Those who complain about what the iPad doesn’t have are looking at it from a “what does it do” standpoint. They are being too engineering-centric. Instead of thinking “what does it do”, think “what can I do with it”.
What do I do with mine ? Sure, I can use an onscreen keyboard and various workarounds to email and use other work related tools, but I’d only consider doing that for short trips, not to replace any other device. What do I use it for day to day then ? To read… and use Apps of various types.. it doesn’t replace my laptop, it augments my options.
Brian Eno says it very well in this article from Prospect Magazine (worth the subscription) :
“When the iPad appeared recently there was some confusion about what it was for. But if you think of it not as a finished product but as a platform from which users can launch their own tools—as they did with the iPhone, for which there are now nearly 200,000 applications—then a whole new world opens up.”
The bold type is mine… think platform, not product.
Who should learn from this message ? Start with Amazon. Their Kindle is going to be wiped out by the iPad. They’ve already slashed the price, but it won’t be long before they have to start giving it away in return for monthly subscription to the 21st century version of the “book of the month club“.
Hmm… platform versus product….platform is cheap, but you have to commit to the product…. iPad, Kindle… and of course mobile phones fit this model.
What’s the next big shift in this area ? SAAS… Software As A Service. Software run online in the “Cloud”.
SAAS is getting bigger by the day, but within five years, the very idea of installing bloatware (MS Office ? MS Exchange ? even Quickbooks ?) on your computer will be, by far, the exception rather than the rule. Five years ? Much sooner if it works for you. For example, I just shifted a medium sized corporate client to cloud computing and they’re already saving enough to be well into six figures of savings right away. You just need to think outside the box a little.. or perhaps put your head in the “cloud”.
