On comments about the iPad

[chipotle]

What was the famous Slashdot quote about the first iPod? “No wireless. Less space than a Nomad. Lame.”

While I’m not going to predict the iPad will match the success of the previous iP* product lines, there’s a definite party line among the geek crowd that only fashion-conscious fanboys would ever actually buy Apple products and that whenever they introduce a new gadget it’s the Stupidest Thing Ever. If the majority of commenters on Slashdot and TechCrunch did not piss all over a new Apple product, that’s the product I’d expect was in trouble. Given how much pissing is going on around such sites over the iPad, I'm betting the thing is going to sell like crack-infused hotcakes.

Never make the mistake of assuming either of the following:

1. That you really know what a product you've only seen demo videos of is going to be good at. Some things look much better in demos than they really are, and some things have to actually be used to be properly evaluated.
2. That because ultimately a product is not good for you means that it's not good for anyone else. You are not necessarily in the median of the product's target market segment.

(N.B.: I'm not sure I'm in the iPad's target market segment. It's not designed to be a laptop replacement and I'm not sure I need another gadget about. I might rather have it than a dedicated e-book reader, all the arguments for the superiority of e-ink not withstanding, but I haven't been sold on e-book readers yet, either. So.)

Comments

Re: And when you're only half-way up, you're neither up nor down

[barberio.livejournal.com]

Imagine you're a student again.

Now, this iPad can store all your text books, and some of the new text books include embedded video and audio. And it lets you annotate them with notes from a lecture where you get told the text book is wrong in such-and-such case. It weighs a pound, and is no bigger than a thick clipboard. As opposed to the twelve pounds worth of paper based books. And you can do your midterm paper on it. And you can check your class schedule on it, and get updates on room changes. And it can do lots of other fun stuff as well...

That's just *one* target market for this thing.

[pseydtonne.livejournal.com]

I think you're hitting on it.

We've entered this rare space in technology where we can invent things before we need them. This would be superfluous, almost sinful action to our Puritan ancestors (who worked out those neuroses and became perfectly boring capitalists, hail Satan).

For marketing folks, it's pure joy. For the rest of us, it can be confusing until we start playing. Suddenly a new device solves problems you'd repressed.

Wouldn't it be great to have the entire of ancient Greek writing available to you any time? Done.

What's wrong with having something that perhaps talks to all your computers but isn't tied up with being a full computer? Oh sure, I love my servers and my notebook. I would just prefer to have only what I'm reading with me when I have to get under the car and fix a hose or get into the basement and test the power lines.

Yeah.

Still, I'm not going to buy an iPad write away. I'm on my third iPod, but I know it took a couple generations before it was ready for a record collector like me. I want to hear people throw their fits first, then watch whether Apple adapts (and often they do), and then decide.

I love the idea of having my pr0n reader not need to power up for a whole minute. I like knowing it'd be more like my cell phone -- durable enough, dependable enough, not so smart that it wants to pick a fight with me.

Oh, and it needs a USB slot for my thumb drive. End.

[toob.livejournal.com]

I think it's the opposite. For the tech nut, it's pure joy. They love playing around with new devices. For marketing folks -- they have to convince other people that their world can be a reality that contains it and that it has real uses NOW.

You can't market a product based on the idea that you don't "get it" until you try it.

[pseydtonne.livejournal.com]

Actually, that sounds like the best come-on line I've ever heard.

iPad: it's eating at you that you don't dig it yet.

iPad: be cooler than your kids. No, they can't "see" it.

iPad: You'll figure it out. Yes, you. Come find out.

iPad: What do you mean, what's it for?

[chipotle.livejournal.com]

You can't market a product based on the idea that you don't "get it" until you try it.

Obviously that can't be your marketing message, no. But the rationale for Apple entering the retail business -- which a lot of people thought was a spectacularly stupid idea when they announced it -- was to get Macs in front of people who hadn't used them in years, if it all, so they could see what they were actually like and get a hands-on demonstration. And then to get iPods in front of people who'd never thought about MP3 players. And then to get iPhones in front of them. The proposition Apple staked the stores on wasn't that you don't get their products until you try them -- it's that if you do try them, you'll get them. And ideally, get them in the sense of "purchase them." Their sales figures by and large seem to validate this strategy.

To consider this another way, the people who bought the first iPhones were tech nuts who loved playing around with new devices. A lot of people didn't really see what the big deal was. At first. I know more than a few people who weren't interested in iPhones who bought one after having the chance to use one, and others who became interested a year or two in as the iPhone matured. My bet is that Apple expects the iPad to develop in the same way, that this isn't something they expect to be under every Christmas tree this year. The test is how many Christmas trees it's under by 2011, or even 2012.

I don't have any sense of the answer to that, mind you. As you've observed, Apple really is trying to convince people that this is a new category of device, and convince a sufficient number of people that it's a category of device they want. Both of those are tough. But there's no other company that really has the pieces in place to try and pull it off, at least for the time being.

[barberio.livejournal.com]

"You can't market a product based on the idea that you don't 'get it' until you try it."

Dr Pepper

[toob.livejournal.com]

Mega-touché!

Re: And when you're only half-way up, you're neither up nor down

[toob.livejournal.com]

Okay, I imagine I'm a student -- not hard, since I work for a university, so maybe that's not the best example -- and I see a commercial that makes these claims. Immediately I want to know, are the professors making all my textbooks available on this device? Are they cheaper than buying them used? Will I get eyestrain studying my books from a lit screen for 4-5 hours a day? Will they all fit on its 64G of space? Will my school's schedule/database work with its software? If it's stolen or broken, do I lose all my textbooks and notes and homework and everything?

None of this to say that the thing doesn't, in some future state, have classroom applications (will we require all our students to have one?). As I said, I can envision lots of ways this tech COULD be used -- but there's no way to market it now for it to fit into someone's life that I can tell.