Apple’s new commercial, which aired yesterday, sent a message that I feel is the defining theme which sets the iPad apart from the competition. Here is the commercial in case you haven’t seen it.
Beyond the video Apple, has dedicated the landing page of their iPad website to this theme. The tagline “what will your verse be?” In a similar vein I pointed out in this article that the power of the iPad is in its potential. Which is why the marketing around the iPad from Apple all centers on this idea that the iPad is not only powerful but its advantage is in its multiplicity.
The iPad is without question the most powerful general purpose computer in the market today. In order to grasp that statement there are two fundamentals to understand.
Form Factor
The iPad’s form factor is the basis for its diversity as a general purpose computer. Anyone who designs hardware will tell you that the form defines the function. Yet what is unique about the slate form factor is how many forms it can take that other computing platforms can not. To grasp this, simply look at the many use cases and stories Apple uses to showcase how the iPad is being used and ask yourself whether the slate or the notebook form factor are more ideally designed for each.
The PC is for certain a general purpose computer. Yet its form factor limits all its general computing capabilities to only be taken advantage while in a fixed position either at a desk, or with the device sitting on your lap. The iPad, and the slate form factor take this idea of mobile general purpose computing to an entirely new level. The iPad enables its general purpose computing power to be used in both stationary and mobile situations. The iPad liberates general purpose computing from the lap or desk and enables it in contexts where computing was absent before.
Apple is showcasing how the iPad is being used on the sidelines by sporting teams, going into the depths of the oceans to do underwater research, on movie sets, in art studios, by DJs in clubs, and a host of other use cases. All places where a notebook form factor could and never would have gone.
One thing that goes unmentioned in this is the iPad’s aspect ratio. Apple has gone against the grain of Android OEMs and Microsoft tablet OEMs by staying with 4:3 as the aspect ratio for the iPad. At first glance the value of this is not recognized yet it is significant. By using 4:3 as the aspect ratio the iPad is able to be used in portrait mode and in landscape mode interchangeably. Microsoft’s Surface and other 16:9 tablets are nearly unusable in portrait mode given that 16:9 is largely a wide screen format and while Windows 8 supports portrait mode nearly every attempt to use it this way is clunky and burdensome.
While its not as bad as Android, there is simply not many apps that support large screen portrait mode to begin with so the use cases are fairly minimal simply due to the lack of software. Which brings us to the second fundamental.
Software
As important as the hardware element of the iPad’s advantage is the software advantage is equally important. I don’t need to beat this point over the head since it is common knowledge that the iPad software ecosystem towers over the competition. But it is this fundamental point that I feel enforces the iPad’s value as a general purpose mobile computer. This is why I think Apple is showcasing its software advantage so heavily. Because if you can do more with this product then it should be worth more.
Apple knows the iPad is not the cheapest thing on the market and it never will. Therefore the software advantage, which Apple will have for the foreseeable future, will be a key message to communicate to potential customers. The tablet market is past the early adopter stage and has gotten quite a bit more competitive. Therefore Apple’s positioning of the iPad over the competition is key. And it is the iPad’s diversity to support each and every use case a consumer would want to use it for which is the iPad’s advantage. This is what Apple needs the market to understand. And if they can they will clearly demonstrate why you should not only buy an iPad but why it is worth paying more for an iPad.
Apple has an incredible opportunity with the iPad. Smartphones are a great category and they have changed how we communicate and having a pocket computer will change public spaces more than many realize. But tablets get me excited about what they can represent as the future of computing. Many Apple observes put much of Apple’s future on the iPhone and I don’t think many realize how important the iPad is to Apple’s future but also the future of computing.
Early last year, one of my clients, a VP at a Dow-listed tech firm belted out that she didn’t understand what all the fuss is about Apple, and went on to say that her daughter (in high school) wants an Android phone now and says none of her friends use Apple products.
Being tactful, I decided not to share my conclusion that her daughter had, most likely, discovered boys and most likely had been deflowered by an Android-toting peer, or at least had someone in mind. That is similar to trend-setters fleeing Facebook because grandma is on Facebook; therefore, Facebook can’t be cool anymore.
Few seem willing to accept that Apple is playing a completely different game; the level to which they have ripped past traditional product knowledge is unbearably great, and so, it is easier to deny that anything special has happened. Mind you, Steve Jobs did not know how profound Apple’s developments would be.
The iPad form factor is absurdly better at most computing tasks. The thing to watch for in the next few years is which companies will reap a strategic advantage from the platform rather than emulating what legacy “PC” devices can do. The economic effect of iPad-like devices will be an order of magnitude greater than that of iPhone-like devices.
It’s time to stop thinking in terms of popularity and casual usage; instead, let’s ponder whether your business is going to improve as a result of using iPad-like technology. That’s where things like a 4:3 display instead of one tailored toward movie viewing, and a software ecosystem that compares favorably to that of Microsoft Windows show that there is great potential here…
“general purpose computer”
Hmmm…
Mobility is enough?
It’s only as general purpose as the computer that programmed it. If you accept that, then yes it’s general purpose. But then, a single source of software would limit it’s general purposeness. The Java apps that teachers, professors, or specialists in various fields write, or have written, would run on it. Oh, no JVM, well then certainly someone can write one for it. Oops, wrong again.
I guess there’s degrees of “general purposeness”… š
We need a new category. PC’s are “Totally General Purpose”.
