The iPad: A Better Mouse Trap?
Late in January, Apple’s visionary CEO Steve Jobs unveiled his company’s latest creation: the iPad. Industry insiders, tech geeks, industry experts, and nerds of all shapes and sizes had been saturating the net for several days with speculation as to Apple’s big announcement – and as media frenzies went, Apple didn’t disappoint. The iPad is certainly an amazing new gadget, and it spun the tech world around like a top. But the iPad, unlike many other new products from the Mac Mavens, has not met with 100% ringing praise from the choir.
The detractors haven’t wasted any time, the iPad is already teasingly been called an “iPhone on steroids” and a “Kindle killer.” Both names are slightly justified, but don’t give you the full effect. State-of-the-art multi-touch technology, the iPad is the first step into Star Trek! It’s a touch screen computer! Actually, it is a tablet codmputer, described by Steve Jobs as being “way better than a laptop, and way better than a smart phone.” The iPad is similar in functionality to the iPod touch, while visually, it does look like an “iPhone on steroids.” While Apple’s products all have common design threads, the iPad is clearly more related to the popular iPhone, having very little aesthetic inheritance from the current iPods or MacBooks. In addition to its Internet and media features, the iPad is also the first (and only) Apple device compatible with the new iBookstore service and iBooks reading application…And all this charged by a 10 hour battery! Its size means instead of slamming one finger against a screen, you now have the ability to really getting your greasy little paws all over it. iPad users have the ability to interact with a digital device using more than one finger, making it touch screen technology for the touchy-feely crowd. The idea also escorts our current concept of Mouse and keyboard right out the window.
This is ‘cause the iPad’s design requires a very different method of user and keyboard interface. Most users, like the iPhone, will need to hold the iPad with one hand – freeing up the other for typing. Apple wonks believe people will develop a new format for “typing” – much like cellphone or smartphone texting has changed our finger memory (at least when it comes to communication). For those of us raised in the church of “A-S-D-F, J-K-l-; this seems like blasphemy. Apple is dreaming that it can reeducate us all to work without trusty Mouse and friendly keyboard…To that, we say good luck!
While we believe some early-adapters will head towards the iPad, its launch shouldn’t threaten the laptop market. Apple isn’t getting ready to drop the shop on their MacBook’s, so other big laptop makers shouldn’t get the chills. In the same vein, the iPad will probably not begin to replace the iPhone as a communication standard. The iPad might be a hybridization of iPhone and laptop technology, but it is way too big to fit into your pocket – which will be a problem if it seriously wants to take a bite out of the iPhone business.
Which really reminds you that both the MacBook (and Apple’s other laptops) as well as the iPhone are NOT meant to be the iPad’s competition. The Kindle should be scared, sure…But the iPad is not the death of laptop, smartphone, or our old friend Mouse. Mouse has seen better mousetraps before…
This should be a wake-up call to our pal Mouse – it’s time to evolve! Like the leap from mouse to mousepad, the iPad’s desire to be felt-up will change our views on hardware. Microsoft’s marketing people will keep Mouse in plenty of cheese for a long time, but the clock is ticking. Mouse needs to make a change…Grow some wings, grow some gills, or develop a third eye – he has to do something!
While it will be a few more years before he is run off the market, touch screen technology is not going anywhere – and just as Mouse has changed (mousepad, wireless mouse, etc) I am sure we have not seen the last of him yet.
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Corey Creed