On Geeks and Apple and how iPad seals their Divorce
I do admire Geeks. I have nothing but respect for their work.
Their contribution with open source software to today’s world is unquestionnable. The idea that a bunch of coders came up with such great solutions as Firefox, Linux, Gimp, Eclipse, OpenOffice, JBoss (and all Java Enterprise frameworks) to name a few that I use on an everyday basis, this idea is just amazing.
Back in the day when I was working for In Fusio, a start-up doing video games and services for the mobile phone industry, I had this wonderful opportunity to work with a bunch of the most talented ones. These guys implemented the first over-the-air download system for mobile phones back in the early 2000’s. In 2 and a half years I’ve learnt as much as I would have in ten years in any other company.
What I’ve noticed though, is that geeks are not passionate about products. They are passionate about technology.
Just like old tribes have rites to pass and become a man, one has to harness the technology to get some consideration from a Geek.
00’s : a decade of Geeks splendor
The last 15 years have been the stage of a continued irruption of technologies and disruptive products : mobile phone, internet, broadband, Social Web, iPod, iPhone, Nintendo Wii and the democratization of the computer.
Geeks loved it because this was a world they would fully understand and dominate : innovation was a matter of technology and they were amongst the happy few to fully harness it, i.e able to hack it.
Their general position towards Apple has historically be mainly supportive. To start with, Steve Jobs has been the only one to dare and stand before Bill Gates on the PC market.
Besides, iMac have been a perfect alternative to PC, especially since the turn of the millenium with the advent of MAC OS/X based on BSD Unix. Just like on Linux, they would join the brave David to fight the Microsoft Goliath. They were able to hack the system, but in addition, they would be using a glamorous OS and benefit from the glorious image of the Apple brand.
D.I.V.O.R.C.E
The divorce between Geeks and Apple started with the iPhone. First you can’t hack it, or rather Apple doesn’t want you to. Then, there was the iPhone App store. This is the time where the real difference of vision between Steve Jobs and Geeks became blatant.
Steve Jobs is interested in a) providing the best and simplest products and applications to the broader range of people b) providing a unified user experience and c) fostering an ecosystem : iPod has iTunes, iPhone has App store.
With the App Store, anyone can develop and distribute a piece of software that anybody will be able to install and run smoothly on a glamorous device. Applications became social objects as opposed to technological trophies.
While making the iPhone SDK public, Jobs offered the possibility to anyone to be really innovative. I.e not only along the technological axis but also on the design, marketing and usability ones.
Here is the problem for Geeks : technology is largely democratized. Technological prowesses are no longer something to be proud of. Lovely apps are. What people want is apps that are useful and usable by anyone, regardless of how complicated they are.
Steve Jobs vision has completely hidden the technology behind the usability in the innovation definition. In Geeks law, this is sacrilege.
iPad = the Wii of the computing world
There comes the iPad. No spectacular new technology : iPad is merely a big iPod from a hacker perspective. No multi-task, not possible to develop applications etc … No chance he can gain any traction in the Geeks community.
This reminds me how hard core gamers mocked the Wii when it came out. The technical specifications were just ridiculous compared to forthcoming PS-3 or XBox 360. However, in the end who won ? Wii because the strategy was not to bring the best technology to the minority of hard core gamer. It was to bring the best product to the majority of people, with a special target on people that never played video games before.
How ? In bringing a product that is fun and dead easy to use.
(Geeks still managed to do incredibly fun things while hacking the Wii though)
iPad = iPhone for senior people
iPad strategy is identical : to bring a glorious user experience to people that shy away from the technology.
My take : this is a fantastic device that will have tremendous success with senior people. Senior people don’t care about technology. They care about products : ease, usability, design. To read their paper. To browse the internet. To play around on a big enough screen with the pictures of their grand children.
And to read books. And to buy books.
iPhone is the perfect products for teenagers and active people : small, mobile, connected, sexy.
iPad will be the perfect product for senior people : comfortable, large, easy : the best user experience to do few things but to do them with maximal comfort.
Single Task as a feature
iPhone is used on the go in hectic times. iPad will be mainly used for relaxing purposes in a single-task environment. The latter being more a feature then a restriction.
I was quite dubious regarding the positioning : I’m now fully convinced that it fits nicely between the iPhone and the Laptop. Laptop will still be used by coders to develop apps for the App Store, and active people with multi-tasking activities.
I don’t think iPad will take the place of the latter : rather it will be a perfect add-on to complete our lives digitalisation process.
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My prediction: next Christmas, the iPad will the single most bought Apple product that geeks give to … their parents. No contract, cheap, fully functional as a PC, and as user-friendly as the iPhone, what is not to like.
About the lack of multi-tasking: it makes zero sense not to have it on this device, which is why I'm sure it will be there soon. But… I think Apple is keeping it simple for developers. First scale their app to a larger screen, which is not as easy as inflating pixels, then think about background tasks. I kind of think that's also the reason why the front-facing camera was omitted, to not make it too alien to the iPhone OS, but that is unfortunately not a software tweak and a real minus for this device.
Hi Vincent,
Thanks for your comment. Glad to see you share my view point on the target market.
I still believe that the single task thing can be seen a feature which makes iPad a complete different animal than a laptop, with different usability and rhythm.
I can answer this from several perspectives. As a writer, a single focus is a feature, for media consumption, I would say not.
The iPhone OS's lack of background app support also creates some problems, like using software like Pastebot in other apps. Instead users have to adopt pretty convoluted workflows just to work with these two apps, that work just fine on the Mac.
In the end, I think multitasking is a challenge, both from a UX-design standpoint and for users own workflows. I see "singletasking" as a choice, not something to be forced upon users.
actually, I have to remember that I'm writing from my own context, that of a "geek" (even though I hate how that word has become a blanket label for anyone who likes tech). Clearly, having a large copy-paste database or an abbreviation-expanding engine (like the ones I linked to before) is something a more advanced user would appreciate. I'm a big keyboard-shortcuts guy on the Mac and care a lot about how to replicate that stuff on the iPhone et al.
But for users like my parents, a single focus clearly is a SIMPLE focus, which is a feature, not a bug.
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Also remember. The battery is supposed to last 10 hours. I guess this is one of the product priority for Steve Jobs.
Multi tasking is bad for energy consumption.
iPad will be the device to bring back the world Slow into electronic culture. Kathy Sierra talked about Lust when mentionning the iPad. Lust is not hectic and fast and multitasking. It's slow and relaxing.
So that it si comfortable to read books. And then to buy books.
I even suspect Steve Jobs to prepare something with major newspaper (NY Times etc ..) to offer some news services direct to the iPad.
relevant to your perspective and this discussion, I think you might enjoy this article http://stevenf.tumblr.com/post/359224392/i-need-t...