It’s been just over a week now since Apple announced the iPad and I’ve had some time to collect my thoughts.
My initial reaction? Disappointed. The science fiction nerd in me wanted the tablet to be full of the new technologies Apple has patented — haptic feedback, solar-powered battery, individual finger detection, etc. — and I felt disenchanted, disillusioned, all of that dis- stuff. (Ironic, since I said in my initial tablet post that “I do expect some cool, glamorous new technology in the tablet, but the more exciting thing (for me, anyway) will be the re-envisioning of how we use computers.” Sometimes I think I need to read what I write.)
The iPad was more evolutionary than revolutionary, I thought. Wrong. The revolution is more subtle, but it’s definitely there, and it’s exactly what I talked about at the end of that post (duh, Ben). But we’ll get to that in a moment. First, let’s look at those speculations.
Speculations
- Canvas. iPad. The name is awful and I’m sure most of you have heard all of the female hygiene jokes already. It’s also a bit too close to “iPod.” But that’s what it’s called, so whatever.
- 10″ screen. 9.7″. Close enough.
- New multitouch gestures. Some. At first I didn’t think there was anything new on this front, but watch the Gizmodo video on the new gestures. They’re mostly natural enough that I didn’t even realize they were new.
- A brilliant new input method. We got a big virtual keyboard instead. I originally thought this was lame, because who wants to type like that standing up? Then I realized that it’s mostly not meant to be typed on while standing. And that’s okay.
- Amazing battery life. Not solar-powered and not infinite, but ten hours isn’t bad. We’re getting there.
- New OS. Apparently it is iPhone OS, from what I’ve heard.
- Both 3G and wifi. I was wrong about no plan being necessary, but there are no contracts, which is cool. As for the 250mb/month thing, I checked my iPhone and found that I’ve been using around 170mb/month on it. Streaming video, though, would need unlimited (or wifi).
- $1000 price tag. $499–829. I’m happy to have been wrong here, and yes, I’m planning to get one (the $499 model).
- Books. Yes, indeed. More on this shortly.
- New section of App Store. Not quite. Letting the iPad run iPhone apps is smart, I’ve realized, for two reasons: new iPad owners can use all of their iPhone apps from the get-go, but it’s also a spur to developers to make their apps iPad-ready. (iPhone apps look kind of lame swallowed up in that vast sea of black. And no, pixel-doubling is not a real answer.)
iBooks
When Steve mentioned that there’d be an iBook Store and that the books would be using the ePub format, I got a little giddy. This could potentially be really, really big for ebooks. (It could also fall flat. We’ll have to wait and see.)
First, the iBooks app. The page-turning animation is nice eye candy, sure, but the typography on the book in the demo was pathetic. Rivers of whitespace running all over the place. Seriously, Apple needs to learn about hyphenation. (And this from the company who first brought beautiful typography to computers. Sigh.)
Brief semi-related tangent: As a ebook designer, I’d prefer users to be able to read books the way I typeset them, but if they really want to change the typeface or the font size or whatever, then I say let them do it. If they make it worse, it’s their own fault. My job is to set sane defaults (since most people don’t change the defaults anyway). Similarly, as a reader, I’m willing to stick with the default settings if they’re beautiful, but if they’re hideous, I want to be able to change things till I get something I can stand. Apple, if you can’t get the justification to look good, at least let us turn it off. Please.
Also, the font choices (Baskerville, Cochin, Palatino, Times, and Verdana) wouldn’t have been at the top of my list, but I’ll reserve judgment there till I see them in use on an actual iPad.
I hope the iBooks app doesn’t mean Apple will be restricting other ebook apps (like Eucalyptus, Stanza, and Classics) on the iPad. Probably not. Will I be able to load my own ePubs into iBooks? Hard to say, but iTunes does let you add your own music and videos to it, so there’s precedent for that. I’m crossing my fingers that the iBooks infrastructure will be available on the iPhone and Mac as well. The iPad might be the ideal way to read iBooks, as far as form factor goes, but it’d be nice to switch devices when I’m away from my iPad (the way you can read Kindle books on your iPhone).
