After letting the dust settle around Apple's announcement of the iPad,
I wanted to take a more measured, less reactionary look at the new
device. The coverage that immediately followed the announcement was
even more biased to both extremes than coverage of the President's
State of the Union address which occurred the same day. I know that
there's a growing body of folks who just don't like Apple, but I was
surprised at the level of antipathy.
Those that damned the iPad seemed to come in two flavors: those that saw the iPad as the embodiment of corporate greed and walled gardens, and those that thought the device didn't measure up to their personal expectations.
There is a sizable (and growing) population of folks that simply will not purchase an Apple product or participate in its eco-system for various reasons. I think that's fine. While I personally enjoy their products, I don't believe that everyone has to agree with me. I get no less enjoyment out of my MacBook or iPhone by someone else having a Lenovo ThinkPad or an Android Phone.
Unfortunately, that view isn't shared by many. Take the flame-baiting in the aftermath of the iPad announcement and replace the term "iPad" with "gay marriage" and the arguments look nearly identical. Gay marriage is so upsetting to conservatives that they can't imagine being in a world where it exists. It's not that gays are coming into their homes and performing unspeakable acts, it's that they can't imagine even being on the same planet with them. So it goes with the iPad—there are the FSF types who can't imagine living in a world where Apple controls every single thing that goes on a device.
I'm not aware of anything in the President's address that said every
man, woman and child in the U.S. was going to be forced to use an
iPad. As far as I know, people are still free to choose whether or not
they wish to purchase and iPad and wander about in Apple's walled
garden. Don't want an iPad? Fabulous. Don't buy one.
Folks, it's a big world out there. There doesn't have to be a single winner. Even as Apple trumpets having over 50 million touch devices, that pales in comparison to the worldwide population of those who could afford such devices. That's even without considering the fact that if you own one iPod/iPhone, you probably own another. In terms of real numbers, I don't see a growing "collectivization" movement to dress everyone in Apple products. If Apple were interested in market share, they would charge a lot less for their products.
Besides calling the iPad a freedom-killer, the other category of
critiques were that the device was simply disappointing. This reaction
particularly surprises me. Yes, there are certainly quibbles to make
about various features of the device (no camera, no multitasking,
etc.) but the dismissive observations that the iPad is simply "a big
iPhone" I think misses the point. Yeah, it is a big iPhone, which
has been a huge success by any measurement. If you love the iPhone,
then the things you most wish it had were more of are screen
real-estate and speed. So making one that is bigger and faster is
totally logical. What did people expect? Roomba integration? A
toaster? 3D goggles?
ReadWriteWeb attempted to break down the anger with this graph:
Looking at this chart, I would categorize 38% of the complaints as just pure snark. The next 27% that dismiss it as a "big iPhone" are missing the point. The remaining complaints are all valid and worth talking about a bit:
No Flash
Hooray, I say. I don't run Flash on my desktop or laptop if I can help it. I simply do not like Flash. It rarely enhances my experience on a site and often pegs my CPUs for no good reason. Yes, I'm aware that Adobe has to do a lot of video codec work without the aid of hardware, but that doesn't address the jarring user experience that is Flash. I have not missed Flash on the iPhone either. If you want Flash, don't buy a iPod, iPhone or iPad. It's as simple as that.
Oh, and if you're running a Mac and feel the same way, do yourself a favor and install the Click to Flash plugin, which lets you ignore Flash on the web completely.
No Multitasking
I'm on the fence about this one. I'm not convinced that multi-tasking is essential for a device like the iPhone or the iPad. The truth is, I have not had many instances where I thought, "Damn! If only I could run two apps at once!" I think a lot of people think they want it because their computer has this capability.
I think that's the point that is being missed. The iPad is not, in any way, being put forth as a general computing device. In fact, to categorize it as a "tablet PC" is to completely misunderstand the iPad's underlying design philosophy. When I watched the presentation and demonstration video what I saw was easy execution of tasks. Nobody was demonstrating bit-rates, frames-per-second, or tail-call optimization. The underlying technology and "platform" are simply the means to an end.
