There have been a host of complaints about the iPad - it doesn't do this, it doesn't have that, why can't it, I wish it would, it's closed ... Even Hitler was disappointed.
All this misses the point.
The iPad represents a fundamental shift in the metaphors and language of "computing." Or rather it extends that shift that was tested first in our pockets with the iPhone, and brings it to our desks, our coffee tables ... everywhere else. The iPad is a huge change.
We have lived for the past thirty-plus years in an engineer's universe of computing, where layers of implicit understanding - about file structures, multiple programs, menu idiosyncrasies, nomenclature -- are required to figure out how to make your computer do what you want it to do. To many of us, these metaphors are completely embedded in our brains. So we can't understand how someone like, say, my mother, can't figure out how to use her scanner software. XKDC captures exactly our frustration, with this flowchart to be printed out and given to our less technically astute family members:
To most of "us" this flowchart says: "It's easy to figure out computers, you just play around until they work."
But for people like my mother, asking her to play around with her computer until it works kind of like asking me to play around with a German dictionary until I speak German. It can probably be done, but it's not going to happen. My mother, like 99% of computer users, wants her computer to help her do some basic things: send email, write a document, scan a file. And yet look, for instance, at Excel -- a veritable locomotive of an application -- powerful, robust, mature, flexible. But in fact most of us just need to add and subtract a few numbers, and multiply or divide the results. That's not to say that there is anything wrong with Excel, but, as with most software, there is so much flexibility that in fact it is difficult for many people to use. Further, that flexibility ends up causing all sorts of problems when unwanted options or formats or behviours suddenly inject themselves into what you are doing.
Apple's OSX is cheered for its simplicity and intuitiveness, but it is still built on the same engineering-based metaphors, natural metaphors to many of us, but baffling to a huge number of people.
The iPhone was a revelation though. Because space is so constrained on a mobile device, all those things that we expect from our computers -- the options and the features and the controls -- either disappeared, or were so removed from the user as to be irrelevant.
iPhone apps were forced by the constraints of the platform to do something revolutionary: to do one thing well.
When that thing is something people want to do, the apps are successful.
Extending this design principle beyond a small phone to a larger device will alter the way we think about software, our relationship with "computers" -- and the network. Some -- many -- will decry our loss of control with the iPad, but I can assure you: my mother doesn't want to control her computer, she wants her computer to help her do what she wants to do. Controlling a computer is the last thing on her mind.
As for me, while I like controlling my computer, there are many more interesting and useful things I would prefer to do with my time.
As Fraser Speirs says:
Many will cling to their January-26th notions of what it takes to get "real work" done; cling to the idea that the computer-based part of it is the "real work".It's not. The Real Work is not formatting the margins, installing the printer driver, uploading the document, finishing the PowerPoint slides, running the software update or reinstalling the OS.
The Real Work is teaching the child, healing the patient, selling the house, logging the road defects, fixing the car at the roadside, capturing the table's order, designing the house and organising the party. [more...]
I don't know if the iPad will be commercially successful, but I believe it represents a fundamental shift in the metaphors of computing, as significant as the move from text to graphical interfaces.
[PS: numerous conversations about the iPhone shaped these thoughts, especially a delightful conversation in Ludlow with Chris Hughes, about his computer-hating father who loves his iPhone.]
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How the Apple iPad Could Kill the Kindle - Columns by PC Magazine
Will Apple's Tablet Actually Be Called the iPad? New Trademarks ...
I think the biggest paradigm change with the iPad is "reading," And I don't just mean books and magazines with dynamic content. I watched the demo video on the Apple website and what struck me was "reading" the internet. We've taken the browsing metaphor as far as we can, I think. With a device like the iPad (not Kindle or Nook - no web access) the web becomes the worlds biggest/longest/most interesting book. Ever. It never ends and it leads in a million different directions.
That's no different than the web is pre-iPad, but the availability, the portability, the natural posture of readin on such a device just may mean the true next way of computing... and even that will become the wrong word. It won't be "computing" any more but real information usage. It's just a start, a peek at what might be possible. And it's very exciting.
The recent PBS Frontline documentary is a worthwhile watch. And don't miss MIT's Dr.Sherry Turkle's full interview. Dr. Turkle is one of our best thinkers about the impact of technology on being human. This long (for our short cyber-attention spans) interview is essential reading for thoughtful people.
