The iPad – Actually Brilliant?

*Gasp*! I know, I said it. Look, I know I said I’d never talk about it again, but I’ve had an epiphany. And, given the pre-sale of the iPad this week, it seems perfect timing, so I thought I’d share some of my evolving thoughts on the matter.

First of all, that commercial they showed during the Oscars was really awesome. It sounded like a lot of tech heads weren’t big fans, but I thought it made the iPad look really cool – I almost wanted one, until I realized I would have no use for it and if I were going to waste that much money I could at least go to Vegas or something.

Second (and really the focal point here), is that I was explaining to someone why I thought Apple’s strategy with the iPad didn’t make any sense, and something clicked in my head. If you’ve talked to me at all about the iPad before, you’ve likely heard me complain that it wasn’t exactly clear what it was supposed to be. Is it an e-reader? A web browser? Are you supposed to type on it? They say it’s not supposed to be like a netbook, but then why do they release a hardware keyboard and iWork for it? It just doesn’t make sense. You’d also remember that I complained that it’s just a big iPod touch – My friend Steve asked me, “Why wouldn’t you want an iPod that’s twice the size?”to which I replied “ummm, because it’s TWICE THE SIZE”.

But then I remembered the iPod touch. I used it as a music player slash PDA, and kind of assumed that’s what it was meant to be used as. And, to a certain extent, that may be true, but even that is two different things. You could use it as either or neither. I have a friend who has an iPhone but has no music on it – she just uses the PDA functions (and the phone). Likewise, my younger cousins use their iPod touches solely for video games and video podcasts – they have no music, just a ton of apps (Matt Buchanan of Gizmodo recently tweeted an interesting point: Street Fighter IV, the fourth installment of a huge video game franchise that dates back to the old NES days, was released on the iPod touch before it was released on either the Nintendo DS or the PlayStation Portable). Now, one could argue (and I would agree) that the iPod touch did have a more specific application in mind – music playing, and to a certain extent, a PDA with a few small games, but even if you do argue that, the fact that it’s blossomed into what it has probably led to Apple’s decision to not market the iPad too specifically.

Think about it – if the iPod touch ended up having a different purpose for everyone that bought it, why can’t the iPad? Instead of saying “this doesn’t carve enough of a niche for itself in the market,” say “you could use this as one or multiples of many different applications – thus broadening your consumer base” and all of a sudden new light is shed on the situation. Will it happen? I’m not sure, but it is a distinct possibility, and may throw a giant monkey wrench into my theory that Apple dropped the ball on this one. Of course, I’m still not a fan, for all the same reasons I’m not a fan of most Apple stuff – but that’s me, not most people. Most people will buy anything that Apple makes if they can use it for something, even if it’s not everything it was designed to do. Which is fine. It’s just weird that all of a sudden, my hatred for the iPad and all the speculation around it goes away, and now I’m very curious to see what happens. I will be watching with great interest, if for no other reason than it restores faith in Apple’s brilliant marketing, despite the fact that I still wouldn’t buy it as an e-reader (due to it’s lack of e-ink, thus making it far inferior to just using a laptop in my opinion) and some of their philosophies I strongly disagree with.

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~ by Whitson Gordon on March 14, 2010.