No sooner do we talk about the lack of iPad mini leaks, do they start happening. First was 9to5Mac, now we have iMore.
Humorously, Seth Weintraub positions the device as a “large iPod touch”, while Rene Ritchie says “this isn’t a big iPod touch”. But their information seems to be essentially the same.
As tall as a Nexus 7, but with a much larger screen? As thin as an iPod touch? Not sure how I feel about the tiny bezel, but if it’s light enough, it shouldn’t matter. Sign me up.
My guess (based on nothing) is still that it comes in at $249. The big wildcard: will it have LTE capabilities?
“Large iPod touch”, “small iPad” — no matter how you look at it, it’s going to sell a shit ton of units this holiday season.
Muy interesante folks. Muy muy interesante.
It seems like only yesterday that people were irrationally lambasting Apple for their stance against Adobe and Flash. Now the commenters have a new reason to hate on Apple.
The Huffington Post published this article today which tells the oh so sad story of Diane Campbell who saved up her money “bit by bit” and went into the Apple Store with a $600 wad of cash and was told she could not buy an iPad unless she used a debit or credit card.
Now, as an ex-Apple Retail employee, and a current iPad owner, this story pains me for several reasons. I hate the idea of anyone not being able to get an iPad if they want one. Apple Retail employees thrive on making customers happy by helping them buy and use Apple products. And the iPad is such an amazing product that I want everyone to have one.
BUT…..Anyone who says Apple is evil for not letting this lady buy an iPad with cash, is stupid. I’ve seen articles about Apple’s “no cash for iPad” policy before but I was finally sucked in to reading the one posted at the Huffington Post, and then even worse I was sucked in to reading the comments below the article.
Ugg! I swear all the people who comment on these posts must have just filed out of a taping of Jerry Springer and then were funneled into another room full of computers where they are asked to comment on random blog posts. It’s not that these people are stupid. They’re just not thinking.
The comments section of this particular article is filled with things like, “Apple is now like Microsoft the enemy,” and this particular gem…
“That is the lamest excuse I have ever heard of. This woman had $600 cash money and wanted to buy one ipad.
How is plastic stopping anyone from doing the very thing they say that cash using cash would do?
I got one thing to say to apple, YOU ARE STUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUPID.”
Okay, so…imagine this. You walk into an Apple Store ready to buy an iPad (with any sort of currency your heart desires) and when you ask the friendly Apple Specialist for an iPad he says, “Sorry, we got a shipment of 50 new iPads today, but that guy came in and bought all 50 of them.” (okay, you got me, an Apple Specialist would never disclose stock levels.) WHAT!? THAT GUY BOUGHT ALL THE IPADS!!! HOW COULD YOU LET HIM DO THAT???
“Well, even though we are pretty sure that man isn’t going to keep all those iPads to himself, and he’s most likely going to sell them overseas, we have no idea how many iPads he’s purchased, and so we can’t prohibit him from buying iPads today.”
And you might think, “That’s easy, just limit how many he can buy per day.” Haha! Nice try. If Apple says only 25 iPads per customer, 2 customers will come in together. If Apple says only 10 per customer, they come in groups of 5. If you say only 1 iPad per customer per day, they’ll show up in groups of 50 every single day.
This is what it was like for the iPhone. As Apple Specialists we struggled with the internal debate. We didn’t want to be the police, but we hated watching normal everyday users miss out on the iPhone because re-sellers were snatching them all up before they could get there. It was painful to watch and garnered some pretty heated arguments behind closed doors.
I found myself in the middle of a hairy situation where in an attempt to save one remaining iPhone for a genuine customer who met with me earlier in the day and I knew was coming back, I lied to another customer who I recognized from multiple previous visits as a re-seller and told her we didn’t have any iPhones left for sell. Another Specialist opened the drawer revealing the last iPhone and I was immediately accused of being a liar and a racist (the re-seller was Asian).
I felt sick to my stomach after that was over. Oh, and the first customer came back after that and was heart broken and pissed at me that I sold the last iPhone to someone else. Not fun.
So Apple came up with a policy that helps protect the interests of the greater good. They decided to limit iPhone (and now iPad) purchases to credit or debit cards, that way if a Specialist recognizes a customer as someone who has been purchasing a large amount of iPhones/iPads, the Specialist can check to see how many have been purchased on that credit card. You can’t do that with cash.
It’s not a perfect system. I watched as re-sellers came in with books of credit cards and flipped through them to see which one they hadn’t used that day. But it at least slowed down their buying power and made it possible for the end users, like Diane Campbell, to get an iPad.
