Another Look at the iPad, and How It Will Help Newspapers Commit Suicide

In my last post, I explained why you don’t need an iPad, but as is the case with Apple fever, whether or not you need an iPad has little to nothing to do with whether or not you are going to buy an iPad. So, with that in mind, I wanted to write a bit about the positives of the iPad, the reasons why it is a good device, and try to see both sides of the iPad fiasco. But, ultimately, I want to talk about why the arguments for the iPad are nothing more than hype.

First, I had a chance to play with the iPad at an Apple Store on launch day. I didn’t have a huge amount of time, and I was limited because the Apple Store (according to an employee) has strict rules about what apps they can load onto iPads for the public to demo. So, I was not able to use some major things, such as  the Kindle app, or Marvel apps, but I was able to use my iTunes login to load up the New York Times app, Wall Street Journal, BBC, ABC, Netflix and Reuters apps.

The iPad is what you would expect from Apple. It is pretty, easy to use, fairly intuitive, and has the clean Apple look. The iPad is completely a consumption device, not a creation device, and that is both its allure and downfall. If all you want is something to surf the web, check e-mail, play some games, read and watch video, the iPad is a very nice device. It does all of those things well. If you want to write e-mails, blog posts, or even Twitter updates, maybe the iPad won’t do so well for you. Typing in portrait mode was tough for me. Typing one handed is slow and the device is a bit too heavy to for most people to hold comfortably one handed for an extended time. Typing with my thumbs worked okay, but even with my pretty big hands (I’m 6’4″,) it was a stretch to reach the middle of the keypad. Typing in landscape mode was surprisingly comfortable, but that requires something to lean the iPad on, something that was already set up at the Apple Store, but not a good sign for if you want to use the iPad somewhere other than your living room or bathroom.

Also, while the ABC and Netflix apps work very well on WiFi, I don’t imagine those apps being very useful for the most part. I don’t think streaming video is really the way for this device. The iPad is technically “unlocked” but won’t work on anything but AT&T, and given AT&T’s past, I’d expect a downgrade in video quality for the 3G models, which effectively makes the screen pointless. When you’re at home, unless you’re in the bathroom, there is no need for these apps, because with On Demand services through cable providers, or Netflix streaming on any number of devices, there are better options for these things than the iPad. Ultimately, I see the iPad working best with preloaded video, or purchases from the iTunes store (sneaky Apple!), because none of the other options will be useful enough.

The screen is nice, but has problems with both glare and smudges, another issue that would make this device fairly useless outdoors. I can imagine short bursts of reading being fairly comfortable on the iPad, but extended periods of staring at that screen could lead to strain. The built in iWork app suite is also very well designed, but again, somewhat limited, because while you can use the device to write documents, it is awkward to do so. Games look great on the device as well. So, I can see tablets having niche uses (not just the iPad mind you, all tablets. This is an important point: Colgate is toothpaste, but not all toothpaste is Colgate. Kleenex are tissues, but not all tissues are Kleenex. The iPod is a media player, but not all media players are iPods. The iPhone is a smartphone, but not all smartphones are iPhones. The iPad is a tablet, but not all tablets are iPads. Name recognition does not the best product make.) I can imagine tablets being incredibly useful in the classroom, on the train, in the bathroom, at a coffee shop, or as a cheap alternative to a DVD system in a family car.

Ultimately, the iPad is a nice device. For better or worse, it is what you would expect from Apple, but because of that, it is not what everyone wants and it’s not what everyone needs. And, because of the hype surrounding it, I fear that this device could hold off the evolution of the media industry, which in the end, will only hurt the media industry, and here’s why: the iPad will allow the media industry to hold onto their walled gardens and pre-packaged products just long enough for them to become completely irrelevant.

