Three thoughts about the iPad

Image by marcopako  via Flickr

I've seen all the excitement about the potential of the iPad as the salvation of traditional media. I see some of that. I watched someone on the train this morning consuming plain text on an e-reader. Looked kind of... grey.
I can see it converting some traditional magazine buyers and TV viewers to consuming their broadcast content a little more interactively - a little more tailored to their downtime and their personal consumption preferences.

But mostly a device connected to the internet will always better serve participatory activity. This is the place where people do stuff - rather than have it done to them. The value created by all rather than a few.

So while the gorgeousness of the turny-page thing and the click-to-play video thing will be a pleasant distraction for those used to print, it won't allow them to write the magazine.

In this respect, traditional media hanging its hopes on the iPad is a little like scribes banking on the printing press to mass produce illuminated Bibles to keep them in a job. Broadcast media is not a great fit with a peer to peer environment - just as hand-painted books don't make a great deal of sense in print. And the killer app of the iPad, like every other wifi/3G-enabled device on planet earth... remains the internet.

So that's the theory. But there are also a couple of practical points.

First: I want my music updates to synch to all my listening points at once. It's a nightmare having to update all the ipods in my house every time someone gets a bit of new content to add to them all - even via iTunes.
Clunky, restrictive, crash-tastic and not the intuitive experience for first timers the black-polo-neck brigade would have you believe.

The solution, of course is streaming and it is cloud. Apple must know that, surely?

I hear rumours of a streaming service from Apple later this year. Which should have Spotify quaking in its boots.

Which dovetails nicely with my last point. Apple has made its fortune by being very device specific and device focused. To survive in the age of the cloud it must change.

For example - I'd love to see the iPod speaker doc that an iPad will fit in. My iPhone isn't compatible with mine - so good luck!

Already the device-specific nature of Apple's offerings are so focused they are becoming incompatible with each other. Some older macbook pro's won't charge an iPad either. Screw the legacy hey?

If they are prepared to do that to some current devices- why not all? Imagine all your ipods becoming as useless as your portable CD player. It's going to happen - and soon.

Right now I am waiting before committing to another long-term phone contract - waiting on the iPhone 4G due this summer (I have an out-of-contract 3G currently).

I'm waiting because of the lock-in apple has on my contacts, my music and all those apps.

But I'm starting to wonder how wise a strategy that is.

Services are everything in the age of the cloud - services that play brilliantly out on every possible device.

Those who make the best ones will win. Interesting that it has been outsiders (such as LalA, Spotify and LastFM, who are disrupting the iTunes model and showing the way Apple must behave.

Spotify doesn't make devices. Nor does Google. And perhaps one day soon, nor will Apple.

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10 Things I love about the iPhone - no, really

Image via CrunchBaseSince I've given apple such a hard time over my iPhone. I thought I ought to consider why I persist with it.

The contract I'm locked into has much to do with it.
And I'd be lieing if the coolness of it doesn't help (though this is seriously undermined in the style stakes by the black rubber condom I sheath my new one in after I dropped the last.
(incidentally, perhaps apple could build in this kind of protection next time around? Or at least box new iPhones with a cheap protective case.)

My daughter told the genius at the apple store that I love my phone.

And she's right.

The iPhone and I have a stormy relationship. Moments of sheer frustration spread widely apart by good experiences.

So 10 things I love about my iPhone.
There are problems with how some of these function, as I've posted and tweeted in the past, but they are powerful.

1. The community. When I have problems with my iPhone I can always find someone who has faced similar, overcome the challenge and shared the result. Apple's real ace is that their customers do their customer service ( and marketing, of course, but that's another story.)

2. No walled garden: I'm on an O2 contract but I don't experience the Internet-as-controlled-for-you-by-O2, I get the real Internet - our Internet.

3. The interface. Not so great for one-handed operation but an unmatchable experience for the eye and speed of navigation. When you aren't walking anywhere.

4. The iPod. Their best yet.

5. The integration with email and calendar services. Easier to set up than most.

6. Intuitive. My daughter could take pictures with the iPhone at the age of 3.

7. Solutions. Updates to make the phone ever better are built into your life. Adding content from iTunes? Want a better phone while you are at it. Ok then.

8. The app store. Easiest installation and best integration of any phone (or computer, for that matter) that I have ever experienced. Some social recommendation to your phone would ramp it higher still.

9. Control of the desktop. That the user can rearrange navigation to suit themselves is a given.

10. The wifi. Connects seemlessly whereever possible. And that's harder to achieve than often credited for.

What do you love about your phone?

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Apple and the myth of working beautifully

The myth of Apple = everything working beautifully, was soundly debunked on 3G Iphone Friday.
The fabulous 9838 error was just one among manifold user experience issues: queues, crashing systems, restricted supply etc etc.

Ipod's are less than intuitive ('I've forgotten how to switch it on', moaned my wife when she last picked hers up). And is it wise that there's no lock function (to prevent unwanted button-strikes) for something that often sits in your pocket? (that's fixed on the 3G Iphone)
Itunes is clunky and slow. Macs require their own suite of software.

I'm picking on Apple for a reason. They are among the very best at delivering delightful user experiences. So good at it that Jemima Kiss yearns for an Apple eBay (just watch a newby try to work out what to do with eBay and you'll get her drift).

And yet Apple still gives us iphone Friday.

There is headroom for better. Much better.

And it's worth going after. There is a large and cash-rich segment of the world's population who are not geeks, not prepared to fiddle, not prepared to kill two-three hours of their lives upgrading with new software, not prepared to learn their way around...

They want satnavs as easy to use as a book of maps, mobile phones and computers that transfer calendars, address books and applications from their old ones to the new (in a PAC-code, cloud-ready world why shouldn't your next mobile be pre-loaded, charged-up and ready to roll when it arrives?), they want search to find what they're looking for, digital cameras to upload, store and share without the need to get to a computer, peripherals with the software built-in rather than awaiting their attention on a CD etc etc.

Briefly: They want things to work, beautifully, intuitively, first time.

You can tell these people until you are blue in the face that if they master this or that they'll save loads more time (it's one of the stumbling blocks to getting more people to blog, for example).

But they need more than a promise of future time savings (in adspeak, selling the benefits just doesn't do it).

The experience, right from the start matters. Show by your actions. You need to act, not talk.

How easy/delightful is it to find out about the product or service?
How easy/delightful is it to buy?
How easy/delightful is it to use (from the box)?

The first and second hurdles are easily as important as the last.

The apple i-phone is about to land

The clever money among informed sources is that apple's much speculated mobile is actually on its way this time. There's even talk of firm orders being placed for 12m of the little white jobs with a Taiwanese manufacturer.
Expect to see it in March next year.
I've seen discussions where there is a suggestion that Apple will take the brave decision to make this a telephone. ie a communication device rather than convergent with its I-pod. The argument goes that they could take an innovative lead in making devices connect with each and communicate with each-other in an intuitive way, rather than build their own I-pod killer.
Hmmm. I don't see anti-convergence working - not now there is talk of 20GB of storage on next generation phones, and security systems which recognise the phone's owner, and lock as soon as you move more than a couple of feet away from it (being launched in Japan right now).
I'm a firm believer in the convergence cause. Every objection I've seen can be overcome with either online storage accessible via mobile internet, or orb networks solutions.
There's a reason nobody carries a filofax anymore...