As I set out to write this tonight, I saw that Apple ended up giving Diane a free iPad and possibly changed their “no cash” policy. It should be known that for the iPhone the policy changed like a bazillion times. Why? Because this is not easy, nor is it fun.
Is Apple turning into Microsoft? No. Is the number of customers that Apple needs to keep happy growing exponentially every day? Yes. Are they doing the best they can? Yes. Is anyone doing it better? No.
The Inquirer published an article written by Nick Farrell titled, “Why Apple might regret the iPad” which claims that the iPad has DOOMED Apple. The only smart thing about this article is Farrell’s inclusion of the word “might” in the title.
You can always smell an erroneous iPad article coming your way when you see a comment along these lines, “many have perhaps missed the true implications for Apple if the oversized Iphone does succeed as well as some fanboy media claim it will.” Anytime I see the “oversized iPhone” dig I think a few things. First I think, “Oh, you haven’t really spent much time with the iPad.” Secondly I think, “really? You couldn’t come up with anything more original?” And why aren’t people calling the iPhone an undersized iPad?
I’m of course being flippant but this point speaks to Farrell’s complete misunderstanding of the iPad and how it not only won’t DOOM Apple but it will launch Apple to new heights.
Now, Farrell’s thesis is based on a lot of “facts” from “analysts” who have done “research.” Okay, that’s not fair. The analysts didn’t deserve the quotation marks. They’re legit. Morgan Stanley and Piper Jaffray. Look them up if you don’t believe me. The problem with their results is that they aren’t based on using the iPad. They are simply based on market research and surveys. And there are a lot of holes in their conclusions.
Based on one of their surveys Farrell concludes, “It seems the buyers of Ipads would normally have got a more expensive Macbook or an Ipod Touch…” This is a bit of a sneaky statement because surely Farrell realizes that iPod Touches are less expensive than iPads. Sure, Apple might be losing out on some some profit when someone buys an iPad instead of a Macbook. But Apple is also gaining some profit when a customer buys an iPad instead of an iPod touch.
The thing to think about is that the iPad is not discouraging customers from owning any computer at all, in fact you really need a computer in order for the iPad to fully function (or a friend who doesn’t mind you coming over to sync and back up your iPad through his computer). Most iPad buyers are not first time computer buyers. They already own a computer. And probably most of the early adopters were already Mac owners. So yeah, Apple missed out on a few Macbook sales because people bought the iPad instead. But current Mac owners aren’t Apple’s intended target audience.
What is Apple’s intended target audience? Anyone who doesn’t already own a Mac. Apple loves repeat customers and customer loyalty, but Apple wants to grow. I used to work for Apple Retail, and let me tell you what our mantra was. “5 down, 95 to go.” That was a quote Steve Jobs said quite a while back referring to Apple’s market share and what their goal was. Since then Apple has gained some ground on the market, but their goal stays the same. Apple wants 100% market share.
How will Apple gain 100% of the market? With products like the iPad. Let’s take a little walk down memory lane, shall we?
iPod: People said it was a stupid idea, it would never work, and Apple would suffer for putting so much effort into it.
iPhone: People said it was a stupid idea, it would never work, and Apple would suffer for putting so much effort into it.
iPad: Nick Farrell said it will doom Apple.
Are we seeing a trend? What did the iPod and the iPhone do, besides make gazillions of dollars for Apple? It’s a little something called the halo effect. The iPod and the iPhone both introduced Apple and the Mac to new customers who had never used one before. I started working in an Apple Store months before the iPhone was released and I can’t tell you how many customers told me they were buying their first Mac because they had an iPhone. After seeing how amazing the iPhone is, people just have to see what the Mac can do. And after experiencing award winning customer service that is unparalleled in the industry, people just had to have a computer that gets the same kind of support. (Am I a bit biased about that last point? Maybe. But check out Consumer Reports for an unbiased confirmation)
So the iPad costs less than a Macbook. Now, because the iPad is such a revolutionary product, people are buying it rather than it’s slightly more expensive counterpart. Man…Apple really didn’t think this through, did they? You know how Apple is. They just never seem to have a plan. They’re just this company with billions of dollars in the bank because they never quite think through their products. Classic Apple sloppy strategy. (Did you pick up on my sarcasm there?)
