@neilmiddleton

Unless you’ve been living under a rock for the last 24 hours, you’re no doubt aware of the Apple iPad – a device which is essentially a large iPhone, but in a neater form factor, and aimed at casual web and media use rather than being an in-your-pocket computer.

From the initial press coverage, it would appear that the masses are largely unimpressed with the iPad, particularly in the tech circles, slating is as a lot of “meh” and “big deal” as it doesn’t really do anything that a laptop can’t or the iPhone can’t have a good stab at.  However, I believe that there are three good reasons why the iPad is a product which changes things a lot more than people think:

1) It kills the domestic PC

OK, before I go into this point you need to remember one thing – we are techies, we are a minority, we are not normal users.  Normal users are those people who do not use computers as a hobby, and merely as a tool for getting something else done, be it looking at their facebook stream, surfing for bargains on Amazon or eBay, or just amusing themselves via email.  People who got hot and sweaty about this product for the previous few months do not see this product in the same way as, say, my Dad.

Put yourself in the shoes of my Dad (he’s a size 10) – he has a laptop for work, and that laptop is only ever used for work, it never leaves the office (as he can separate work from hobby unlike most techies), however, he does have an iPhone, as he fits the demographic of someone with a decent amount of disposable income, and a willingness to have stuff that just works right.  For him and my mum, they tend to use Facebook, and look up tee times at the local golf club.  Aside from that they’ll be looking for holiday deals or trying to book their timeshare.

For people like this, they would normally be looking at a desktop PC, or a laptop.   They are unlikely to buy a desktop due to the size, so will go for a laptop style machine. However, when looking for said laptop they see the iPad for sale.  One is a clunky laptop form factor, that requires you to buy Windows and have some sort of basic understanding of how the OS works, how to install their digital camera software etc etc etc, or you have the iPad, where you turn it on, and poke the things that you want to happen.

I strongly believe that once a few of these units are out and about, the user experience, and the desire to be one of the “cool” apple crowd will push people to buying the iPad rather than a notebook/laptop, and you shouldn’t underestimate the “cool crowd” peer pressure, look at sales of the BMW Mini or Fiat 500.

Having the iPad will change the way people see computers.  The iPad is a simple device that requires no technical knowledge whatsoever, it’s a poke and click interface that a complete moron can use, and what’s more, it’s no bigger than a large moleskin so you can keep it in a small drawer if you want.  Once tablet computers (note I mean like the iPad, not the Windows-in-a-small-box tablets out there) are more prolific, laptops I believe will be saved for power users only.

2) It boosts the use of open standards

iPad, as with iPhone is a very apple centric locked down device.  You have one OS, one hardware spec, and everything must go through the same process: write it in Objective-C, post it to Apple, get it approved, and let people download it.  It’s all good if you do it the Apple way.

However, let’s say you don’t want to do that – you only really have one more option, and that’s writing your application in open standards (JavaScript and HTML5), and deploying it to the device via the browser.  There’s no Flash / Silverlight here, so going with open standards is the only choice you have.

Now consider your average corporate website.  The boss will probably have an iPhone or iPad, and will want his website to work on those devices, purely from a marketing standpoint. He’ll also want to only pay to build his website once, which means that the use of Flash and Silverlight will drop as they re-use code and design across all platforms.  I can see the use of Flash dropping on the “grown-up” internet as the proliferation of iPhone and iPad grow.

So overall, these devices, as well as Apple (and others) adoption of technologies such as HTML5, can only serve to dwindle the use of the plug-in as we known it, which will cause companies such as Adobe some real big issues.

3) It saves the print industry

Bit of a smaller point this one, but I do think that the iPad will do a lot for the print industry.  The web is already killing print, and by providing your average home with a low cost way of consuming  the same content, with the same high advertising revenue is a huge boon for them.  The New York Times have already said that it would be cheaper for them to give all of their subscribers a free Kindle than it would to print every day, so I can only see the print media becoming “proper” online journalism sat behind a subscription model.

So, overall, will I get one, yes, but probably not the 3G one, as I’m nearly always at home or work, so Wifi will do me just fine.  Come March I’ll be interested to see how the personal computing market starts to change and what it might bring for us developers in the future.

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