I played with a number of the media apps like NYT, WSJ, BBC, and Reuters. Reuters had good ideas with pushing the UI, NYT and WSJ both just looked like digital scans of newspapers (the worst option possible), and BBC had the best offering by far. BBC did what American newspapers can’t quite grasp: the old way of the print media does not apply any more, it is old and dead, and we need a new way forward. We are no longer a mass consumption audience. We all want different things, easy access to the content we want and we want to be able to get other relevant information as well as share stories we like. Newspapers do not allow that, and that is not how you build a successful digital format. NYT and WSJ don’t understand this. They are offering a newspaper and nothing more. BBC offers a news discovery platform, and that is what we really need.

Consider these examples:

1) The New York Times website, and article about Global Warming. It is static, the only links are relevant people, not concepts, ideas or events. Past coverage is limited to 2 links all the way a the bottom.

2) The New York Times teamed with Google for “Living Stories” about Global Warming. There are links for all relevant information, a timeline of important events, and tons more articles related to the story.

Which one presents the news in the way you want to consume it?

The expected additions of pay walls and limited content only exacerbates the problem. The newspapers are trying to hold onto control when their best way forward is to give up control. Stop trying to sell us a package and give us quality content. Give us control over what we see, how we see it, and what we can do with that content. The old media is dead. If you try to exclude us, or pretend you have something special we need to pay for, we will go elsewhere. There are plenty of organizations willing to give us what we want and how we want it. And, many of them don’t have to subsidize a dying print business, they can focus on making the best product for us, not the best life raft for them.

Why you don’t need an iPad or a newspaper

I wont lie to you all. For the majority of the last few years, I had fallen in as an Apple fanboy. Over the course of my life, I’ve had a string of terrible Windows computers (including two Sony Vaios – a laptop and desktop.) Then, upon moving to Osaka in 2006, at my wits end with all things Microsoft, I bought a Macbook. It was a revelation. Things worked. I didn’t have to worry about viruses and random dll errors. It was bliss, and still is.

My Apple addiction didn’t take long to dig its claws in, so when I saw the first screens of the iPhone my mind went blank and all I could see was a gadget that I needed to own. Luckily, I was still in Japan, so the first gen iPhone was able to pass by without any battles between my self-control and my credit card. The iPhone 3G was released about 2 weeks before I left Japan and returned to the States, so of course buying one was my first act upon leaving the plane. The first 6 months or so were bliss, but things began going downhill quickly.

I was forced to continually jailbreak with each software upgrade, because the device simply wasn’t allowed to do what I wanted. The more I saw, the more Apple’s arbitrary and obtuse approval process annoyed me and completely put me off. Here was a device that was revolutionary, but at the same time held back from its full potential by Steve Jobs’ draconian practices. Only apps that he deemed acceptable could run on the device, it could only sync with iTunes (obviously), no apps could duplicate built-in features (anti-competitive), and huge parts of the system were cut out of the official SDK only allowing developers to do what Steve said they could. Couple that with being bill-raped by AT&T (you want me to pay extra for SMS? f*** off,) and I needed out. I bought a Nexus One, got switched over to T-Mobile, and just like the moment I bought my Macbook, it was a revelation.

Yes, the iPad looks pretty, and it has all of the apps and everything just like the iPhone/iPod touch, but it also still has all of the problems, but now on a bigger scale. Let’s put aside the fact that it’s a first gen Apple device, which are notoriously flawed products. This thing has the guts of a netbook, and a beautiful interface, but it’s still cut off at the knees because it’s locked down. The App Store has unknown and constantly changing review criteria, though the anti-competitive policies are well known. It can’t multitask (except for the anti-competitive multitasking with first party software.) It can’t run Flash. It isn’t expandable. Consider this on that last point: this is a 16Gb micro SD card. That card costs about $40 and equals the storage capacity of the lowest rung iPad. Given the size, there is no way Apple could build a slot for that? Of course not, because then they couldn’t charge you an extra $100 to jump from the 16Gb iPad to 32Gb iPad.

