Sometimes a picture is worth a thousand words. Or more.
Alex Greer posted the following picture on Twitter under the caption:
I turn around and find my parents at the kids’ table at the @apple store. ~ @alexpgreer
Now what can this picture teach us?
1) The learning curve on the tablet is so low that Seniors find it easy to use.
2) The learning curve on the tablet is so low that children find it easy to use.
3) Very important: Both seniors and children (and those in-between) are attracted to the tablet and ENJOY using it.
Extrapolating from there:
4) Whole new classes of people are being drawn to computing. Salesmen on the go, park rangers, kiosk owners, presenters, school children, soccer moms and seniors who never before felt a need (or felt competent enough) to own and operate a computer.
Speculating from there:
5) Our devices are mere windows to our data stored in the cloud. We don’t choose the one tool that does it all or is most powerful, we choose whichever tool works best for the situation at hand.
But I’ll say no more. I’ll let the picture speak for itself.
John, yes the learning curve is low to get started and to be blown away with how much use you can get out of the device. However, over time you learn more and more. It is like peeling an onion layer by layer. My family are recent converts to Apple (from Microsoft) and the logic is quite different. It is frustrating at times not being able to use our devices to their potential; however, we will get there over time. My guess is all of these people who are getting introduced to Apple products and are taking the time to learn the logic will remaing very good and loyal customers for many years to come. People talk about how ‘sticky’ the Apple ecosystem is. I think we will find in the coming years that the ecosystem is much stickier that we thought. Perhaps a good analogy is comparing scotch tape and duct tape; I think apple’s customers are more like duct tape sticky and android customers are more like scotch tape sticky.