This is a different enough device that people will have to change their thinking about their relationship with their computers. I don't think it means a comprimising relationship, but one that is different from today. Fraser Speirs eloquently called the inability to comprehend this shift as Future Shock.
Lock-In
Another major complaint of the iPad and the entire Apple/iTunes ecosystem is that it is a closed system. Users don't get to mix and match devices freely from other manufacturers. The party-line from Apple is that they want to control every aspect to provide the best user experience. Detractors argue that it is part of Apple's plan to own all of your content like Big Brother (as Microsoft has attempted to in the past).
I get why people feel uncomfortable with handing Apple control of their stuff. Personally, I have a lot of Apple products in my house and I'm happy to give them that control because, for me, it is a better experience. I will happily trade some vague notion of "freedom" for stuff that just works. Endless fiddling and integration of disparate technologies isn't freedom at all—it's an enslavement of the most precious resource I have, which is my time.
Not everyone is happy with that and they prefer an alternative. Hey, no problem. Live and let live. You want to run Boxee on Linux connected to an iRiver. More power to you. I won't sneer at you or call you a fool. If it makes you happy, your choices don't affect me in the slightest.
As an aside, if anyone complaining about the lack of Flash is also complaining about lock-in, that person needs to be hit repeatedly with a rake.
No Camera
Sigh. Yeah, this one is a bit disappointing. I don't really care so much about having for video chatting (which I do maybe once a year). But I really like using a camera to capture things I would otherwise have to take a lot of effort to write down. How cool would it be to have your iPad in a brainstorming session where you can still jot a few notes down then associate a snapshot of the whiteboard?
Now there is an interesting design conundrum here. Do you put the camera on the front or the back? Depending on the tasks you expect to perform, this makes a huge difference. If you want people to see you, you put it on the front and figure out how to give the user the user visual feedback so they can position the camera.
If you want to take pictures of other things, you put the camera on the back and use the video display as the viewfinder. However you can't reasonably reverse the tasks for these two positions. OK, so do you put two cameras on? I don't know. How do you control them? Does each bit of software implicitly decide which camera to enable? Does the user have to decide?
I don't know the answer, but I would be very surprised if a camera didn't show up in the next version of the device. They put cameras in the iPod Nanos for cryin' out loud. Surely they can figure out how to stick one in an iPad.
More AT & T
The amount of bad press AT & T has received via the iPhone has to make them wonder what sort of devil they've made a deal with. Are there serious issues with AT & T? You betcha. Do they effect everyone? I'm not convinced. Coverage in San Francisco and Manhattan seem acutely poor, but in my corner of the Northwest coverage is pretty damn good.
The non-iPhone types love to make fun of AT&T, fueled largely (I think) by schadenfreude. I'd be very curious to see how other carriers handle a similar load. I used to work in that industry and the mentality among carriers is all the same. They all want to wring every penny they can out of you by charging for every bit you use. Let's not kid ourselves.
Kudos to Apple for making a WiFi-only version. For me, this is a pretty compelling configuration. I'm an urban kid. There are few places I go where I can't get some kind of access to WiFi. In the cases where I can't get WiFi, I have an iPhone. Plus, I imagine using an iPad primarily at home, or on vacation, but not for commuting.
I'm no AT & T apologist—there are some serious issues they need address— but I'm not convinced that this makes the iPad a "failure".
Conclusion
Am I an Apple apologist? I hope not, but people are notoriously bad judges of their own character. What I can say is that there are certainly things about the company that frustrate both as a user and developer. However, I am still more delighted by their products than I am frustrated with them. When that balance changes, I'll move on to something else.
I'm pretty jazzed about this device, both as a consumer and as a developer. What sucked me into the iPhone was how it just oozed with utility. Not in terms of potential energy, but in that it fulfills the notion of computers as and extension of our own minds. The iPad just takes the next step forward. I can't wait to see how it all unfolds.
P.S. Just I'm glad to see the iPhone finally get some competition, I'm also looking forward to somebody putting up a good fight against the iPad.