Software And Services Will Decide The iPad’s Fate
An interesting discussion happened on the 5th Feb about the iPad on The Charlie Rose Show, between Charlie, Walt Mossberg (Wall Street Journal), Michael Arrington (TechCrunch) and David Carr (NYTimes). The debate is viewable here.
On the first question on his assessment of the iPad, Mossberg started with “People who are focused on the hardware… are missing the key thing here: The key thing is going to be the software and the services that it will deliver.” I am glad that Mossberg has identified this as being one of the most crucial obstacles that the iPad faces in the eyes of casual users, as well as being one of the prime rebuttals of iPad critics: its too easy for cynical observers to only look at hardware instead of platform potential. Mossberg continued that despite his limited time with the device, it “feels great in the hand…. wickedly fast”, and behaves more like a mac than a smartphone, concluding that its a “different animal to an iPhone.” Michael Arrington pressed that its hard to review the full potential of the device unless its in his hands for an extended period of time.
David Carr was much more forward about what he believes is a radical change:
One of the things you have to understand about this gadget is, the gadget disappears pretty quickly. You’re looking into pure software… it’s all about the software, you’re looking at a clear window into the software that animates the device, and the software that media companies make for it and gaming companies make for it.
He also cites ebooks as being one of the killer apps: ”The book… this is something that has bedeviled the industry forever: ‘why do we have to wait for pages to load, why do we have to wait for e-ink?’ It’s a very sexy application for books”, as he motions his finger mimicking the page turning animation of the iBook app.
Of course, criticism of the missing webcam, Flash video support, and lack of multi-tasking was also discussed. ”It’s perfect for watching Hulu videos” says Arrington, if Apple would support Flash. ”Consumers don’t care about formats, they just want to see the video”, Mossberg says in explaining Apple’s, as well as Google and Mozilla’s, decision on promoting HTML5 over Flash video.
Carr actually championed the lack of multi-tasking by saying that for certain people, this was an attractive strength: ”I think there’s a revolution in that you lean back and read something, as opposed to being up and trying to work on it, not have your twitter stream screaming at you, not have your work emails, RSS feeds blinking at you, but just lean back taking in the show, taking in the book, kind of like a Third Place where we can come to rest. I think people are going to like it.” This is a very unique stance on the topic, one from the perspective of very casual users, the very ones that Glenn had hinted towards as being the prime audience for the iPad in an earlier article. It’s not the kind of device where you have multiple applications all begging for your attention, but a laidback device for relaxing pace of life. You’re using the iPad to enjoy media, whether that be YouTube, movies, photos or books, rather than create and discuss it.
Alot of food for thought on the 23mins discussion! Worth viewing. My question is where are all these haters when speaking about the iPhone and iTouch? It the exact same on those devices, and over 20 Million users seem to be quite happy.
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I think David Carr is spot on about eBooks being a killer app for the iPad. It will literally “kill it” if eBooks is not quickly available in markets other than the US (yes I mean Australia again!). With eBooks you can make a cost rationalization to purchase the iPad instead of purchasing a device like the Kindle. Without eBooks the iPad is harder to justify for a lot of users.