in Mobile Channel,
Since Steve Jobs has introduced the iPad, there’s a huge buzz going on about a product that nearly no one has seen in reality!
Being an iPhone power user, I feel compelled - like every people on earth - to give my 2 cents on this new product which happens to be a kind of giant iPhone, with more or less the same advantages and downsides of his little brother…
Let’s be direct, for me the iPad is 20% innovation and 80% design and marketing: there’s no revolution in introducing yet another tablet, and I can name few unsuccessful devices trying to break into this very market since few years.
But, and this is a big “But”:
This was also true for the iPod at the beginning! While I was already using portable MP3 players with an embedded hard disk for ages, Apple introduced the incredibly beautiful, small and easy to use iPod V1 (at the expense of a poor reliability and a very questionable sound quality).
What happened afterwards? Release after release the iPod was getting better and better, smaller and smaller, reaching the point where it was nearly impossible to buy something else despite the very high price, the terrible headphones, the non replaceable battery, the still questionable sound quality, and - cherry on the cake - the iTunes bottleneck which gives Apple a total control on your portable life…
Same thing happened with the iPhone V1! If you remember the Buzz around the launch, it was pretty negative and nearly impossible for a professional user to envision the iPhone as an alternative Smartphone solution. Few years later, this highly criticized Apple device associated with the appstore concept has totally changed the Mobile phone industry!
Frankly, you can question a lot of things on a 3GS phone, but it is definitely usable, and this unique mix of fun tools and great apps makes it a “pretty cool stuff” despite the numerous downsides.
In essence, the Apple revolution has never been into creating something totally new from scratch – and I can give other examples of this - but more into mixing various existing technology and create a unique customer experience through perfect implementation, unique design, killer marketing and - even more important - continuous product evolution.
In this regard, whatever you think of this new device, the iPad is totally in sync with what Apple has successfully achieved in the past decade!
On top of that, there are additional good reasons for being cautious before adding the iPad to the list of Apple main Failures along with the incredible Lisa computer in 83, the easily forgotten Newton organizer in 93, and the doomed Pippin Game console in 95:
- Let’s not forget than the iPad main asset is to provide iPhone addicted users an in-house version of their favorite drug! Synchronized with your iPhone content, it could be seen as a comfortable alternative with a larger screen for using at home iPhone apps, with the added bonus of comfortably reading books.
- The price remains reasonably low for an Apple device in order for the massive iPhone/iPod touch fan base - used to pay a lot for Steve’s cool stuff - to adopt it easily enough.
- iPad is a product oriented towards domestic use, positioned in the consumer electronics segment, which is clearly a huge market compared to any other industry. Taking small market shares in this main area is enough to reach success!
So, assuming that the iPad will evolve regularly to reach the next level of usability and features - and despite the fact that I have no intention whatsoever to buy one ;-) – it’s not totally unreasonable to think it will be successful!
All this said and whatever the outcome, I must confess that there are some aspects in Apple roaring growth that really worries me as an independent software developer:
- The iTunes/Appstore model seems “cool” but it gives very little control to the software developers and music composers with a) no possibility to market their products directly to the iPhone users, b) no real information on the global appstore traffic and conversion rate, c) no competitive information, and of course, d) no control on the profit margin.
- If things continue on this trend, Apple potentially has total control on the digital distribution and purchase of both music, books and software!
Are we contemplating the mutation of what’s still perceived as a “cool” brand into a monolithic giant, comparable to what Microsoft was in the 2000’s years or Google tends to become in the 2010’s?
Another question to answer, perhaps much more important than the former one about iPad’s future…
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