It’s the computing usability perspective that counts in this decade.

Although the iPad basher camp made some valid arguments, many of them looked at the iPad from a perspective that will be much less relevant in the future. It was the computing technology perspective of the last decade that prevailed most in their writings, often focusing on specific technology features (OMG! No Flash! No Camera!). This instead of looking at it from a perspective that is becoming more and more important in this decade: the computing usability perspective.

Many early adopting digital savvies often forget that most people don’t care about technology: they just want to get a job done, be productive, be social and have fun. In the past there was a strong need for more storage, (graphical) computing power, better hardware interfaces, better (wireless) Internet connections and a lot of other basic technologies to make computing more useful, even for the more technically skilled.

However, now we have entered a phase where technology can, in principle, already cater many of our computing needs. So, in this decade it is not about improving technological capabilities, it’s about developing & utilizing technology in ‘computing products’ to make them truly useful, effective and fun for consumers in more focused application areas.

This is exactly what Apple has done with the iPad. They developed (or purchased/licensed) and utilized technology to create a device, with a form factor, user interface and eco-system of applications & content that is optimized for digital media consumption and lightweight computing (e.g. reading/writing e-mails, short documents, simple presentations, etc..).

With the iPad, Apple aims high. They want to cater a much broader audience to enjoy consumption of digital media and allow them to become digital working nomads, just like the contemporary digital savvies are right now.

The road will not be easy for Apple and its iPad, as I will explain later. But if Apple succeeds it will not only have captured a much larger market to sell mobile computing devices, but more importantly, have a strong hold on digital media reoccurring revenues: and that’s where the big pile of money is.

Below I will elaborate my position further and react to some remarks and questions I’ve noticed in blogosphere in the last few days.

Digital media consumption made easy?

In many R&D labs of large corporations and university institution around the world research scientists and engineers have looked at how to make the production, editing, management and consumption of digital media easy and effective for users, and they still do by the way.

Digital media (think photos, videos, news papers, etc.) have many advantages, it allows us to easily store, transmit, share, search, mash and edit it. But a major disadvantage is that it’s intangible and abstract, and thus not intuitive at all for an average user to use. It is, for instance, much more intuitive to hold a paper photo in your hand or browse through a carton box full of photos.

‘Holy grail solutions’ of digital media consumption in this perspective are solutions that keep the best of both the digital and the physical world, having the powers of the digital- and the inherent intuitiveness of the physical world.

The iPad tries to be such a solution. It’s not the final answer, but with this product Apple is appealing to a much broader base of people that want to enjoy media without any fuss.

I agree with Steve Jobs that the Netbook isn’t the answer. Sure, it’s smaller and thus easier to handle, but it’s still a general-purpose device, without any specific optimization in technology, form & user-interface design and business models for media consumption and lightweight computing.

Awakening the digital nomad in all of us

Luckily, more and more people are nowadays not bound to a desk in some cubical. We work, meet and study wherever we need or like to be, in café’s, on the beach, curled up on a couch at home or even in places where you can rent seats by the minute. Many of the digital savvy have become true digital nomads.

There is of course a group of ‘creators’ that need their heavy-duty laptops to, for instance, develop code, design websites, edit movies and create graphics & animations, wherever they happen to be. The iPad is not powerful enough for that and is actually not optimized for such creative tasks, although creating graphics could be exceptions to that. However, many people don’t need heavy computing facilities to do their jobs. They just need an easy way to use an agenda, handle email, create short text documents and an occasional PowerPoint (eh, I meant Keynote ☺).

The Netbook probably already converted many into digital nomads. But Netbooks are still to general purpose; lightweight computing can be simpler and more effective. From what I’ve seen the iPad does just that, and could ultimately turn a much larger group of people in to digital nomads as well in the future.

Could future Google Chrome OS devices be a match for Apple’s iPad?

The Google Chrome OS is basically a cloud OS that allows users to run web applications. An advantage of this cloud OS is that it allows for very short boot times and applications will be available almost instantly. But if the iPhone is any measure for how fast an iPad will boot and start applications, this is not a differentiating feature for Chrome OS based devices.

However, hardware for Chrome OS devices can be relatively cheap because a browser engine renders all its applications. This might be the only advantage over an iPad device; Chrome OS devices can be much cheaper.

Overall, my arguments don’t change. If some manufacture can develop a Google Chrome OS based device that is as easy to use and as effective as an iPad for digital media consumption and lightweight computing it could be a real competitor, especially if it can also compete on price.

Last, the openness of Google’s OS is only a real advantage if at the same time the level of usability remains high. Personally, I think open systems are the best, but keeping a system closed, like Apple does, to assure a high level of usability and to keep the user experience constant has its merits too.