But here is what will happen. Every PC user who got an iPad and is currently realizing that yes, the iPad is better than their PC laptop, will eventually need to buy a new computer. Remember, you do still need a computer for the iPad to be fully functional. And let’s be honest, while I personally only use my Macbook Pro a total of 20 minutes a week now (that’s down from approximately 10,000 minutes) there are still some things I need a real computer for (like syncing my iPad). So those PC using iPad owners will start to think about getting a new computer. And they’ve been in the Apple store a bunch of times looking at iPad accessories and visiting the Genius Bar. And while they were there they noticed the iMac. Maybe they even asked a few questions about it or saw a Specialist demonstrating it’s ability to run Windows (in case your job uses software that requires Windows). Now when it comes to shopping for a new computer, the Mac seems like an extremely viable option. Before owning an iPad they would not have even considered the Mac.
Thus Apple gains not just the sales of repeat loyal fans, but the sales of a new audience which helps their market share grow so they can develop a larger number of repeat customers. That’s the halo effect.
Farrell made another point that further discloses his misunderstanding of the iPad. He says, “Customers that were not Apple product owners told the Morgan Stanley team that Ipad ownership would discourage them from buying e-readers, notebooks or handheld video game systems. Jobs may as well forget launching an Apple version of a Kindle or a PSP, then.”
Ahem…the iPad IS the Apple version of a Kindle or a PSP. I know this is hard to understand because the usual business model is to create a lot of individual devices that all meet their own individuals needs. This sure does make a lot of money for the company since the consumer has to keep buying more and more junk. That is, until the consumer realizes there’s a better way.
I have to take issue with another comment that Farrell made. He says, “Since many of Apple’s sales are to repeat customers the Ipad is likely to cause that company more harm than it would other firms.” Farrell says that “many” of Apple’s sales are to repeat customers. Not “most.” Many. There might be some sort of market research out there that says otherwise, but in my experience selling Macs for almost 3 years, approximately 8 out of 10 buyers were new to Mac. Even at the end of my time at Apple I was always surprised by how often I had to explain, “Yes, the entire computer is IN the screen. There’s no tower.”
Apple really isn’t into doing business as usual. At every turn Apple has done something that has made all the analysts and the market researchers doubt them. And every time Apple surprises them all. When will we stop being surprised and just realize that Apple really knows what they’re doing?
Finally I will refute one last point made by Farrell. He says, “We are still sticking to our belief that pretty soon people will realise that the Ipad is not really better than any of the devices it is replacing. Users will chuck a bit of gear that is only really useful as a heavy drinks tray.”
I’m a blogger. I live my life on my “computer.” Writing. Internet research. Social networking. Photo editing. Posting. And watching the Mission Impossible trilogy. I do it all, and more, on my iPad and I don’t miss my Macbook Pro one little bit. That being said, my next desktop computer will be an iMac.
There are plenty of articles out there from well known respected tech bloggers who are saying the same thing. The iPad is a very powerful computer and with such an amazing product in their line up, Apple is about to become more successful than ever.
Hi. I’m Nate Smith, author of the wildly celebrated parenting blog improvisingfatherhood.com (“wildly celebrated” = my mother-in-law really likes it). Today I’m going to show you how I have managed to completely abandon my Macbook Pro and have successfully shifted my entire blogging work flow over to my shiny new iPad. Before you begin blogging on the iPad you will need two things. A Tumblr account and a Flickr account. If you have any accounts that end in “er” just get rid of them. Of course there are other ways to successfully blog on the iPad, but this is how I do it.
Step 1. Content All good blogging starts with the content. I like to type out my content in Apple’s iPad app, Pages. I’ve toyed around with other options, such as using the Mail App and saving my work in the drafts folder, to using Evernote, and simply using the notes app provided by Apple. Each of these had their own special quirks that ultimately drove me back to Pages. Pages sells for $9.99 in the App store, and if that is too steep a price then I’m sure there are some other good note/documentation apps that are cheaper or even free. The reasons I have settled on Pages are simple. Formatting and Filing. When using the Mail App or Evernote, I found that when I copy/pasted the content to Tumblr (step 2) the formatting got all wacky. So then I would have to spend a decent chunk of time adding paragraphs and generally making sure everything was ready to be published. With Pages, all of the basic formatting is maintained when you copy it into Tumblr.
