Icrontic Op/Ed: Steve Jobs is tired of you

Brian Broderick 29 Jan, 2010 at 4:37pm ET Article published in Tech

Well, sort of anyway.

I should probably start off with full disclosure. I am an Apple user. I like their products. I used to hate Microsoft. Windows 7 has changed that perception, and I am actually typing this out on a Dell Optiplex GX520. I’m just one of those people that believe there is room in your life for multiple computer experiences—it just took a while for Microsoft to provide something worthwhile.

That being said, Steve Jobs has finished creating products for users like me, and 99% of the readers of this site. People lurking here most likely already have convergence, and aren’t looking for simplicity. And no offense if you are, but I can’t help you with your grandma’s virus problem.

Apple has created a nice product line for itself—from the Mac Mini to the Mac Pro, and an attractive laptop line as well. iPods and iPhones are market leaders. Considering the corporate dominance, the market share for the computer division is acceptable to them. But acceptable only satisfies Steve for so long. New users are the holy grail, and the crusade is on.

I will make an assumption that everyone here has a laptop, desktop, smartphone, and possibly a netbook. You’re set. My father-in-law has an iMac and an iPod classic. He is in love with both and it has really helped him expand his use of the internet, since he was chained to a Windows computer for a long time. His wife has a 17″ MacBook Pro, but he hates it. “Too big…” The iPod has played video once. He tried to use my wife’s iPod Touch, but it was way too small for him. This is where the iPad fits in. It’s not what You and I need. It’s what he needs—and there are boatloads of people just like him out there. The announcement was all over CNN and Fox News—talk about a targeted demographic!

Now the only way for us to get a tablet that comes close to our expectations from Apple is to play the sales game. Here’s how it breaks down: The first scenario is that it sells like lightsticks at a rave and revision two is software only. Scenario two is marginal sales will force Apple to cater to its base and add hardware enhancements (camera, mic, USB, HDMI/MDP).

I’m personally hoping for the latter, because the premise of a full-on communications tablet stokes me. But the reality of the situation is that my wife wants one, and I don’t think this or any article will put out that fire. That’s how they get you, again and again.

Comments

29 Jan 2010 ~ 12:01pm Snarkasm Fair points. Catering to the masses only brings everything down, though.
29 Jan 2010 ~ 2:16pm bjbroderick Indeed, but that can be leveraged to everyones advantage. I will be happy if the less featured products sales help drive the innovation and improvement of the feature laden products.
29 Jan 2010 ~ 4:47pm Thrax Fair.
29 Jan 2010 ~ 8:06pm MachineDog My dad thinks this is a great product idea to purchase for my mom. I've shown my mom some of the announcement video; She thinks it's a stupid idea and that it looks like a toy.

I'm not sure I'm convinced that its extreme ease of use is going to catch on in the mainstream, but I think it's an interesting take on computers for Apple to try to provide an extreme ease of use computer. I also think this is just the beginning of a larger product line of this style of personal computing devices, if it catches on.

eReaders sound like a stupid idea too, but they're all the rage right now. Maybe Apple is onto something here.

I should point out that I feel this is so far and above easier to use than Android or Moblin tablets will be, and that the ease of use is the defining feature.
29 Jan 2010 ~ 9:12pm bjbroderick Ease of use is key, but don't forget the Apple marketing machine is Massive! My parents in law heard about Macs all day long, but didn't really want one till they saw one on every television show they watch. Eventually, people out of the loop start thinking to themselves "I must be retarded! Am I the only person in the world that doesn't have a laptop with glowing fruit on it?" And thus, another notch in Steve's belt.

Brian
29 Jan 2010 ~ 9:57pm mas0n I think my main problem with the iPad is that the TC1100 kicked its ass almost 6 years ago but nobody wanted a tablet. Apple does it and it's magical and revolutionary. Maybe I'm just bitter.
30 Jan 2010 ~ 2:50pm Linc I was reading a piece today by Frasier Speirs titled "Future Shock" that said this:

I'm often saddened by the infantilising effect of high technology on adults. From being in control of their world, they're thrust back to a childish, mediaeval world in which gremlins appear to torment them and disappear at will and against which magic, spells, and the local witch doctor are their only refuges.

With the iPhone OS as incarnated in the iPad, Apple proposes to do something about this, and I mean really do something about it instead of just talking about doing something about it, and the world is going mental.

