Posts Tagged: apple ipad


31
Mar 11

Dell: daydreaming of iPad’s failure

Never mind that Dell has been losing its luster for many consecutive years now. Its leadership retains the ability to see the world through Dell-colored glasses.

That is, they use the same reasoning that worked so well in the good old days — when Dell was leading the pack, instead of struggling not to fall farther behind.

Andy Lark, Dell’s global head of large enterprise marketing, recently made waves by predicting iPad will ultimately be overtaken by its competitors in big business.

To be fair, he is talking about the enterprise world, not the consumer marketplace, where the rules are different. Unfortunately, iPad is proving that the rules aren’t quite as different as he wishes.

Think what you will of his conclusion. I was more aghast at the reasoning he used to arrive there:

[Apple has] done a really nice job [with iPad], they’ve got a great product, but the challenge they’ve got is that already Android is outpacing them.
I must have woken up in the wrong dimension today. I could have sworn iPad had 80-90% of the market and Android tablets had barely begun to ship.

Apple is great if you’ve got a lot of money and live on an island…
As everyone knows, the “Apple is too expensive” argument went out the window with iPad. No competitor has figured out how to significantly undercut iPad’s price. Andy might want to look at the pricing of Dell’s own 7-inch Streak tablet. Significantly smaller than iPad, it sells for $449 without contract vs. iPad’s $499.

…It’s not so great if you have to exist in a diverse, open, connected enterprise; simple things become quite complex.
It is also widely reported that iPad is finding lots of friends in the enterprise world. Three reasons: it simplifies things for a great many people, it is successfully being integrated into corporate networks, and while IT departments used to be free to maintain their decades-old allegiances, today they’re being pushed to give people what they want. What people want now are iPads — right up to the executive suite.

We’ve taken a very considered approach to tablets…
Dell’s “considered” approach to tablets is frighteningly similar to their considered approach to PCs and laptops. They wait until someone else lights the way (normally Apple), then try to copy the other guy’s success at a lower price point — sacrificing quality along the way.

…given that the vast majority of our business isn’t in the consumer space.
Basically, Andy clings to the same hope that RIM does with BlackBerry: “We have a huge audience in business, therefore we will win by being business-oriented.” Good luck to both of them. The flaw in their theory is that most business users are consumers too, and all users are human beings. People want devices that give them the best experience, period — for business and personal use.

An iPad with a keyboard, a mouse and a case [means] you’ll be at $1500 or $1600; that’s double of what you’re paying. That’s not feasible.”
What’s not feasible is Andy’s math. 32GB 3G iPad: $729. Keyboard: $69. Mouse: $69. Fancy case: $100. Total: $967. And — only in Dell’s world would we be talking about tablets that require keyboards and mice. The whole point of iPad is that it lets people accomplish things without a keyboard and mouse. Those who find those things essential are better off with a laptop.

When Andy thinks about winning in the enterprise, I’m sure he means selling more devices. Which, again, is a very Dell-like argument. Dell already sells far more computers and laptops than Apple, yet they make only a fraction of Apple’s profit. This is why Apple’s market capitalization is now over ten times that of Dell.

You can be sure that everyone at Apple hopes Dell continues to “win” like this for years to come.


3
Mar 11

iPad 2: what a difference a year makes

It’s easy to forget what happened a year ago when Apple unveiled iPad.

The most anticipated launch in the company’s history turned out, in many ways, to be a dud. I’m not talking about the device. I’m talking about the launch.

The naysayers went to work within seconds: the name is embarrassing, there are no surprises, it’s just a bigger iPod touch, Apple’s string of successes is finally snapped — it was unrelenting. iPad became a joke for late-night comics. If Apple stock were based on popular opinion, it would have plummeted at least 50%.

Only when people got their hands on iPad two months later did things turn around. You know the rest — it became the most successful new product in Apple history.

So it was with great interest that I read the day-after reviews this morning. Not a lot of overt gushing, but generally positive. Quite a few are in the “met expectations” camp. Which, in some cases, is simply a backhanded compliment from someone who had their heart set on drawing blood.