It isn’t that mobility is enough, it is that mobility enables new cases from a general purpose viewpoint which the PC can not. The tablet as a general purpose mobile computer can bring computing into the places the PC and its design for long form fixed input can not and will not.
You can’t say the PC is general purpose and the tablet is not when both can be used in individual and combined cases to cover a spectrum of computing needs. What you can say is that both are general purpose but make minor tradeoffs in certain areas. You also can’t say any other tablet is general purpose other than the iPad.
Well, since we’re classifying (not a bad thing to do). I will grant you that, in regard to “locational applicability” tablets (no, not just the iPad) are general purpose. So are smartphones.
In terms of the latitude of problems, “software applicability” that stays with PC’s and mainframes.
No matter how you cut it, calculus is not algebra.
What will be interesting is, and kind of is already, how the definition of “full PC functionality” changes, especially as the hardware changes. Right now, most of the Modern western world is influenced by keyboard and mouse. The rest of the world not as much. And even now, the youngest westerners not as much.
The PC started out with keyboard because the first major uses (think MS Office) were about the keyboard. Then came the mouse and manipulating graphics became easier. At that point the PC system became solidified. As you and I have both noted in other comments, systems are about enforcement and control. Everything for computers had to involve those elements. Even if (usually expensive) proprietary hardware came out, much of them still hooked into those APIs because unless the software came bundled with the hardware, it still needed to accommodate keyboard and mouse for the majority of potential users.
Not all PC uses work well with keyboard and mouse. We have figured ways to stumble along until something better comes about. Audio and video work (and drafting as far as I’m concerned) come to mind the quickest since in some form or another I work in those media a lot of my time. You can use ProTools without custom hardware, but to do day-in, day-out work it is best with.
With the dance company I work for we just moved to a digital playback system that is PC based, but not PC only. We use Q-Lab for our audio playback with two MacBook Airs, one as concurrent backup in case the other goes down in performance. We have a custom usb controller an audio tech from another dance company developed. Those feed into a MoTU Ultra MK3 that we’ve been using primarily as a D-A interface to feed into a Yamaha console.
The thing is the MoTUs can also serve as a mixer, either through its own awkward interface or a PC, which for live performances, pretty well sucks. However, there is an iPad app that can serve as the interface. Now with the MacBooks as playback (we’ve gone through all the audio revolutions from reel to reel, to DAT, to CD) we can run the MoTU software in the back ground without interrupting Q-Lab since the MoTUs have their own DSP. My audio tech can now record presets from tech rehearsals and still adjust live as needed. We really don’t need the Yamaha console, but we’ll keep it a little longer as we transition.
A dance company’s needs are pretty simple. moving to the MoTUs and ditching the Yamaha as well as some other gear in the process, we not only reduce our physical footprint (which makes presenters happy since they will have more seats to sell), we reduce the size and weight of what we need to carry, which saves on freight costs.
All thanks to the iPad. The PC may be “fully functional” but not for our purposes. The times, they are a changin’, including what a PC is _best_ used for, which is not everything a PC _can_ be used for.
Joe
I’ve commented on this before, it’s worth repeating. Being a PC is more than hardware, it’s about implementation as well. Back when towers dominated, a small screened PC, or even a “headless server”, was no less a PC than one that had a 30′ inch monitor. Either did the amount of RAM, speed of the drives, or even the model of the CPU. All those things determined performance. What they all had (and still have) in common was that they were programmable directly on the machine. Tablets and smartphones require a PC to program them. I tend to consider them “appliance” computers. This is not a derogatory term. Appliances can be extremely useful, as your example illustrates. But the iPad is acting as a controller, and (in the iPad’s case) the app must be approved.
When Apple loads Xcode onto it, it will go a very long way towards making it a PC. I say this not to be sarcastic towards you (towards Apple, yes). Direct programmability is a distinct attribute of a general purpose computer, just as “other computer programmability” is a distinct attribute of an appliance. It would also mean that “App Approval” is dead, the machine is under the complete control of it’s owner, hence “personal”. That’s not to say you can’t CHOOSE to use it as pre-configured, that would remain your “personal” choice. It would satisfy both the usage scenario aspects discussed AND the software latitude as well.
I think everything together is the fully functional PC, no single thing. I can’t think of anything more personal than my smartphone. There are things that if my laptop (no more desktop for a few years now, other than for my TVāMacMini, HDHomerun, EyeTV) doesn’t have or can’t do, I don’t care. but if my phone isn’t up to date, my work and my ability to work suffers. I can’t and don’t have my laptop with me all the time. But my phone is always with me.
Joe
To your point, it was Bill Joy that coined the adage “the Network is the Computer”. Though I was averse to the thought at the time, the advent of the personal network has adjusted my thinking. Now if we only had our own “personal pipes” for access…
Nice article, Ben. I’ve “liberated” a few choice sentence for re-cycling in my future articles. š
What I donāt understand: Why is Apple the only company that āgot itā about the value of the 3:4 screen proportion for tablets? Why is no other company doing it? Why are all other doing nearly exclusively 16:9 (or 16:10 at best)? Where is all the alleged āchoiceā for consumers? What do they gain in ādifferentiationā for their products by doing the same as everybody else (except Apple)?
(Yes, Iāve seen non-Apple 3:4 devices the last two years in stores near me ā exactly two, and they were complete crap. And HP used 3:4 for their WebPad ā or whatever its name was ā, but this one was killed before it had any chance.)
I donāt get it ā¦
itās awesome article. I look forward to the continuation.