I think that pretty much sums up what the iPad is about and the tech media's reaction to it. I don't really want one, but I'm not the audience they're after and I don't think that devalues it as a product.

Great piece, Broderick.
31 Jan 2010 ~ 12:44am airbornflght I agree with the write up and the problem most of 'us' have with the ipad is that it is a completely different user paradigm, and it comes back to what you were saying about apple wanting to create a new use scenario. And they will, apples pr machine is amazing at that.

To add to what I was saying about different user paradigms: Most of us want discrete, browse-able, configurable file systems. Most of us want to be able to run multiple applications at the same time. Right now I have chrome, outlook, skype, vlc, uTorrent, pandora, and excel running; not to mention what's running in the background. A majority of us need, or at least think we need, a very powerful system.

But the users apple is going after don't. They want something exceedingly simple. They would rather not worry about organizing their documents and keeping tabs on them, or more to the point, the will gladly let the os do it for them.

They neither want, nor need the control. Their documents are still accessible to different applications through calls made to the os.

I won't get one, but am excited by the concept.
31 Jan 2010 ~ 12:28pm spin498 From a technical standpoint the iPad does nothing particularly new or interesting for me personally.And like a majority of people who might consider themselves technophiles I wrote it off. But as a part time photographer I was intrigued by an idea a pro photog put across on a photo forum about using it as an electronic portfolio. That idea I do like and may, dependent on my liquidity get one, for that one and only reason.
31 Jan 2010 ~ 12:30pm Linc I keep coming back to this idea of Apple UI not appealing to our community.

My roommate during my senior year of college was a pre-med student. He's a brilliant guy; he graduated in the top 5 of our class (no minor feat - the college's pre-med program is notoriously difficult). He couldn't do a damn thing on his PC but send emails and type up lab reports. Every year at the end of spring semester, he boxed up his computer and didn't unbox it again until he came back for fall semester. He doesn't want to know about file system hierarchies and what processes are running.

When I think about who the iPad isn't for, I think of my friends from Icrontic. When I think about who it IS for, I think about everyone else I know.
31 Jan 2010 ~ 12:34pm chrisWhite

Lincoln wrote:

When I think about who the iPad isn't for, I think of my friends from Icrontic. When I think about who it IS for, I think about everyone else I know.

Exactly.
31 Jan 2010 ~ 12:45pm Snarkasm

Lincoln wrote:

He couldn't do a damn thing on his PC but send emails and type up lab reports.

Did he happen to want to do those two things at the same time?
1 Feb 2010 ~ 12:23pm airbornflght Probably not.
1 Feb 2010 ~ 4:19pm Cris I just think the ipad hardware and OS sucks. No multi tasking, no flash support, no USB, no Mic, no external (non-apple-store) software. It is just an oversized ipod, and a very dumbed down version of a computer.

As for a camera, it sounds reasonable to expect a device with that shape and size to lack a webcam or a camera, you just can't hold it in a position where a webcam/camera would be useful.

Flash is a must if you're going have a browser in it, about 70% of the video on the web is played by flash, no point in buying a media-playing product that can't play the vast majority of the videos on the net.
1 Feb 2010 ~ 4:20pm Thrax Hey Cris. You should register for Icrontic.
1 Feb 2010 ~ 4:30pm Cris Yeah I just did that,

BTW I've been cheated by this site, it says it takes 30 seconds to register but I did it in 25.3!
1 Feb 2010 ~ 4:38pm Grimnoc

Cris wrote:

Yeah I just did that,

BTW I've been cheated by this site, it says it takes 30 seconds to register but I did it in 25.3!

Wait. So isn't it more like you cheated the site?
1 Feb 2010 ~ 6:52pm Snarkasm ^ That's what I'm saying. You finished in record time! Come claim your 4.7-second prize!
1 Feb 2010 ~ 6:54pm ardichoke Icrontic: Register in 30 seconds, forfeit the next 30 years of your life.
1 Feb 2010 ~ 6:57pm Cris Woah! icrontic goodie bag? What do I get?
1 Feb 2010 ~ 7:00pm BobbyDigi Lifetime of Friends and and open invite to educated conversations?

Way better then a 4.7 second call from Snarky

-Bobby
1 Feb 2010 ~ 7:09pm Cris Yep that sounds like something worth getting in exchange of the 25.3 seconds that it took me to register, glad to be here