Tom AustinI’m flagging this as UNOFFICIAL because it’s not my intent to convey any formal Gartner positions here, only a few key personal observations.
I don’t buy every new technology that comes along (even my wife would begrudgingly agree but argue that I buy too many…). And I avoided the iPad siren call at announcement time. It was at the Enterprise 2.0 conference in Boston in June (and a few other events in roughly the same timeframe) that I was seduced.
A lot of folks, particularly sales and marketing types, were using them. So I went out and bought a 3G 64 GB version at the end of June.
Understand, I have tried to be a tablet “fanatic” for years. I went so far as to go out and buy my own Lenovo X61 convertible Tablet (running Windows Vista and Office 2007) in April of 2008. I used it as a tablet until my peers complained that they didn’t like the handwritten emails hogging inbox space. Reading my scrawl was much harder than I thought it was…
The Tablet was also a brick, particularly with the extended life battery that usually conked out in about 2 and a half hours. And startup time? Well, like any good Windows machine, you could measure it in minutes…and then there were all the security patches and forced reboots and image backups and … well, we’ve all been there. And we’re there now…
(I am not a Windows tablet fanatic but I do like OneNote…)
My iPad hasn’t replaced my Tablet PC. And it hasn’t replaced my company issued notebook computer, my personal photo and music editing machine or any of the other computers in my apartment. It’s just made them more secondary.
I’ve seen cases already where iPads are being picked up in a variety of contexts, e.g., on the job in construction, in development for medical applications, in manufacturing operations for data collection and so forth.
Why?
The iPad is transformational because it just simply works. It comes on in a couple of seconds. Reboots? You’re kidding, right? I am sure I will want to or have to reboot my iPad someday. That day hasn’t come yet. (I rebooted my iPhone 4 once after 10 weeks of use.)
My expectation is most executives will use instant on, highly reliable (flash based), long-life tablets like the iPad. And as prices get driven down in a few years, these things are going to as ubiquitous as simple calculators once were.
And these things are *not* just “media tablets”. For many, they will be the almost everything device, with persistent storage on the web and offline operation via cached content on the device.
The iPad *is* the right *network computer* vision — it sort of fits what we described in 1997 when I started writing about network computing, but that’s another story.
The iPad is a mortal threat to most user PCs in existence today. I’m sure Microsoft and Google can come up with their own iPad equivalents. And I hope they’re more competitive than Zune. That’s not intended as a cheap shot. Apple needs more competition, but that’s another story too.
So what’s wrong with this story? Do you see most people having personal devices like an iPad?
Let me close with an interesting story. The Telegraph (London) published a story today entitled Oxford English Dictionary ‘will not be printed again’ from which I’ll reproduce the following quote:
Simon Winchester, author of ‘The Meaning of Everything: The Story of the Oxford English Dictionary’, said the switch towards online formats was “prescient”.
He said: “Until six months ago I was clinging to the idea that printed books would likely last for ever. Since the arrival of the iPad I am now wholly convinced otherwise.
Good piece to reflect on.
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9 responses so far ↓
1 Scott Olson August 30, 2010 at 1:18 pm
The iPad has already completely changed the way I travel and is going a long way to doing the same when I am in my office. The last couple times I traveled I only took my iPad and found it perfectly suited for my needs except for their inability to accept or invite others to meetings. I am currently using Tungle for that but would like to see that in iCal.
iPad is not a media device. It is a perfect mobile everything device good for both work and media consumption.
2 Kevin Edwards August 30, 2010 at 2:47 pm
“It comes on in a couple of seconds”
It’s funny how often I see this in iPad reviews. I have an iPad and yes, it “comes on” in a second or so, but so does my MacBook Pro. What kind of notebooks from hell are these people using that “instant on” is a feature?
You open the lid, and the notebook should be ready to go by the time you’re finished opening it. When you’re done, you close the lid. It should be a *little* easier than the iPad (when used with a case/cover), since with the iPad you have to both open the cover and push a button; and close the cover and let it time-to-sleep or push the button again.