Be warned though, formatting such as bold and italic text won’t copy over. The second reason I like Pages is for it’s filing system. It’s pretty simple and meets my needs. I keep all of my drafts right in Pages basic filing system and if I need to access the documents from another device I can share them to myself easily via email or iWork.com. I like iWork.com because then the files are available as Pages, Word, or PDF format without any extra work on my part. But the main thing I like about filing my documents in the Pages system is the stability. With both the Mail app and Evernote, if I wasn’t connected to wifi when I was ready to save a draft, it seemed questionable as to whether or not my work was really saved. With Pages, all I have to do is exit the app and it’s saved. For extra measure I upload my files to iWork.com so I have a second copy.
Step 2. Copy/Paste Once you have your content ready to go, it’s time to post it. So the next step is to simply copy/paste your text into your Tumblr post. Before the iPad came out I had visions of what it would be like to use the iPad to do all of my blogging. The reason I decided to go with Tumblr originally was because of their amazing iPhone app. I assumed they would either have an iPad app ready to go on launch day, or that they would find a way to make their web interface iPad friendly. For the first few weeks neither of these things were true and editing Tumblr posts on the iPad was not easy. I was sad. But just a week ago the Tumblr staff announced that they had made a tweak to their rich text editing system. They didn’t mention the iPad, but I had a hunch. Lo and behold, now when you try to edit a post from the iPad the rich text editor is gone and you can edit in HTML. Now you can add your text, make certain text bold or italic, and add links. Everything you need for a good old fashioned bare bones text post.
But what if you want to add pictures to your post? Then what do you do?
Step 3. Add pictures This is where Flickr comes into the picture (pun not intended but I feel like I should take credit for it anyway!). Flickr doesn’t yet have an iPad app, but its free iPhone app works just fine on the iPad. From the iPad I take the pictures I want to use (either sent to me via email from my iPhone, or snagged off the interwebs via a Google search) and upload them to my Flickr account using the Flickr app. Once I have uploaded all the pictures I need for my post I open Flickr.com in Safari and navigate to the first picture I want to add to my post. I copy/paste the HTML embed code for that picture and place it in the body of my Tumblr post right where I want it. Repeat this process for each picture. The one downside to this method is that the HTML embed code includes a link back to your Flickr account, which is not really the intended result. But you can just change that link to whatever you want.
So there you have it. A complete blogging experience all from the comfort of your iPad. Don’t believe me? How do you think I created this post? For more information about Nate Smith go to www.natesmithcomedy.com.
The weirdest thing about using the iPad is that it makes using the iPhone even more enjoyable.
I’ve had the iPad for a week now. I use it for just about everything. I’m typing this post out in the Pages app as I my wife drives us to dinner. The experience has been great. There are definitely some things that seem to be lacking and I have a small feature wish list that is growing. But overall, the iPad is amazing.
As I have immersed myself into the iPad experience and integrated it into my daily life I have made many observations about how it is affecting me, but one particular thing stands out more than any other.
The weirdest thing about using the iPad is that it makes using the iPhone even more enjoyable. Now I don’t want that statement to be misconstrued. It’s not that using the iPad is bad in any way and therefore it makes going back to the iPhone a breath of fresh air. Like I said previously, I love using the iPad. But for some reason when I pick up the iPhone now, it seems even better.
This could be partially due to the fact that it is so much lighter than the iPad. I’m not one of those people who are complaining that the iPad is “heavier than expected.” That’s a pretty ridiculous claim seeing as how we knew it was going to be 1.5 lbs since they announced it. So anyone who says the iPad is heavier than they expected clearly hasn’t ever held anything heavier than 1.5 lbs. And anyone who says that’s too heavy really needs to eat their Wheaties. My wife picked up the iPad for first time and her first comment was on how light it was. It’s not like she’s one of those weightlifting chicks. She’s almost as weak as I am.
But in contrast the iPhone is less than 5 ounces, so it feels extremely light by comparison.
The iPad’s touch screen is super responsive and downright magical. And for some unknown reason the iPhone’s touch screen feels snappier after using the iPad. That doesn’t make sense! Logic would tell us that if you start using a superior device, and then switch back to using a still-awesome-but-not-as-good device it should feel more sluggish, harder to use, and overall just less useable. And yet…it doesn’t.
I don’t have a good explanation for this. I’ve racked my brain trying to come up with some sort of logic for this. I’m just going to have to chalk it up to the Apple Magic.”
My Macbook Pro has become my “desktop” computer. My iPad is my portable computer. Someday my Macbook Pro will live out it’s full life and be ready to call it quits. When that time comes I’ll replace it with an iMac and then I’ll have the perfect Apple setup. Everything syncs with MobileMe. Everything is light and easy to use. Everything just works.
So I just got my shiny new iPad and have been testing it out all day. I will say this right now: the iPad is now my main computer.
