We Are Organized Chaos

How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the iPad

As a self-described Steve Jobs hater, it’s going to sting a little to say this, but here goes:

Steve Jobs is right, and the haters are wrong. iPad is amazingly great and will be a tremendous hit. He is right to go with the iPhone OS and not OSX or some other multitasking capable OS. He is right to eliminate built-in expansion ports like SD, HDMI or USB. It doesn’t do Flash, which supports many of the Web’s most popular and heralded Rich Internet Applications – and that’s okay. It’s just a big iPod Touch. And that’s what it needs to be, for now.

Now let me try to explain how I came to this excruciating conclusion. First, I will start with a fictional story to put you in the right frame of mind. Imagine that after months of rumors and speculation, Apple came out and said, “Look, we have just developed the best video game of all time.” Enthusiasts drool and the Press pants with anticipation. Finally, MacWorld arrives and they dramatically unveil… Bejeweled. “But it doesn’t have 3D graphics OR multiplayer, this game sucks! It isn’t even as good as the original Wolfenstein. I’ve lost my faith in Steve Jobs,” the fan boys howl. “It isn’t really designed for an XBOX controller,” the pundits muse. And Steve Jobs smugly grins as over the coming years Bejeweled emerges as the standard bearer for the multibillion dollar casual gaming industry.

In order to appreciate why the iPad is going to be so successful, you’re going to have to relinquish your “Me First” attitude. Just because it doesn’t do what you want it to do, doesn’t make it a bad device. It just makes it inappropriate for you, personally. Most people don’t try to leverage the maximum power out of their laptops and netbooks – they use them as tools for accomplishing specific tasks. Under normal circumstances, there’s a correlation between general system power and complexity of usage. But more complexity doesn’t necessarily mean something is better; for most people, when complexity exceeds what is needed to perform the task at hand, it leads to an inferior user experience. Most people prefer managed experiences based on forcing functions to the open ended sandboxes that Tech Professionals like us demand. Instead of figuring out how a power-user would make best use of it, think of another type of user. Imagine a usage profile that focuses on personal email, Google, Wikipedia, Facebook, online shopping, listening to a little music and casual gaming. The iPad excels in this scenario. And this scenario, while not pertinent to the fan boys and pixel pushers, represents a much larger swath of the population. For them, support for “Push” notifications is all the multitasking they want or need. For them, external ports are rarely used, if ever – who wants little holes getting gummed up with grime and food? For them, not doing Flash is no big deal (especially with HTML5 around the corner, although they are unconcerned with such nuances). For them, it’s just a big iPod Touch. And that’s what it needs to be.

So to all the techno-geeks that feel let down, don’t. This device isn’t for you and it never was. Stop worrying about it and get on with your lives.

Tags: ipad