down the iPad evenmore than the iPhone–this is a device that will run the software that Apple thinks it should run.
For lots of people, that’s a dealbreaker on both philosophical and practical grounds. Last August, during the controversy over Apple’s failure to approve Google’s Google Voice app, I blogged about my unhappiness with the situation but also said I thought Apple would decide it was in its best interest to do the right thing with app approval in the long run.
Months later, there haven’t been any further major App Store approval fiascos (at least not ones that we know about). But Apple never did approve Google Voice, and Google gave up and developed a Web-based version. It’s quite good, but not as good as the native one would have been.
As an iPhone owner, the whole Google Voice saga is still stuck in my craw–especially since Apple’s official stance appears to be that it’s still “pondering” whether to approve the app.
Emotionally and rationally, I want the iPhone/iPad platform to be open. I still believe it’ll happen. But here’s the thing: At the moment, Apple’s closed platform has a vastly richer and more interesting selection of applications than any mobile platform that is more open. An optimist would take that fact as evidence that Apple’s strategy actually benefits consumers; a pessimist would conclude that it gives Apple little incentive to loosen up.
The next big milestone for the iPhone/iPad platform will come when Apple starts to disclose details about iPhone OS 4.0. Judging from last year’s iPhone 3.0 timetable, 4.0’s unveiling may be only weeks away. If Apple announces that it’s formally allowing applications to bypass the App Store and its approval process, I’ll be stunned. But if it has no news whatsoever about relaxing the current constraints on developers, I’ll be very disappointed.
Your thoughts?
At Wednesday’s iPad launch, Steve Jobs began his introduction of the new gizmo by noting that most of us carry a laptop and/or smartphone, and asking whether there’s room for a new kind of device in the middle. His answer, of course, is that there is–and that iPad is that product. That makes iPad the third distinct class of computing device that the company offers–assuming you don’t consider iPods to be computing devices.
As is my wont when I’m comparing products, I whipped up a T-Grid. This one contrasts the iPhone 3GS, the iPad, and the cheapest version of Apple’s flagship MacBook Pro computer. Check it out for a quick summary of what Apple thinks is important to include in each category of device. The MacBook Pro may be the most expensive and capable of the three, but there are certain ways in which it’s beginning to feel like old technology, such as its lack of built-in 3G and GPS. And I’m starting to wonder how long it’ll be until Jobs decides it’s time to build a touchscreen Mac…
[Note: The original headline on this story was “Microsoft: iPad is “Humorous.” Microsoft PR head Frank Shaw tweeted that he found that title misleading. After contacting him and listening to his complaint, we’ve changed the headline to make it more specific.]
It’s an understatement to say that Apple’s iPad generated a lot of chatter when it was announced on Wednesday; the scuttlebutt actually slowed down the Internet. Even Microsoft couldn’t help but weigh in, criticizing the iPad for being a “locked down device.”
“It is a humorous world in how Microsoft is much more open than Apple,” Brandon Watson, the director of product management in the developer platform at Microsoft, told me in an interview yesterday. With Microsoft’s platforms, developers can build whatever they want, and target a broad array of devices using the same skill set, he added.
Watson claimed that many developers of applications for the iPhone OS–which the iPad uses–are not making money. Developing applications for the iPhone and iPad is expensive, he said, because iPhone OS uses the Objective C language rather than Microsoft’s more pervasive .NET platform. And Apple’s control over the platform has alienated some people that make software for its products, he said.
It’s certainly true that there has been some griping about Apple’s development policies, and not every app is a winner. Facebook developer Joe Hewitt famously protested against the control Apple is exerting over its hardware (he is now praising the iPad), and argued that Apple is setting a “horrible precedent.” The Free Software Foundation protested the iPad on Wednesday for being an “unprecedented extension of DRM” into a new class of computers.
I think that the FSF’s argument may have merit, but Microsoft’s criticism misses the target altogether. What Apple has envisioned with the iPad isn’t a traditional PC–it’s more of an appliance. You don’t tinker with your television; you turn it on and consume services. The iPad’s Apps are like services. And despite what Watson said about iPhone developers failing to make money, some are clearly doing exceptionally well.
When Microsoft released its Tablet PC back in 2001, it grafted handwriting recognition onto Windows. That capability extended Windows into new (such as engineering and medical services), but the Tablet PC was still essentially a PC running Windows. Windows 7’s multitouch enhancements create a more natural user interface for PCs, but a PC is still a PC.