Personally, I was a satisfied customer. My test is simple: if I look at the old and new models side by side, and I can’t imagine myself using the old one, I feel like Apple has done its job. There are too many things “wrong” with the old one now, or just missing, for me to be interested. A ton of current owners will want to upgrade, and a ton of people who were waiting for a better iPad will eagerly jump in. It more than holds up against the imitators who can’t offer the ecosystem surrounding Apple products.

Here are my reactions to yesterday’s launch event, in no meaningful order.

Hello, Steve. Well, wasn’t that a nice surprise. Good to see Steve back in the saddle. I think it’s significant, because it quashes some of the darker theories out there.

“Don’t expect more than a speed bump.” As most know, a leak one day prior to the event from an “Apple staffer” warned us not to get too excited about iPad 2. It’s just a speed bump. The real fun comes with iPad 3, later in the year. Uh huh. This story was re-blogged over 500 times. Not that we need further proof, but this only demonstrates the uncontrollable drive that many feel to spew any and all details about an upcoming Apple product. You’d hope that by now, people wouldn’t be so eager to go on record spreading false rumors.

The Smart Cover. Damn, it’s cute. Probably one of the best examples of sexy simplicity Apple has come up with in a while. (And kudos to the Apple writer who came up with the line on the website: One great idea on top of another. Good one.)

The chip. Love it. Not only does the dual-core A5 chip deliver that snappy performance, it allows Apple to remain super-competitive in price. The other guys have to pay someone else for a processor, and those little buggers ain’t cheap.

The name A5. Does anyone know the real origin of the naming scheme? What happened to A1, A2 and A3? Just curious.

The iPad 2 video. After every launch, I say the same thing. The video is fine, high quality, hit all the big points, etc. It just looks and sounds like every other video Apple has done in the last few years — right down to the superlative overload. My ideal Apple is never formulaic. This is a formula.

The Smart Cover video. Totally cool. Beautifully done. A great example of how a spot that trumpets only a relatively insignificant feature can give you such a positive feeling about the overall product (and the company that made it). Hope it runs as a commercial.

White. Yippee! But I like black.

The competition. Back at CES in January, over 100 tablets stood up to compete with iPad. Unfortunately, they were competing with the wrong iPad. Like Apple has done since the second iPod, they’ve unveiled a new version just as the other guys are able to say “we got one too.” If you’re a competitor, there’s only one known defense: make an original, revolutionary product yourself. And you know how often that happens.

“2011: The year of iPad 2.” As a theme line for the event … thanks, but no thanks. It’s a bit too self-congratulatory for my taste. I’m used to Apple saying things like “the year of HD” and “the year of wireless.” Not “the year of iMovie HD” and “the year of AirPort.” However, I do agree with the sentiment. Barring any economic disaster, with businesses, schools and consumers lining up to buy, 2011 is going to be all iPad, all the time.


25
Jan 11

Attack of the vapor tablet

In his column this morning, Philip Elmer-DeWitt lists 101 iPad challengers seen at CES earlier this month.

Obviously, most won’t be around by next year’s CES. But Toshiba’s entry not only comes with a cool website, it comes with an attitude. Try accessing it with your iPhone or iPad and you get this message:

Such a shame. Add this to the list of interesting places on the Internet you can’t see on your device. Of course, if you had a Toshiba Tablet, you would enjoy the entire Internet. Yep, Flash sites too.

Then again, if you had a Toshiba Tablet, you’d be living in an alternate reality where this device was actually shipping. It’s coming “sometime this spring.”

But kudos to whoever built this site, because it really is nicely done. It starts off with a spirited video presenting a list of mouthwatering features. This resolves to a home page that is equally well done, in which you can poke around to learn more about each feature.

Why on earth would anyone buy an iPad when they could have one of these? Well, there are a few reasons — most of which stem from that little ”nonexistence” issue.

Problem #1 is that Toshiba’s track record in tablets isn’t exactly stellar. Which is a gentlemanly way of saying that last time out, they completely soiled their nest.

Just last September, Toshiba proudly announced their Folio 100 Android tablet in Europe. It was an Android tablet that, astonishingly, would not work with Google apps. So it couldn’t connect with the Android Market. Nor could it run Flash. It only worked with the Toshiba Marketplace, which as you can imagine, looks like one of those desolate Old West towns with tumbleweeds blowing through. To top it off, the Folio 100 was embarrassingly huge and unwieldy.

