iPad Has Its Purpose

Apple iPad has been causing all the buzz recently. Wall Street Journal wrote, “The last time there was this much excitement about a tablet, it had some commandments written on it”. However, ever since Apple announced it, most comments have been quite negative. Complaints range from basic media demands like no front facing camera to geeky request of multitasking. While all these complaints are valid, I do believe the iPad still has its niche market. And yes, eventually the niche will become the mainstream.

Apple did not design the iPad as a main computing device for us to develop softwares and perform intensive processing tasks on it. It is meant for casual web-browsing and some occasional magazine/book reading. As I see it, the iPad really is a luxury living room device for people who want to check their Facebook or email during commercials of a TV show or read the news while drinking their morning coffee.

Let’s consider the following scenario. It’s 11PM and you are lying on your coach watching your favorite late night talk show. And during a segment you don’t particularly like, you want to check your email to see if your friends have replied your Saturday brunch invitation yet. You now have two choices: 1. Stand up and grab your 5-lb laptop with both hands, sit back down and carefully position the laptop on your lap but you can’t really lie down anymore. And finally you wake up your laptop and check your email. But now the talk show suddenly becomes interesting and you want to focus back on the show, however, you are stuck with this 5-lb metal block on your lap preventing you from moving or positioning yourself comfortably. Or you can have choice 2: while still lying on your coach, stretch your body to reach for your magazine-sized-and-weighted iPad like you would for your TV remote. After grabbing the iPad, you come back comfortably still lying on your coach and start checking your email with a few finger touches on a gorgeous screen. When the show comes back up you simply toss the iPad away like you do with your remote and start enjoying the show. Which option would you rather choose? I think the choice is quite obvious here.

The point I’m trying to convey here is simple. The iPad is a luxury living room casual device, not to replace your powerful work computer. You would not write code with it, but you would check your email on it. You would not blog with it, but you would check your Facebook on it. You would not write your paper with it, but you would twit on it. And that is the iPad’s purpose.

A reporter from PC magazine (If I remember correctly) summed it up quite well. He said, “Your laptop is now powerful enough to replace your old desktop, and now the iPad is your new laptop”. I think that is very much true. I no longer code on my desktop as my MacBook Pro executes my multithreaded system better than my Quad-Core windows desktop. However, it is simply too big, thick and heavy for me to use it on my coach or bed for casual browsing. And that is why I need an iPad.

Some of you may start yelling about netbooks. I would have to respectfully disagree. I never understood the point of a netbook. It is simply a smaller, crappier, and cheaper version of a laptop. It’s slow, buggy and clunky. And worst of all, I just can’t stand the tiny screen and keyboard. I mean all netbooks are just simply down right ugly. Forgive me for judging by the looks. But as a consumer device, don’t we all want the nice looks? Would you choose to buy the ugliest gadget just because it is cheap? I would certainly not. Style matters! I would much rather look at a gorgeous 9.7′ LED backlit LCD screen with multi-touch input than using a clunky, slow and awkward netbook. (No offense Google, but I think your netbook strategy is just wrong).

Though don’t get me wrong, I’m by no means saying the iPad is perfect. The “no front facing camera” is indeed a very valid complaint. I would love to video chat with my friends while watching TV or sipping my morning coffee. So Apple please get it in there, pretty please.

And finally, I’d like to throw in my 2 cents on the “no multi-tasking issue”. I do not see the need for multi-tasking on such a device. I mean would you want to check your email while reading a real book? If the book is that dull, then I guess you should just stop reading it for good. It is a casual device, which means simplicity is the key. Consumers would only want to focus on one thing and one thing at a time with the iPad. Adding the multi-tasking would make it more powerful. But more powerful also means more complexity, which is obviously not good for casual usage. I think the KISS principle applies here perfectly. Keep It Simple Stupid!