Next in my interviews, I wanted to talk about the display. Raving about the iPad’s display has been near universal. Some even calling the screen the iPad’s “killer app”. My interviewees concurred. When asked, Lena replied “Oh yeah, movies look great! Music videos on WiFi look good too.”
Bill said the video was “stunning” though he complained about youtube.com not being rock solid—more likely an connectivity issue than anything iPad specific.
Steve and I are both graphic engineers from way back, so pleasing him should be harder than the other two. The lack of full HD resolution didn’t bother him due to the small screen size—but he really complained about the 4:3 screen ratio. Other than that, he too loves the display. It a word, “Wow.”
Steve found an interesting app too. “There is a $0.99 app that lets you stream from your home workstation. It does on the fly transcoding and it looks amazing.” Maybe we’ll get a comment out of him as to the app’s name?
My next question was, What percent of your “notebook computing” will be migrated to your iPad?
My father gets the prize for the most dramatic shift. This was not unexpected as his use of computers is generally more limited than the other two. He said, “Ten percent or less of my computer time is being used on a laptop. The rest, iPhone and iPad.” He was already using his iPhone to read online news—that’s being shared with the iPad. Now he’s doing his casual emailing and web browsing on the iPad too. He summed up, “I’ll never take my laptop on a trip again. What I need for a trip is a communications tool. The iPad is a better communications tool than a laptop.”
Lena has shifted most of her web browsing over to the iPad. She mentioned the lack of iPhoto (Apple’s photo management application) keeps her tied to her Macbook. This raised my ears as I too am an OSX user and rely on iPhoto to post pics both to my personal website and facebook page. With no camera and no way to get pictures from a digital camera directly onto an iPad takes it completely out of the picture management game. “If I could use iPhoto on my iPad I might not need my Macbook.”
Steve is more “playing around” with his iPad than anything. He put his use into context thusly: “I have been experimenting with the iPad. I attend a lot of meetings and have been using it exclusively to take notes. So far its been performing perfectly. I have even hosted a Slide presentation from it connected to a projector.” This is someone using an iPad where before it was pen and paper. He claims his use of computers has been effected little—but he has several laptop computers and a desktop system, hooked to his large screen HDTV that he can access from his favorite chair in his TV room.
Finally I asked how they saw the iPad and like devices effecting education. Bill said he wouldn’t want textbooks on the iPad because of no note taking ability. Steve thought he would want the textbooks digitally, “I were a student id be all for this.” Lean wasn’t sure how the iPad was going to effect formal education but she had already purchased some education software for her 21-month year old. She said he can even turn on the iPad and launch one of his games! If I had known toddlers were using iPads I might have interviewed one. Next time. 
So there’s three takes on the iPad. For me, I probably won’t be buying one. I already have a MacBookPro, a Windows 7 laptop, a netbook and an iMac. Not to mention my use would be somewhere in between Lena and Steve—which makes me think I wouldn’t use an iPad much. Without iPhoto I can’t use it exclusively on a pleasure trip. For work I need a full powered computer or notebook and keyboard. And for causal browsing and email, two of my computers sit next to me connected to my large screen HDTV, so I’m well covered.
Lena said she would buy the iPad 2.0 upon release if it supported iPhoto. She promised to sell me her current version if that happened. That’s cool. I can wait. 
On a side note, I found an article last week about “Android”, Google’s smartphone/tablet computer OS. My favorite part reads, “On the other side, there’s Android — a technically solid operating system which appears to have been designed by folks with minimal interest in issues of usability.”
I could have written that! The user interface, the software, is the key to competing in this market. I am sure you’ll hear me say this again. That’s just how I move forward along a surface by repeatedly turning over…
http://www.pcworld.com/article/196948/android_challenges_iphone_users_win.html?tk=rss_news
Joseph A Graff
Technology Consultant
www.joegraff.com
