What Yoda Would Tell You About the Apple iPad

I am a Steve Jobs fan.  He is a role model of a great entrepreneur with vision, talent, and most importantly – the ability to truly understand customer desires and deliver products that wow.  Not an easy task.  After roughly six months he finally decided to listen to me (re: Mr. Jobs, If You Build It – I will Buy) and launch the iPad.  I have not yet used the iPad so my comments are based upon my experience and publicly-disclosed knowledge of the specifications.  Although is has been received by the marketplace with mixed emotions, for me the iPad’s launch will be a game changer in the world of digital media.  Below are a few high-level commercial reasons:

1. It enables a great mobile web browsing experience. Those of you enjoying touchscreen access to the web on your cramped smartphone (iPhone, Android, Palm, etc.) are going to really like the experience of the iPad.  Those of you enjoying reading books on an eReader (Kindle, etc.) yet desire more are going to upgrade to the iPad.
2. It’s a catalyst for healthy digital media business models.  Even with all the great advances in technology, consumers and digital media companies are still struggling to find a balance between ‘free’ and ‘paid’ as it relates to the intellectual property of content (text, pictures, music, video, games, books, etc.)  I’m not saying the iPad will be the industry savior, yet it’s a great device with significant consumer adoption, loaded with an abundance of media content, and multiple legitimate opportunities for content creators to generate revenue from consumers.
3. Keeps Big Company Competition in Check – Good For Consumers.  As with every consumer technology format war (Betamax vs. VHS, CDMA vs, GSM, HD DVD vs. Blu-Ray, etc.) big business wants their format to dominate consumer adoption.  There are excellent arguments on both sides for single formats and multiple formats, yet being a fan of capitalism I enjoy a healthy balance whereby consumers are not taken advantage of and commercial entities thrive.  As an example, in book publishing many can tell you about the power Amazon holds.  They own the relationship with the end consumer and are a material part of publisher sales volume.  The Amazon Kindle has been wildly successful in migrating consumers from print book purchasing to ebook purchasing.  However, the Kindle continues to tip the traditional publisher/distributor power scale.  As Kindle ebook sales grow by double digits publishers continue to feel threatened by Amazon.  Since Amazon negotiates wholesale pricing directly with publishers they are now setting ebook street prices (to consumers) below their cost, effectively frustrating publishers trying to move print book inventory.  Apple’s iBookstore allows publishers to control street prices and garner 70% of the ebook purchase price (Apple gets 30%.)  This will likely force Amazon to adjust their ebook pricing model.

In a dream the other night I had the pleasure of spending time in Dagobah with Yoda and wanted to share a few of his insights on the iPad:

1. The iPad’s Purpose.  One thing I like about Steve Jobs is his ability to make product decisions that seem unnatural to most technology product companies.  Typically product companies focus on the race of features and functions to build based upon priority-driven consumer research.  I know, I’ve been there.  More often than not many of the features don’t get used and the complexities overtake the products basic purpose – seriously effecting usability.  The iPad is not going to replace a desktop computing experience – the Mac, iMac or Macbook is for that.  Its goal is to provide an awesome ‘touch-computing’ based mobile web and media content viewing experience, period.  If you think further than that you may be disappointed.
2. Why No Camera? For those who think Steve Jobs needed to price the device at $500 and the camera was too expensive – you’re wrong.  I agree a camera would of been a nice addition to the product spec.  As noted in #1 above, Jobs understands product feature sets as it relates to available technology.  Everything coming together for a great user experience.  The unfortunate reality is that wireless carriers can’t support the current data traffic demands of their users.  Introducing video conferencing in scale on existing strapped 3G networks is a recipe for disaster.  One reason I buy Apple products is the trust built over years.  They understand how to deliver transformative products that deliver a great user experience.  That said, I have been frustrated with several defective iPods, iPhones, etc. over the years, yet every one of them was supported by Apple.
3. Why No Flash? The lack of Flash support on the current iPhone and expected on the production models of the iPad is super disappointing and frustrating. Apple complains that “Flash is buggy” and the “primary reason when Mac’s crash.” David Hyatt of Apple, Inc is the co-editor of HTML 5, which is likely soon be supported in the next phase of browsers, thus reducing the need for plug-in based rich internet application-based technologies (Flash, Silverlight, Java FX, etc.)  All that said, I will remain surprised if Apple does not support some kind of Flash solution in production iPad models as a sizable amount of existing web pages use Flash.  In the end consumer suffers.