I personally hope that my KIDS, PARENTS & TECHNOLOGY: A USER'S GUIDE FOR YOUNG FAMILIES (www.mydigitalfamily.org) gives parents the tools to create media plans for youngsters to benefit them and family life.
And that is where I get off the Apple bus.
Apple did not develop any shift in computing. They stretched an existing product and gave it a new name. Its disingenuous and a dirty trick. If Jobs had not mentioned "netbooks" during his presentation, no biggy. Put the logo on a stone and keep it moving' But he did. So we compare and come up with: one is a computer and one isn't. If it touches the net, and this does, it will sell. It looks good so if you have 500 bucks laying around, do it. But the ipad can't multitask so it's no netbook, no usb, no webcam so you getting less for your money. So it's tough to see this as even an equivalent to a netbook. If the ipad is a tablet than would you say the itouch is a mini tablet?
As for multitasking, that's hardly ever truly done. A person interacts with only one application at a time on any computer, and then switches to another app, even when copy/pasting. The iPhone OS gives a similar experience because apps open very quickly and remember where you left off, as the developers are encouraged to do.
There's a whole new class of multitouch-based applications that will be developed for the iPad that should have been developed for PC tablets but weren't because the Windows OS and its SDK weren't exclusively multitouch-centric. This is further distinguished by the other unusual equipment such as accelerometer sensor, digital compass, and location awareness from Wi-Fi or GPS not typically found in a notebook computer.
That and the iPad's touch-centric focused OS are the key factors, and is initially boosted by compatibility with thousands of applications from the iPhone. As such, the iPad is not a duplicated and empty device, but instead is hitting the ground running with a destination every other device has only suggested.
I certainly don't blame you for thinking it's pointless because nothing like it exists in anybody's life right now. Not yet.
The competition is not (just) Amazon it is books (yes you can still buy those in hardbook and paperback, or borrow them from the library and the free on-line content.
The I-Pad does not matter, its who reads and will pay to do so.
I rather think it's an attempt to get rid not only of possible problems, but any possible solutions as well.
Apple has been trying to do the thinking for users for quite a while, with the horrendous iApps and features like Time Machine, widgets and such.
It takes more time to get OSX running without ballast, and regain control over the system, than setting up a Windows installation.
The moment you lock down an OS completely, on the software and hardware side, there is not going to be any progress, be it by developers or for users .
The user will not be able to exploit the - non-existing - capabilities a computer has, and developers are stuck with creating Kindergarten apps .
Being creative isn't possible, as there are no creative tools which are running, or could be handled, on the iPad.
The iPad is operating in a vacuum, just like the iPhone - unless you jail-break it . ;)
But I challenge the notion that iPhone has resulted in a block on progress, or that it is operating in vacuum: there are some 150k iphone apps (from nothing) - doing all sorts of interesting thing (and lots of stupid things too of course).
The synergy of Apple's programming such as iTunes with their hardware has always been the key reason for Apple's success.
I keep trying to explain to my computer savvy friends -- I don't WANT to know how to "fix it," I want it to "Do it."
As you said, 99% of us are Not interested in controlling the computer. We want to do stuff on the computer.
When my friends sigh in exasperation at my inability and unwillingness to understand what they are explaining to me - I always remind them, "there are more of 'me's than there are of 'you's,'" therefore market share alone means that someone is going to figure out what I want - and that's what all of the 'me's' in the world will buy." Simple arithmetic!
And I don't ask so many questions since I got a Mac.
And computer geeks don't need to be hating on Apple - you guys can keep your Linus or Linux or whatever.
Thanks Apple!
Satisfied customer.
"I have pressed the wrong button along with way, and this long article has funny paragraph indications etc. Could you get rid of them and send them back to me?"
I don't expect those kinds of questions about any software installed on an iPhone or iPad.
As for perspective, I'm not sure what you mean. Text commands to GUI was a huge shift in how we think about & interact with computers. The iPhone was an even bigger shift in how we think of phones/mobile devices - and indeed "computers." And I *think* that the iPad represents something similar for "computers" writ-large, or whatever they should be called now.
While listening attentively, my own brain began to wander. Why are we spending time, money and science to replicate how the brain works. We already HAVE the human brain with its creativeness and ability to self-organize that is so marvelous. The problem is not to replicate it but to make better use of it. To put it another way, the problem is how to best educate human beings so that they may perform as individuals and in society more efficiently and less destructively.
"the problem (for technologists) is how to best to design and build technologies that help human begings create things that matter to them, and solve problems that are important to them."
http://www.ipadlot.com