Here’s a dirty little secret everyone: the iPod was almost never the best MP3 player on the market, but you were so stuck in the web of iTunes, you couldn’t break free, and never knew what you were missing, couple that with the Apple branding juggernaut, and to this day all MP3 players are called “iPods” by the casual consumer. The same is now true for the iPhone. It is nowhere near the best smartphone on the market. It was the first one to be beautiful and to rope in the luddites, and now that those people are trapped in the Apple web, they aren’t going to get out, because people are inherently afraid of change. So, here’s the answer: don’t buy an iPad, don’t get stuck deeper in that web. The iPad, like the iPod and iPhone, will be the first tablet on the market to get it right, but that doesn’t mean it’s the best, and more to the point, it will not be the best tablet on the market by the time the year is out.

Sometime this year, the Notion Ink Adam Tablet PC will be released and that will blow the iPad out of the water. Here are some of the differences:

Notion Ink Adam Tablet (NIAT) will have a dual core processor, and therefore be able to easily multitask and run Flash, the iPad cannot do either (except for crippled multitasking which is only allowed by Apple software). NIAT has an amazing screen which will not only offer better resolution and battery life than the iPad, but will also be able to switch to a mode similar to E-Ink (think Kindle) for more comfortable reading and even better battery life. NIAT will support Android OS, Ubuntu Linux or Google Chrome OS, giving you access to anything you would want to do, whereas the iPad will run iPhone OS, limiting you to the App Store (and remember apps are rejected if they duplicate functionality, so no alternatives to Safari, Mail, Calendar, and maybe not even the iWork that comes bundled.) NIAT will also have a camera that swivels 180 degrees, whereas the first gen iPad has no cameras. And, to top it all off, NIAT will be cheaper than the iPad.

Not sold? There will also be plenty of tablets coming out running Windows 7 (not some form of the Zune or Windows 7 Phone software, full on Windows 7,) Linux, and Android.  So, you can choose a tablet that runs Windows 7 and can use all of the software that goes along there, or a tablet with all of the benefits of Android (open development).

The iPad will act as a gateway for content providers to charge you for everything. Hulu is planning an iPad app, but it won’t be free, even though Hulu turned a $100 million dollar profit last year, and expects to double that this year from ads alone. NBC is considering a paid app for the iPad as well.

But wait! you say? The iPad will have custom built apps for the New York Times, Wall Street Journal and other newspapers, plus the iBook store! It will revitalize the sinking print business! First of all, why do you need access to thousands of books in your pocket? You need one book, and you can get that one book you will read at a time from a library, for free if you want. Owning a Kindle or iPad will simply lead to impulse buying of books that you won’t read and won’t feel guilty about because they won’t be staring at you from the shelf, they’ll be hidden away on your tablet.

And, here’s a crazy question: maybe the newspapers are dying for a reason. Maybe they are still clinging to outmoded ideals and business practices and want you to pay for their inability to evolve with the times. Consider this: these apps that are supposedly going to “revitalize” the industry are simply repackaged newspapers, and they will charge you subscription fees. These companies are just repackaging the stuff you already don’t buy. We don’t need newspapers, we don’t need the packaging, we just need the content, and we can access that content redistributed in hundreds of different sources. The Times and WSJ don’t have anything that you can’t find elsewhere, but they want to charge you a fee as if what they are giving you is some sort of precious commodity. The news is not a rare commodity, especially not in the world of the Internet. These companies are not giving you paper (an actual commodity that could easily become limited,) they are giving you information that has been digitally distributed and copied. It is nothing special. WSJ is going to charge $4 per week for full access on the iPad. Alternatively, it only costs $2 a week to subscribe to WSJ online. Double the price for what? The privilege of owning an iPad? B.S. They know the target market of the iPad: people who don’t know that there are better options, people who won’t notice that they are living in Musolini’s Italy.

Sure, with the iPhone and iPad, the trains will run on time. But, that doesn’t change the fact that you don’t have full control over the device you bought, it is purposely crippled, and the apps available are subject to the whim of dictator Steve.