So now Toshiba is back, hoping to wipe the slate clean. But they aren’t exactly instilling us with confidence. Start with the name. Or, more appropriately, lack thereof. “Toshiba Tablet,” it is reported, is only a placeholder. While the other iPad killers at CES were demoing their hearts out under their true monikers, Toshiba is sticking to “Tablet” until they’re good and ready. One can only imagine the debate going on back at HQ on that score.

More worrying is that fact that, unlike other major models that showed up at CES, the Toshiba Tablet was only running Android 2.2 — which automatically makes it second-fiddle to iPad. Supposedly, that too will change.

Still, the website makes the specs sound tempting. Here are the main points from the site’s opening video, with a few editorial comments thrown in.

Meet the Toshiba Tablet (but really, we’ll rename it later)
Powered by Android-TM (send for the Taste Police — that TM is way horsey)
10.1 Inch Screen (okay)
16:10 High Resolution Display (great format, but why do I suspect it isn’t quite Retina-quality)
Stereo Speakers (I’m with ya)
5 Megapixel Rear Facing Camera (cool — iPad 2 is rumored only to have a 2-megapixel camera here)
2 Megapixel Front Facing Camera (don’t they have hyphens in the Toshiba world?)
The Full Web - Even Flash (sorry, but not once have I wished I had Flash on my iPad)
Long-Lasting, Replaceable Battery (with Flash, you’ll probably need that extra battery) (Oh, there’s a hyphen — I feel better now)
3 Ports: mini-USB, HDMI, USB (sweet)

At this point, the features are reprised, with Five Colors thrown in. Nice extra touch, but let’s reserve judgment until these things ship, just to make sure they aren’t Zuning us with brown.

The video closes with line: The Perfect Sum of All its Parts.

Like that moment in the movie where the villain unwittingly unmasks himself, this is the moment when I saw Toshiba’s true colors. The expression they’re trying to echo is “greater than the sum of its parts.” Every device on earth is the sum of its parts — but that doesn’t mean you’ll love using it. 15 million people have been seduced by iPad because iOS makes it feel like something more.

With a little luck, Toshiba will get their unnamed Tablet out the door before iPad 2 is launched — when, as usual, the bar will be raised higher.


21
Dec 10

Motorola, iPad & the theory of evolution

I love it when technology companies talk tough. Add Motorola to the list of contenders who brazenly proclaim that they can make iPad look silly.

This video is Motorola’s way to help build the excitement leading up to the grand unveiling of their mysterious tablet-to-come at CES.

Does it work? Well, as always, that depends on who you are. I’m sure there are people in the world who look at this video and think, “Wow, cool, I wonder what they have up their sleeve.” As a teaser for the event, that’s all they can ask for. So I’ll give them the honorary G.W. Bush “Mission Accomplished” medal for that.

However, as our friend W. discovered, things aren’t always what they seem. At some point, Motorola has to produce a working tablet that really does make you want to move beyond iPad — or they’re going to look laughable for making the claim.

Let’s just pause for a moment to consider the reality:

One year ago at CES, when everyone knew Apple was about to revolutionize the tablet category, companies fell over themselves trying to beat Apple to the punch. Not only did they know what Steve Jobs had up his sleeve, it was pretty obvious Apple was going to build upon the technology already established in iPhone. Steve Ballmer stood up during the keynote waving the Microsoft/HP tablet prototype, which was never heard from again.

Now, after all this time, with Apple owning the lion’s share of the tablet market and still no real competition in sight, Motorola will now “evolve” beyond iPad?

Pardon my lack of faith, but it’s a bit far-fetched.

The technique used in the video is to establish a sense of humor by first bashing “tablets” that have been around for eons (Egyptian Hieroglyphic Tablet, 10 Commandments Tablet, Rosetta Stone, Mayan Engraved Tablet), and then apply the same humor to iPad and Samsung Galaxy Tab before leaving us with a tease about Motorola’s higher evolution.

Dismissing iPhone, the title says “It’s like a giant iPhone, but … it’s like a giant iPhone.” Others have made this argument, and honestly it’s one of the most brain-dead arguments there is. iPad really is a giant iPhone (minus the phone), and that’s exactly what it needs to be. Apple already had the magic combination with iOS, multi-touch and the App Store. A faster processor and bigger screen were the only missing ingredients.

