Friday 29 January 2010

IPad will make laptops like desktops



There is so much stuff being written about the iPad I thought I would concentrate on one thing which I think no one has mentioned yet, or most likely, I have not read yet.

It’s also easy to be seduced by art of making predictions. It’s really a great game to play because you are very rarely held accountable for the things you predict. You rarely lose, unless you say something glaringly wrong. However, most people will have forgotten what you've said by the time you predication fails to arrive. The benefit it that when you do get it right, blogs, Twitter, etc, all provide you with a date-stamped record and thereby prove to the world what a techno-prophet swinging dick you are.

But rather than talk about 'seismic shifts in the world economic order’ that this products hails, and try to make sense of whatever brave new world this product is supposed to usher in. I thought I would concentrate on what this product means to me, as an average consumer, and why I think its will resonate with other consumers.

I am sure that all one of my readers are sure to find this interesting.

Lets start by taking into consideration price and features. In the Apple product range it sits between an iphone and a macbook. Looking at this product range as a whole, I noticed the following which is shown in the headline graphic, which is a diagram showing, on a gross scale, the amount of wires and cables required to run the device. Its not a true scale, even with my iPhone I need a shed-load of cables, and docks., but the general trend is that the as you move down the product range you need more cables. Also, the further you move down the scale, the more computing power you get too, dedicated hardware, etc.

Importantly, this diagram is also a scale of how the machine is increasingly tethered to the desktop. ON one end of the scale is the iPhone which requires little or no cabling. On the other end sits Mac Pro Tower. which requires extensive cabling for monitors, keyboard and a mouse. Each product sits nicely along this scale.

When I first saw the iPad, like any consumer making a purchasing decision, I asked how much this machine overlaps with technology I already own. Most people tend not to want to piss money away, especially, now, so the reasons for buying the product need to be valid. These questions, or at least the ones I asked, were like this: "Its sort of like an laptop in size but its may not have enough power to do what I need", "its not a phone as its massive, so it cant replace that device, so what does it do', "..and it cant multitask, so I cant really do real work on it, never mind that it doesn’t really have a keyboard, etc'. All on the surface rather negative, but really an exploration into how this product overlaps with what I already own. The point that I wouldn’t fork out for a product that can be done with the devices I already own.

Then I realised, it actually does fill a need. Like most people, I work on a laptop connected to a large display at work. The reason I have a laptop is portability. I regularly am out meeting clients, working in different locations and the portability of a laptop is perfect for that. However, most of my time(around 90%) is really sitting at my desk working. My laptop is really a’ portable desktop computer’.

Laptop performances have improved greatly that now, so much so, that I don't really take a huge performance hit by using a laptop. What I might sacrifice in speed, but this is made up for in portability. A good display is far more important to me. Also bear in mind that over the last few years, Laptop sales have been improving at about 11% (according to a really inaccurate google search I did). Desktop computer sales have been heading south at about the same rate. So I am not alone in this migration away from towers to laptops.

And because this is my only computer, I regularly schlep it to and from work each day, mainly because I like do work at home in the evening but also because I like to surf, book tickets, shop, check my emails, Skype friends, play games,etc. I do all these tasks on my laptop as well because its portable and I have schlepped it from work. But the real issue is that no matter how portable laptops are, they’re not. They’re heavy, they’re cumbersome on public transport, they’re difficult to walk long distances with. If I didn’t want to use a computer at home, then I wouldn’t lug my laptop hom again, preferring to leave it at work, where I can catch cabs to client meetings, etc.

And this is where I see the iPad fitting into my life. What it is going to do is be the machine to do all the stuff i don't need my laptop for. I could do it on my laptop but I wont now, because I have left it at work and have an iPad at home. In essence the point I am making is that the iPad is a machine that allows me to leave my laptop at work.

Now add to that purchasing decision, the portability, the size, the fact that it will be an e-book reader. I can read my daily newspapers in a format and size similar to a newspaper in real life (i.e. on my lap and at arms length), then it becomes more than a partial laptop replacement and really starts to appear as a compelling thing to purchase.

And that to me is where the product sits and to a consumer, why the product will be a success. As a product,it fills a need, the need to leave my laptop at work. Laptops are the new desktops. So what happens to the desktops then?

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