Speaking of the Kindle: Its display is ugly and the slow refresh rates turned me off from the beginning. Yes, I know that e-ink is supposedly easier on the eyes and all that, but I’d rather have a crisp, colorful, fast display, and most people are used to reading off screens anyway. (And if you’re planning on reading for long periods of time, go get a real book. The iPad/iBook isn’t meant to replace paper books — at least not yet.)
iBook Store
This is the more exciting part for me, being a publisher. In the keynote, Steve Jobs said that they’d be opening the floodgates to every publisher in the world, which is great. I’m wondering what their requirements are for who they consider to be a publisher, though. Will it be a yearly fee (like the App Store, where you have to pay at least $99/year) or something else? No clue. I don’t really know what the process is for getting music or videos into the iTunes Store. (Podcasts are relatively easy, though.) Unless Apple’s requirements are unnaturally stiff, I plan to sign up and try it out.
This is great for ePub, I should add. Apple’s backing could help it become the MP3 of books. And ePub is itself a decent ebook standard (it’s HTML/CSS zipped up, basically, with some XML metadata attached — nothing too proprietary).
Will there be DRM? I hope not. Apple is already moving away from DRM for the music on iTunes, but I don’t know if the book publishers would sign on if there weren’t DRM. My guess is that there’ll be Apple-specific DRM, like there was in iTunes, and in a few years when the publishers see how they’re selling way more ebooks through the iBooks Store, Apple will press them to drop the DRM and they’ll comply. ~fingers crossed~
What the naysayers are saying
Two of the biggest complaints I’ve heard so far are about the iPad’s lack of multitasking and Flash — both of which are complete non-issues to me.
Multitasking: First, it’s detrimental to productivity. Seriously. Not only that, but you can switch between apps on the iPad (and iPhone) fast enough that it doesn’t really matter, and the apps remember what state they were in before so it’s almost like you never even quit the app. Not allowing multitasking also really does result in more stability and better battery life. People who keep begging for multitasking are missing the boat. For more on multitasking and the iPad, read Milind Alvares’s article.
Flash: Honestly, who cares? I’ve never, ever missed having Flash on my iPhone. Ever. And believe me, it won’t be long before content creators whose stuff only works on Flash (Hulu, I’m looking at you) make iPhone/iPad apps using H.264 instead. Flash is dying. Let it die.
For more on Flash and the iPad, read John Gruber’s post. Also read Zeldman’s piece on how “lack of Flash in the iPad is a win for accessible, standards-based design.” (And HTML5 video is coming along nicely: check out the new SublimeVideo player. Only works in Chrome and Safari right now, but Firefox support is coming soon.)
My brother-in-law brought up a point that I hadn’t really considered so far: if someone emails me a document, I can’t easily save it to my iPad, edit it, and then email it back. A central Document Library (ala the Photos Library, which apps like CameraBag and Brushes can access and save to) would be nice.
The revolution
It began with the iPhone. Millions of iPhones sold, millions of customers saying that yes, they really do want a more human computing experience. They don’t want to tweak. They don’t want to fiddle. They don’t care about open v. closed. They just want something that works.
And you know what? They’re right. This is what most people need: a computer that’s easy to work with, that abstracts away all the details that don’t matter, that’s as stable as, say, a car. And on that note, check out Gruber’s comparison:
Used to be that to drive a car, you, the driver, needed to operate a clutch pedal and gear shifter and manually change gears for the transmission as you accelerated and decelerated. Then came the automatic transmission. With an automatic, the transmission is entirely abstracted away. The clutch is gone. To go faster, you just press harder on the gas pedal.
That’s where Apple is taking computing. A car with an automatic transmission still shifts gears; the driver just doesn’t need to know about it. A computer running iPhone OS still has a hierarchical file system; the user just never sees it.
Why the iPad matters: people who aren’t “good with computers” will be able to use the iPad without having to call their tech-savvy nephew or granddaughter for help. It’s computing for the masses.
Don’t believe me? Read On iPads, Grandmas, and Game-changing, Old World and New World Computing, The iPad is the iPrius, and Future Shock.
Sure, techies who like tinkering will still be able to get old world computers. You can still buy cars with manual transmissions. But within, I don’t know, five to ten years, most computers will become like the iPad. And yes, there will be more open solutions as well (running Linux or what have you). Give it time.
This is huge. It’s perhaps one of the biggest steps we’ve ever taken towards making computers more human-friendly (and not just geek-friendly). Until the iPhone, computers were the province of magic and wizardry, or so it seemed to everyone else. No longer. And again, the iPhone has shown that this is what people want, and the iPad is going to give it to them.
Comments
There have been rumors that the iPad/iPhone SDK allows for a central area where files can be saved to so other apps have access to them, as well as a way to download files from the web and save from email.