The video dismisses the Galaxy Tab by saying, “Android OS, but Android OS … for a phone.” Never mind that Motorola’s tablet will run on a tablet-optimized Android OS, just as iPad runs on an iPad-optimized version of iOS. By their own logic, Motorola’s “evolved” tablet will be nothing more than a giant Android phone.

The spot ends with the Motorola logo, at which time a bee enters the picture. It’s jarring enough that a number of YouTube commenters thought the bee-buzz sounded like a certain human emission. In theory, we’ll soon find out what the bee is doing there in the first place.

Then again, maybe that bee was never intended to be there at all, like the fly that got into Seth Brundle’s teleportation machine. Be afraid. Be very afraid…


21
Oct 10

Mac’s day in the spotlight

Well, it was interesting (and refreshing) to see a little love lavished on the Mac side of things yesterday. As is the tradition around these parts, some random observations on Wednesday’s event:

FaceTime for Mac. Cool — even though we could see this one coming for miles.

Mac OS X Lion. The philosophical direction of Lion is consistent with everything we’ve heard in recent months: Mac OS X meets iPad. Expect these meetings to intensify in the future.

Mac App Store. This one is beyond huge, and exactly what Apple should be doing. In fact, I rambled on about this one here back in 2009. Imagine being able to buy your Mac apps the same way you buy your iPhone apps. Instant purchase, auto-install, auto-update. Customer reviews too. This is another gold mine for Apple, although it won’t come without controversy. Apple is injecting itself into the developer/customer relationship and demanding a cut, and surely some are going to buck. There are many open questions about how this will work, but it will happen — and it will make our lives way better.

Launchpad. Wow, convenient. I currently use third-party utility Overflow to do something similar. We may have to move them from the Happy Developer Column to the Swearing Eternal Revenge Column.

Misson Control. My secret confession: I rarely used Exposé and Spaces. I now realize that I hesitated for all the same reasons that Apple just combined both of them — along with Dashboard — into one convenient location. Thank you!

iLife ’11. Some cool additions, but the ground beneath my feet wasn’t exactly trembling. Love Movie Trailers in iMovie. Great price at $49 — but that’s just Apple’s way of saying, “Don’t expect $79 worth of upgrade.” I appreciate the honesty.

The black sheep. Poor iDVD. Nary a mention during the festivities. However, this is hardly unexpected, given Apple’s passing-over of Blu-Ray in favor of Internet delivery for video. Prepare for iDVD to be moved to hospice within a year or two. [Update: In all the excitement I glossed over the absence of iWeb — which is truly a mystery. It's not like people are less interested in making personal websites and blogs these days. This is an unfortunate omission, as it makes a statement about what Apple thinks is important, and how it allocates its software engineering manpower.]

The missing app. I had a secret wish, but it didn’t materialize. I was dreaming of new iLife app called iMagazine. It would allow mere mortals to use their Macs to create personalized, Apple-designed iPad magazines. Imagine combining your vacation photos and movies from iLife into a standalone iPad app that presents your whole story in gorgeous magazine format, as a series of articles. This could be uploaded and shared with friends and family around the world. In business, iMagazine would utterly revolutionize the idea of the “leave-behind.” iLife already empowers ordinary people to create and present all of these elements separately. Why not put them all into a Wired-quality magazine?

MacBook Air. This was needed. MacBook Air was starting to feel a bit like a hobby — a breakthrough idea that’s gone almost three years without an eye-opening update. This is looking cool enough that I’m starting to get the itchy trigger finger that often results in unbudgeted charges on my credit card. Believe Steve when he says this is the future of notebooks.

MacBook Air video. This is where I start to get cranky. It is not in Apple’s DNA to be formulaic. Yet these product videos haven’t varied in years. Same look, same feel, same cast of characters. Understood that normal consumers are not nearly as close to these things as we are, but honestly, it wouldn’t hurt to try a new format once in a while. There’s no chance they’ll drive people away — but there’s every chance they’ll make more of a stir. The product videos need to be just as creative as the products.