The iPad isn’t a PC. I’ve gone on trips to Boston and Washington DC over the past several weekends, and spend hours riding Amtrak and on Wi-Fi-enabled busses. I didn’t bring a laptop with me, because I didn’t want to lug one around, and didn’t really need to have a full fledged computer with me. My iPhone provided me with entertainment along the way. Truth be told, I would rather have had an iPad with me to surf the Web, listen to music, watch movies and read. If the price comes down even further, Apple’s got a winner.
Yet another iPad question: How hard will it be to buy one of these things?
When the original iPhone went on sale, there were thousands of people willing to wake up at the crack of dawn and wait in endless lines to buy one. Same thing for the iPhone 3G and iPhone 3GS, although in all three cases much of the madness would have been avoidable in an utterly rational world–it was possible, late in the first day of sale after the throngs had dispersed, to stroll into an Apple Store and pick up a phone with little or no wait.
With other Apple products–not to mention 99.99% of products from other tech companies–this doesn’t happen. I don’t recall it happening with iPods even when they were at the height of their popularity.
Right now, the blogosphere is awash in debate about the iPad, deeming it as everything from the next tech revolution to a big yawn. Massive lines on day one to buy the thing won’t be a definitive confirmation of the gizmo’s worth. But they will be one data point regarding the level of interest among real people. (And yes, I’m aware that it’s in Apple’s interest to whip up as much frenzy as possible for debut day–which we know will be in late March, although the company hasn’t specified the date.)
I’m not a chip geek, so I can’t really judge this story. And I persist in thinking that it’s too soon to judge the Apple A4 chipY inside the iPad, period. But the article I’m linking to says the A4 is mostly existing technology from venerable chip designer ARM, not innovative new stuff from Apple. (It also ends with some angry ranting which doesn’t do much to increase its credibility–but like I say, I’m not in a position to judge…)
As I spent a little hands-on time with an iPad at Apple’s event yesterday morning, jabbing away at the on-screen keyboard felt oddly familiar. It wasn’t a familial similarity to the iPhone keyboard–the fact that the iPad’s keyboard is so much larger gives it a completely different personality. But my fingers seemed to be telling me that they’d had a similar experience before.
This morning it dawned on me: The iPad keyboard feels a lot like the one on the first computer I ever bought with my own money, the Atari 400.
“Apple’s 9.7-inch OLED tablet PC is expected to have a cost of about $1,500-1,700, the report explains, adding that OLED panels are pretty expensive and suggesting prices should only fall in time.”–9to5Mac.com, 11/19/2009
“As the world waits with bated breath for an Apple tablet, one thing is for certain: the rumored tablet with a 10-inch touchscreen won’t be cheap. Most new-fangled Apple products cost the proverbial arm and leg, and it’s unlikely an Apple tablet (which the blogosphere calls the iSlate) will break this trend…the likely price point is under $1000. If Apple holds true to form, that will mean $999.”–CIO, 1/5/2010
“A key factor for the tablet’s success will be price. Yair Reiner, an analyst for Oppenheimer & Co., said in a research note last month that the tablet would be priced at about $1,000, citing sources. One challenge: Apple’s MacBook laptops start at $999.”–Wall Street Journal, 1/5/2010
“Sure, the tablet we expect Apple to launch on January 27 will probably have more than its share of cool factor. But do you want to spend $1,000 or so for bragging rights?”–PC World, 1/19/2010
“Apple may price the tablet at about $750, putting it between the $399 top-of-the-line iPod Touch and the $999 entry- level MacBook notebook, said Toni Sacconaghi, an analyst at Sanford C. Bernstein & Co. in New York.”–BusinessWeek, 1/27/2010
I could go on. If there was a genuine surprise at yesterday’s iPad launch, it was the starting price: $499. Apple, in its Apple-esque way, calls tht “unbelievable.” Well, maybe: my jaw didn’t drop, especially since it’s for a model with relatively little storage (16GB) and no 3G wireless. And some of the features that folks expected would add to the sticker price, including a camera and/or an OLED display, aren’t there. It’s one of the rare instances of Apple defeaturing a product to hit a particular price point, which I take as a sign that it does indeed want to sell iPads in vast quantities from the get-go.
But at $499, the iPad is a plausible netbook alternative, or an upgrade from the iPod Touch. And even the top-of-the-line iPad will be $830–well short of the hefty price that everyone “knew” the Apple tablet would go for.
Bottom line: all the pre-analysis of the tablet’s appeal and chances of success predicated on a starting price around a grand turned out to be irrelevant. We need to start over again, and judge the produce Apple announced at the price it’s charging.
What say you?
