Why You Need to Reconsider the iPad

Since my buddy Alex over at the TL;DR column decided to completely bash the iPad, I think that I should try and explain to him why the iPad will be on its way to success.

Apple is, no doubt, an amazing company. They have single-handedly created an empire surrounding their exclusive products. Ever since they branched out into media players and phones, they have made the industry rethink what the standards are. But for Apple, the iPad is an entirely new device in an emerging market.

When Apple set out to create the iPod, they took the status of the MP3 player and thought of a way to revolutionize the way people will listen and buy digital music. They did even more with the iPhone and app store, creating a new standard in the smartphone world. However, the trend here is that every market that has made Apple successful (outside of their computers), was already established. Which brings me to the tablet.

Sure people have had tablets for years now. But they were the lame excuse for a computer, barely functioning at a high enough level to keep up with what a user really wants out of the device. And in that way, the Tablet market has not developed in the way the MP3 market and phone market had when Apple entered them. So what’s the standard features of a tablet? What capabilities does it allow and what things will have to be left behind? What do the consumers really want? That is what Apple tried to solve.

Now let me point out another trend. Apple is pretty conservative with first generation products. They usually test the waters to see how the public will react and if the product is worth keeping around. Let’s take a look at the iPhone. The first generation was not anything like the iPhone we see today. It had no app store, no GPS, and a barely functioning network. But what it did have was enough ground-breaking features to make people curious. Just enough to make them bite that first time. And it was a huge success.

So naturally, what has worked before will surely will work again. Apple wanted to enter the tablet market with a conservative device that has just enough features to make the target demographic curious. Then rely on word of mouth to do the rest.

My biggest gripe with this entire iPad business (minus the name, it is atrocious), is that people were expecting a computer from the heavens. Anyone who has known the Apple product releases for the past 10 years would agree that the first generation of a device is pretty much “letdown” by hype standards. But not only that, they have always created an amazing second generation product that makes the first seem on track with some genius master plan.

Apple is a company. Remember that. Their job is to please a consumer and as many as them as possible. I wouldn’t get too bent out of shape if the iPad is not all that it is meant to be. And if it is, then Apple is ready to respond in the second generation of the product to make it all that it was meant to be in the first place. They have done it before. They can do it again.