Missing in action. ’Scuse me, but where’s the new iWork? For every year that both iLife and iWork have existed (the last four versions), both suites were updated at the same time. This year, iLife went to the ball while iWork stayed home to scrub the floors. Curious.

Shipping dates. Wow. Either I missed something, or pretty much every product introduced today (except Lion, of course) is available immediately. Nicely played.

Last, I will note that this event shined the spotlight on a legion of Apple leaders. Probably more than we’ve ever seen in any one event. Even more interesting was the lead role given to Tim Cook at the start. Those making guesses about the secret line of succession have some good fodder to work with here…


20
Aug 10

A smorgasbord of iPad

Here’s the latest iPad commercial. As one might expect, it features a bunch-o’-stuff you can do with iPad, set to a catchy tune.

However, as a special bonus Apple has cleverly embedded a copywriter’s aptitude test. Here’s the sequence of words that appear on-screen. Which one doesn’t fit the pattern?

iPad is: delicious, current, learning, playful, literary,
artful, friendly, productive, scientific, magical

Visually, iPad does look delicious in this spot — even if Apple neglects to promote it as tableware. For the moment though, let’s just say it remains one adjective short of magical.


12
Apr 10

Searching for meaning in iPad

What could possibly follow an entire week of iPad-related posts — but yet another. Bear with me please. Just one more.

Now that I’ve had a week to chat it up with fellow iPad owners, probe those who have resisted temptation and those who are so far temptation-free, one reaction to iPad stands above the rest to me: an awful lot of people just don’t have a clue how they’d use it.

This is stirring an ancient memory.

Back in Apple’s earliest days, when they were promoting the steam-powered Apple II, the company had a similar problem. While that newfangled personal computer thing was intriguing, people simply didn’t understand how it fit into their lives. So Apple ran an insert in major magazines with the headline “Will someone please tell me what a personal computer can do?” (or something close). Inside, it listed 100 uses that would blow your mind — like writing a letter, storing recipes, shooting aliens, wild things like that.

Obviously this is a very different time, and people are infinitely more sophisticated about technology. They don’t need an education about the kinds of things they can do with an iPad. But iPad does shake up the time and space factor. Many can’t quite tell how it fits into their lives. In effect, they’re asking “Will someone please tell me when, where and why I’d use an iPad?”

This is a perfectly human reaction. It’s positive in the sense that it confirms how new iPad really is. That lost feeling can’t help but fade as more imaginative apps appear, and as real people (not reviewers) begin to share their personal experiences.

My only concern: a campaign that only features people sitting on a couch doesn’t answer too many questions. I hope the message gets richer.


9
Apr 10

iPad ads revisited

I’m suffering a bit of blogger’s remorse about my comments yesterday re: the iPad marketing campaign.

I was initially reacting to a single ad I had seen (New York Times), and I probably shouldn’t have been so quick to react. One song in isolation is hardly enough evidence to judge an entire album.

Now that I’ve seen the ads going up around town, and I’ve revisited the TV commercial, I think that visions of iPad will indeed be dancing in more people’s heads. That, combined with the intense buzz that’s already out there, will drive more and more people to the Apple Store to see iPad for themselves. What Apple is doing is what it often does: they are visually making the product the absolute star of the ad, to make it as clear as possible how it works and what it will look like in your life.

The TV ad, although way too fast for many, adds an interesting effect when taken in context of all the print ads and posters. You can examine an individual screen in print, get a sense of the quantity of screens in the TV.

A wise man in advertising once taught me that if you’re going to reject someone’s work, it must be because it’s terrible — not because it isn’t what you would have done.

So I won’t quibble about certain elements of this campaign. I will only continue to wish there were more Apple cleverness in these ads. If ever there were a campaign that should make you smile, this is it — because that’s exactly what iPad makes you do.


8
Apr 10

The under-hyping of iPad

iPad ad in Wednesday's NY Times (excuse the bleed-through from the page behind)

Many of our fellow humans were underwhelmed after the iPad launch in January. Overall, they thought it was just too over-hyped.

Personally, I thought iPad was a very big deal. My only lament was that the launch event didn’t feel like a very big deal. It just didn’t seem like we’d witnessed a major moment in history. This isn’t a technology thing, it’s a marketing thing.