Also there is rumored to be a folder on your desktop Mac that will sync with iPad.
These may not even be rumors, I can’t recall.
I was thinking about the multitasking while reading your post, and for half a minute you had me convinced that multitasking isn’t really necessary. I then realized, though, that it allows for background processes. Granted, this isn’t really an issue with the user base that Apple is targeting, and the use of cycles on something running in the background reduces the amount available to generate snappy animations.
I’ve often wondered, though, why you’re such an iPhone fan. Given your tech-savvy, I’d like to know why you favor a closed, restricted platform. Is it the aesthetics, the simplicity, the prevalence, or something else? My Nokia N800 doesn’t have as refined a UI as an iPhone, but I can sure do a lot more with it–ssh, remote desktop, bash scripting, USB connections, expandable memory, background processes :) . . . (okay, it isn’t a phone, but the N900 is).
Great write up Ben. Does anybody else feel a little confused with iBooks and the iBook? Ha. Weird.
@Matt – iPhone has remote desktop apps galore. Some of the other stuff I am not familiar with. I do wish it had background processes (at least the ability for 3rd party apps to use them), but expandable memory hasn’t been an issue at all for me.
Mostly the in-app email & web browser functionality works fine to circumvent background/multi-tasking stuff. Still, I wish I could get a dashboard and see updates from multiple apps in one place.
Pretty sure they have SSH apps, not familiar with bash, and not sure I understand what USB connections you use.
With iPad, if it’s fast enough I won’t mind switching apps. Background processes are possible (Apple uses them in their own apps), but 3rd party apps are left out. So it’s possible in the OS, Apple just limits access for some reason.
George: Ooh, that would be awesome. I hope it’s not just a rumor. :) And from what I’ve heard, the iPad is super, super fast and switching apps really just feels like Command-Tabbing through already-open apps.
Matt: As George said, Apple does allow background processes in its own non-App Store apps, just not in App Store apps (including Apple’s, like the Remote app). The problem is that if you’ve got a background process that hangs, it’s eating up valuable RAM and generally adds to the instability and crashiness of the platform. Eliminating all but the most essential background processes makes it a whole lot more stable, and most users simply don’t need them for what they’re doing. I’m not going to be doing heavy-duty video editing on my iPad. It’s not for that — that’s what the Mac line is for. The iPad is for surfing the web, checking email, watching movies, etc. (Which is all most users need it for. It’s the 80/20 rule.)
As for why I prefer the iPhone, it’s because it does pretty much everything I need my phone to do, it does it nicely, it’s stable, it just feels right, and yes, it’s pretty. :) I can SSH with my iPhone (iSSH) and remote desktop with it (there are a handful of VNC apps). No, I can’t do bash scripting with it (Unix shell scripting), I can’t plug USB drives into it, I can’t add more memory to it, and I can’t run background processes with it…but I’ve found I don’t actually need any of that. Features I don’t need are useless to me and get in the way of the features I care about and actually need. :) And if I really, absolutely need to write a bash script or use more memory, I’ve got my laptop or iMac for that. (Remember that the iPad is aimed at general computer users, not geeks. Which is what you said. :))
Now for closed v. open. First, the iPhone can still run web apps, so it’s not a completely closed ecosystem. And even though iPhone web apps can’t access all the phone’s features, you can still do a lot with it — I mean, look at the new Google Voice web app. Second, closed v. open is the whole point of new world computing, sort of. By closing most of the details off and hiding them from the user, you free them up to focus on the things that really matter (email, web, making stuff). It’s really only the geeks who want open systems. (And I should say I’m one of them. I ran Linux for eight years. I use the terminal daily. But I don’t want to spend my life getting drivers to work on my phone — I want to use it as a phone. Stability is more important than tweakability in the case of such a critical device.)
Tod: Thanks. :) And yes, I do too — I almost mentioned it in the post but cut it in my last rewrite.
I thought I’d share one example of why scripting and background processes are useful. I wrote a simple script on my N800 (yes I wrote it on the device) that automatically creates a reverse ssh tunnel to my work computer when the device detects the wireless network at our lab. It then becomes trivial to copy files to or from my computer or access the terminal on the device, without touching the device. I can also use the device normally needed, without breaking the connection.
As for the stability and driver issues, since the OS has been created for the device there aren’t any problems that you have to deal with yourself.