I will blog from it. I will email and IM from it. I will edit images with it. I will live with it. As I move forward and continue to bring it into my daily workflow I will do my best to honestly assess its strengths and weaknesses.
About a week before the iPad was released I engaged in a minor debate, with a commenter named Jordan, about the merits of the iPad. Specifically we compared the iPad’s potential abilities to those of a netbook.
After I made my case for how the iPad will be even stronger than anyone expects, Jordan informed me that I was false. Not just false, but “Very false.”
I decided that debating about a product that neither of us had ever touched before was fruitless so I informed him I would respond again after I have had a more hands on experience with the iPad. So, just hours after purchasing my iPad, Joe filmed a video of me as I created a keynote presentation on the iPad for the first time. The thesis of the keynote presentation was that the iPad is better than a netbook. Check it out.
So I am in love with the iPad and am already maintaining a productive workflow with it. The big thing is the amazing apps. The iWork apps are incredible. And there are some amazing 3rd party apps made specifically for the iPad. I’ll comment on those in later posts.
The one thing about the iPad that I have an issue with is the non-iPad apps. Apple told us that there were 140,000 apps that would work on the iPad because all the iPhone apps would work on the iPad. Well, okay. Technically they do. But for lack of a better word, they just suck. Nevertheless I’m sure the iPad specific apps will continue to show up and the strength of the iPad will continue to grow.
Did you get an iPad? What are your initial thoughts? How have you fit it into your lifestyle and workflow?
Just yesterday I was discussing the potential future of Apple’s bastard child iWork.com. You see, iWork.com was announced alongside iWork ‘09 during Apple’s last appearance at MacWorld two January’s ago. Since then we haven’t really heard much about it.
In fact iWork.com has been in Beta since it was released. If there was ever definitive difference between Apple and Google, it would be in how they treat Beta products. For Google a product that is in Beta can be their shining star, i.e Gmail.
Apple on the other hand, almost never uses the Beta option. Sure, they’ll release beta versions of some of their products so developers can play with them and give feedback. But they rarely release something like iWork.com where they intend regular consumers to use it regularly.
Needless to say when I saw iWork.com pop up on this section of Apple’s iPad site it made me take notice. Well today, almost as if it was a response to my post, I received an email from Apple.
Do you see what I see? Oh, did they say they’ve redesigned iWork.com for the iPad? Yeah, I think they did. Fancy that!
Well they haven’t pulled the Beta tag off of iWork.com just yet, but I think we’ll see Apple’s little bastard child grow up into a handsome young man right before our very eyes.
The iPad has been available for pre-order since the 12th. Over 150,000 have been claimed and people are starting to buzz about how well this thing may do. The estimate is interesting, though not official from Apple. Right out of the gate, the report shows what is attributed to “overexcited fanboism”, which makes sense I suppose. Although, as an overexcited fanboi myself, I have yet to submit a reservation for one. (Nate, by the way, did. For two, in fact.)
Call me old fashioned, but I’m not about to drop $500 for something I have never seen with my own eyes let alone used. Don’t get me wrong, I think this thing is going to be awesome and I fully expect to be sporting it in the coming months, but I want to get a test drive or two on the thing first. Not to mention the fact that I’m still having a terrible internal debate over whether or not to get the 3G-enabled version (and to a lesser extent, how much hard drive space).
And if that’s not enough, there’s another stigma that was widely reported a couple weeks ago but has lost mainstream traction—what about a camera?
The camera, in my mind, is the game-changing feature for the iPad—especially when considering 3G or not. Without the camera, I can wait to find Wi-Fi for most things. If I need to send an email immediately, I have my iPhone with 3G to help out. But, what if I’m stuck without Wi-Fi and have an opportunity for video chatting with my little nephew back east? Or if I have a client that needs a face-to-face and I happen to be traveling that day? I know these may be minor and not happen much, but if I saw someone next to me doing it with 3G and I couldn’t, it would drive me nuts.
And remember, the ones shipping right now do not even have a camera. Which makes me think, “should I wait for the second offering?” And if I am having those thoughts, how many others are? But, what if the next version doesn’t have the camera either? Besides the rage that will be inspired on every Mac-centric blog (including this one I would think), I would be iPad-less for (most likely) a year. Is that something I can live with? Gosh, I just do not know.
+Joe+
Whatever the case, I have to play with one. I have to figure out how it fits into my workflow. So what about you, curious reader, what are your thoughts on the iPad?