3 James August 30, 2010 at 3:49 pm
@ Kevin Edwards
Did you catch the part about rebooting… in any case most things on the iPad are \instant\, which is usually not the case with a laptop. Then there is the size, weight and form factor too.
When you combine those things with a touch OS it’s transformational.
People keep making the mistake of breaking the iPad down into specs. the problem is that the iOS devices defy this and now you have to look at the sum of the device and the iOS eco-system, not its individual parts.
4 pk de cville August 30, 2010 at 4:44 pm
@ James
“Did you catch the part about rebooting… in any case most things on the iPad are \instant\, which is usually not the case with a laptop.”
I have a 1 yr old 13″ MacBook Pro which I use perhaps 50hrs/week.
num of reboots = about 5
num of ‘slow’ awakenings = none
num of app freezes = about 1 a week
This level of reliability is a not unusual experience for Apple Mac owners.
5 Einstein August 30, 2010 at 7:37 pm
Good thing you wrote UNOFFICIAL.
iPad is great but for very limited uses: replaces the proverbial newspaper while in the bathroom, read some books, browse sites (until your hand gets tired) and so on.
You cannot travel with it alone, but I can with a touchscreen laptop. Will you add an iPad to the laptop, and cell phone while traveling? Not me
6 Benoît H. Dicaire August 30, 2010 at 10:52 pm
Hello Tom,
I share your pain and love my iPad!
However productivity tools are not ready on the platform. There is no substitute for OneNote and MS Office Application clones are not mature.
Don’t get me started on security issue, such as no way to lock my email.
Well, the reward is the journey.
Benoît
7 yowsers August 31, 2010 at 4:58 am
Interesting post — we’ve seen a number of “the iPad is transformative” posts before, but this one adds a few interesting observations.
The observation that it takes a few seconds to turn on is overstating the case, in my experience. The iPad comes on in 1 sec or less. The iMac I have takes a few seconds, while the MBAir (SSD) is 1-2 secs.
And I find I take it much of the Mac experience for granted now. I’m a switcher (June 2007, but wanted to do it in Sept 2006). I still use PCs at work (someone needs to pay me to use them, and someone does…)
I reboot those PCs 1X a week on a good week, and sometimes a couple times a day if it’s having “issues”. I reboot the iMac every couple of months (every other software update, usually ones involving system files). This is nothing compared to what I do with the PCs. And I can recall only 1X needing to reboot the iPad (a security update, I think, in May). Compared to the iMac and MBAir, it never needs rebooting.
Compare this to PCs users who now find they have to do a full OS re-install occasionally. I couldn’t believe it when I heard it, but I heard it from several sources. As I said, we’ve come to take the OS X / iOS stability for granted.
8 Oomu August 31, 2010 at 7:00 am
I agree. The iPad is absolutely “transformational ” because it just works.
For the naysayers I have to say : I work with it. I create diagrams, make some urgent remote network management, take notes, modify spreadsheet data, use DBs forms and so on and so on…
In travel it’s a lot easier to have the iPad with data, news and novels preloaded than a laptop, even apple macbooks (I still like them) and a lot more pleasant to use.
Definitely not a toy, definitely an useful tool, and yes a traditional computer is still useful too.
I see it like the perfect network computer.
9 Eric Knipp August 31, 2010 at 3:46 pm
I agree with you Tom. The iPad has changed my life. People laugh when I say that, but it is true. When I travel I must still lug my laptop – but it doesn’t leave the hotel room.
The iPad replaces notebooks when I’m in client meetings. It replaces books, magazines, and newspapers. It lets me keep up with email more effectively when I’m snatching 5-10 minutes between client meetings.
I use the iPad for drafting research notes – not for editing, though. It falls short for that. I also use it to take Webexes while I’m in the pool, and when I’m done I can use it to play with my 7 month old son.
It truly is transformational, but people that don’t have one won’t get it. And I also fully believe that another vendor will improve on the iPad by pairing it with an open software platform.