Not the end of the world, I figured. Surely things would change once the advertising kicks in. Being one of the most important launches in the history of Apple, something very special must be just around the corner.

Instead, it seems like the over-hype is being followed by under-hype.

The commercial that ran on the Academy Awards was a variant of the iPhone ads we’ve been seeing for three years. And in yesterday’s NY Times, Apple ran a full-page ad for iPad: just one word over the image of someone using iPad to view a photo collection.

If there’s a revolution in here, it’s pretty well hidden.

Looking at this ad, I wondered where the other half was. Maybe there was supposed to be an opposite page, a grid of six iPads featuring one seductive app after another. Or maybe the headline fell off. That one witty Apple line that makes us smile as it captures the importance of the moment. Hell, where’s the word “magic” when we need it?

It strikes me as odd, because iPad already does amazing things, and it will only become more amazing with the inevitable flood of imaginative apps to come. It’s a story of almost unbelievable magnitude — being doled out by the spoonful.

Obviously, there is boldness in buying a large space and keeping it so minimalist. I’m a huge fan of elegance and clarity. I just want to see people raising their eyebrows, ripping out the page and tweeting “cool Apple ad!”

I’ll cross my fingers that this is the first of 20 such ads, and equivalent billboards will be springing up everywhere. But a lot of people (like yesterday’s NY Times readers) only see what’s in front of them. And I’m pretty sure this story is a bit bigger than a photo gallery.

[Update 4.8.10 5:50pm EDT] Okay, more iPad ad sightings are now coming in. Here we have posters for Mail, iBooks and Safari. I’m assuming many different apps will be featured in many locations, which will make the launch feel more like an event. The no-copy approach works well in posters — but I do miss the Apple wit.



6
Apr 10

iPad hits the road

The timing was perfect. After spending a day with iPad, I found myself taking a 36-hour trip out of town — so it was sink or swim for the little fella. I was determined to put my iPad through the paces in airports, planes, hotels and bars.

No incidents at security, though the guard did demand that I turn it on just so she could play with it.

No incidents at any of my other stops, aside from the fact that everyone wanted to get their greasy fingertips on it.

Not unexpectedly, everything worked as advertised. On the plane, I listened to music, watched a movie and did some reading. Perfect. I roamed the Internet and did my email pretty much everywhere. Sweet. If I had to sum it up, I’d say that iPad is one of those rare bits of technology that just makes you smile. So many things are right about it.

A few things I should highlight. First, typing on iPad is more than usable. It’s actually pretty good. I never warmed up to typing on iPhone, but doing email on iPad is a surprisingly happy experience.

Interestingly, the thing that felt most like the future of computing to me was our old friend, Safari. I never really thought about how much I had to mouse around a web page to navigate before — until I no longer had to do it. Directly tapping links with my finger was so natural, and so fast, by the time I got home iPad had become my favorite way to browse. The fact that I can do it anywhere is icing on the cake.

Last, I think the disappearing OS is one of Apple’s greatest accomplishments here. With iPad, you just do what you want to do. No OS to mess with, no file hierarchies to navigate. Why should an app even be able to see files it can’t open? iPad truly is the computer for the rest of us, and in time will probably become the computer for most of us.

Obviously, iPad is not the device to use for serious creating. But only a fraction of we earthlings create content, and only a fraction of the content creators do their creating on the road. Given my experience on this trip, I wouldn’t hesitate for a moment to recommend iPad to anyone as a mobile computer or, depending on your needs, even a laptop replacement. You barely notice it in your briefcase, the battery seems to last forever and it does all of its jobs beautifully.

Of course when I returned home I once again had to confront iPad’s horrendous flaw — the total disdain for privacy I mentioned in my previous post. I had to delete my email account, though I was able to keep my Address Book, Calendars and Bookmarks. I know it’s not Apple’s normal policy to acknowledge such deficiencies, but in this case I wish they’d just fess up and give us the plan. I’d cross my fingers for this week’s iPhone OS 4.0 event, though it’s hard to believe they’d schedule a fix one week after the product’s release.

But let’s not let one flaw rain on our parade. No doubt there will be many improvements to come, privacy included. As it stands, iPad is incredibly fun and incredibly useful. If you have a family, you may need more than one.