It’s NOT about this first iPad

Apple surely didn’t make this first iPad to be the final, ultimate, tablet product. This device is ‘just’ a first step to reach a larger audience in the future; a process that will take a long time. We might be going crazy over the absence of, for instance, Adobe Flash, SD card slots and USB, but does an iPad need that in, say, 5 years?

The Adobe Flash platform might be less relevant in the future. Data (including photos and other content types) is more and more stored in ‘the cloud’, will my mother need a SD card slot in the future? In how many usage scenarios will she need a USB connection?

Possibly many users will require some of these features in the future, in that case Apple will add them in next generation iPads; they will have to. If one wants to jump-start a revolution of mass digital media consumption and lightweight computing, I think it is a good strategy to keep the product initially as basic as possible. It allows for keeping focus on its main use case and keeping the price as low as possible.

About this last point, price, I can very well imagine that the Apple will not make a lot of money on selling iPads now and in the future, the price is already low and will go down further in the future (as prices usually do). Apple will most likely earn the most through its stores (music, videos, apps, including games and books).

Will iPad kill eReaders (Kindle)? Yes and No, resulting in a final No.

A question debated a lot in the blogosphere is: will the Apple iPad kill the Amazon Kindle and other eReaders? Here are my answers:

No, eInk displays are much easier on the eyes, especially if you like to read a lot without interruption.

Yes, who says iPad will not get a better screen in the future? Pixel Qi comes to mind here, see for instance, ‘‘E-Ink Is Dead, Pixel Qi’s Amazing Transflective LCD Just Killed It” and on Wikipedia the screen technology of the ‘One Laptop Per Child’-laptops, on which Pixel Qi’s screen technology is based.

Yes, with all this available processing power it’s obvious that eReaders will converge to more capable devices for digital media consumption. Since iPad is in the lead for this kind of device, Kindle-s and the like won’t be a match.

No, there will always be users who want to have a device that is completely optimized for reading books. Where ‘multi-media eReaders’ will become more expensive, the hard-core eReader, that can handle books only, will become ultra cheap. (e.g. below US $100).

So since it is not a full Yes, in the end it is a No: for the coming years there’s plenty of space for eReaders in the market.

Will the iPad save the traditional print media business? Depends.

Mathew Ingram wrote a good post at GigaOm (‘Will the iPad Help Media? Possibly. Save Media? No.’). I agree with Mathew that newspapers and magazines ‘still have to figure out what they have that is unique, different and special in a way that makes people want to pay for it.’ They have to do that themselves, the Apple iPad doesn’t give them a magical solution that solves all of their business model problems.

However, although people in principle won’t pay for digital content that can be copied without any costs, they do want to pay for things that can’t be copied easily: experience and convenience. Look for instance at what iPod did for music. Anybody can download music without paying for it; it’s thus a really significant feat that the iTunes/iPod combo made consumers pay for it, allowing the music industry to earn money off of their creations. It works because it’s extremely convenient. The iPad can do the same for the print industry in my opinion.

Mathew argues that the iPad will only disrupt the traditional print media industry further, just like the iPod did for the music industry. That might be, but I think it’s the new reality for the media industry as a whole: if you understand the new rules of the digital economy you can still earn a good living working in it, but never as much as in the pre-digital age.

The rocky road ahead for iPad and future competitors

The main challenge I see for the iPad is its target user group. The target users mostly aren’t drooling over every new gadget; they aren’t following the hypes and are (generally) not willing to pay a lot for new technology.

So even if the iPad is what they want (from a user needs point of view), they are harder to reach. And, even when Apple is able to reach them, they will most likely be skeptical to spend their Dollars, Euros or what ever other currency.

Because of this target group, my guess is that, although the initial sales of the iPad in 60 (WiFi) and 90 (3G) days will be successful (it’s a very sleek and cool-to-own device), growth will be slow in the first, lets say, 3 years. After that I predict iPads and similar competing products will grow in market size faster, taking a large stake of the ‘lightweight’ computing market (which also includes Netbooks) beyond 2015.

The iPad is a revolution in disguise because …

• The Digirati failed to recognize it as a significant disruption, while in fact the iPad aims to bring digital media consumption and lightweight computing to a much broader audience.
• It will lead a ‘slow’ disruption, it’s not almost instant, as we have witnessed with the iPhone. The iPad is targeted to people who aren’t early adoptors or technology savvy, it will take time for them to start using the iPad and future competing devices.
• It won’t save the print media industry, as many hoped, but will show to be an essential element in what this industry needs to survive.
• It won’t kill the eReader, but paves the way to a more advanced device, optimized for consuming all kind of media, including eBooks.
• We haven’t seen the full potential of native iPad applications yet