Oh, and getting root access doesn’t void your warranty :) (but that’s probably just a geek thing).
At the risk of this becoming even more of a rant/rave, I have to also mention that because you have root access, you do things like install alternate on-screen keyboards (e.g. Thai, Khmer, or create your own layout) yourself.
I don’t have anything against the iPhone and the iPad–they’re nice packages of good hardware and software, that are well targeted to the general user. I think the iPad most likely will spark a revolution in how personal computing is done–but because of Apple’s business plan, not because of what it is. What I hate is people thinking that there aren’t any other good options and that the capabilities of Apple’s products are revolutionary.
. . . you *can* do things like . . .
Here’s my two cents:
The iPad turned out to be pretty close to what I was expecting. I think it’s going to be pretty awesome, mainly because it’s a great step for casual computing (as you wrote about). Sometimes a mouse and a keyboard are great, and necessary, but sometimes you just want to kick back and browse – photos, music, the web, etc. Every computer should have a multi-touch screen! I’m excited to see where this style of computing goes. I think the iPad is going to carve a new market – it will certainly steal some share from netbooks and laptops, but I don’t really see it as a replacement for netbooks. Maybe eventually.
Now, on to Flash. Flash provides rich experiences that aren’t possible otherwise, even with HTML5. Maybe HTML will eventually support more of these things, but how much further down the road will that be? Flash may die, but not any time soon. HTML is great because it’s open and universally accessible, but it progresses pretty slowly. It’ll never be able to keep up with the capabilities of Flash.
Don’t get me wrong – I hate Flash. I want it to go away because it’s a plugin – another thing that you have to install to get your computer to work. And that’s the sort of thing we’re trying to get away from, right? I just want the web to work, and to work for everyone, without any hacking.
Which brings me back to the iPad. Since we can’t run Flash on an iPhone or iPad, how do we get the rich experiences? Apps. You don’t miss Flash on an iPhone because most sites have developed either an app or a mobile-compatible version of their site. And there will soon be iPad versions of those sites. Facebook, for instance, will have an iPhone version, an iPad version, the regular web version, an Android version, a webOS version, versions for other future tablets, etc. *Sigh* Can’t we just have one system that works for everything? (Then again, maybe many sites which don’t need the extra rich content won’t need to create an iPad app since the regular web site will work great on the iPad – isn’t that one of the points of the big screen?)
So here’s my only real gripe about the iPad: how is this awesome new style of casual computing going to become ubiquitous on a closed system? If it’s going to grow, with multiple vendors (because monopolies are never a good thing), there’s got to be an open system they can all use. Like the web. But that doesn’t work because the web doesn’t provide the awesome, rich experience. So there will be more apps. *Sigh* You can’t really blame Apple – this is really the only way for it to work and work well. I don’t know the right way out of this dilemma, but I’d love to see a more open way of delivering content to devices than where we’re headed now.
Sorry for the long post Ben; I don’t have my own blog, so I have to put it here :)
I, on the other hand, do have a blog.
I started to respond here within minutes of you posting this yesterday, but it got too long. Instead I just posted it over there.
Matt: That is pretty cool, and I can definitely see why features like that would be useful. That said, I’ve found that most of the time I don’t actually need to do those geeky things on my phone. Am I missing out? Maybe, but so far I haven’t noticed it. (Also: the iPhone does have an onscreen Thai keyboard easily available. No Khmer or Lao to my knowledge, though, but since I pretty much never type either, I haven’t missed them.) And yes, the iPad and iPhone are in fact aimed at general consumers, people who aren’t geeks like you and me. Apple’s products aren’t the only good products out there, but for me, they’re the best of the bunch. (I should add that every once in a while I find myself yearning to buy a cheap PC so I can tinker with Linux.)
Chris: I can potentially see the iPad replacing netbooks, but yeah, I think it’s a new thing entirely. If anything it’ll replace laptops and desktops for a lot of people. As for rich experiences, things are actually moving pretty quickly on the HTML frontier, and it won’t be long before you’ll be able to get the same rich web experience with HTML/CSS/Javascript as you can with Flash.
This new style of casual computing will become more mainstream because of Apple, but other manufacturers will follow suit, and many of those will be open. And the web is swiftly catching up as far as offering an awesome experience. I wouldn’t worry. Also: blogspot.com. It’s free. ;)
Kurt: I agree, especially on the part about multitasking and ADD. :)
Throw in your two cents