I am an Apple fanboy. I love their products, their design aesthetic, and Steve Jobs.
My first real Apple product was a 17″ Core 2 Duo MacBook Pro that I purchased in January 2007. Before that I had been a Windows user since the days of 3.1. While I resisted at first, feeling guilty for abandoning a platform that I had come to know so well, my Macbook Pro eventually won me over with its sleek lines, polished operating system, and general ease-of-use.
In June 2008 I purchased my first iPhone. I had come to love my MacBook Pro so much that it was a must-buy. I admired the interface, the industrial design, and the whole experience of un-boxing and owning a product that was so fully considered. To this day I still wonder how products from Dell and Lenovo make it off the assembly line with giant logos slapped on the back of their displays and ghastly industrial designs that take Jonathan Ive’s principled ‘design is invisible’ methodology and run in the opposite direction.
Two years later and I still own my first MacBook Pro, but have since upgraded to OS X Snow Leopard, an iPhone 3GS, and an iPad. The day Steve Jobs announced the tablet the entire office sat in our conference room debating the merits of the new UI paradigms, the hardware design, and the price. But I knew I would buy one. Only five months into owning my first Apple computer in 2007, I regretted not buying the first iPhone, a revolutionary product that is now as memorable as the first Model-T, and I would not let it happen again. It was gadget lust for sure, but I was convinced that this was the future and I wanted to be part of it.
I counted down the days to the April 3rd release date.
Now, after two months of ownership, I am selling my iPad. I’m still convinced that multi-touch is the next evolution in user interfaces, but I do not think the current iteration is compelling enough for two reasons:
The iPad is not as efficient as a laptop.
My iPad sat on my coffee table in its dock next to my MacBook Pro. I used it to browse the web, to check TV schedules, or to play a casual game. Yet in spite of this, I would inevitably end up putting it aside to use my laptop. Whether I wanted to watch a flash video, read a few articles on CNN, or chat on AIM, the iPad was insufficient. Instead of hopping back and forth, I just stuck with the laptop.
When browsing the web, I frequently open up multiple tabs so that I can read everything interesting from a site all at once. I tried to do the same on the iPad, but instead of gracefully going from one tab to the next, I ended up frustrated. Every time I opened an article, the tab would need to refresh. If I opened a single link in a new tab and then went back to the main site, that too would need to reload. Of course, this does not include all the times I would browse a gaming site like Kotaku and want to read a few articles with flash videos. This experience was frustrating enough for me to avoid using the iPad if I knew I wanted to look at certain sites.
You might be thinking, “You were using Windows 3.1. You’re a power user and the iPad isn’t marketing towards you.” That may be true, but the efficiency issues I have will be encountered by anyone who uses the device, not just power users. I truly believe that the convenience of using a gorgeous multi-touch user interface is trumped by inefficiency. This is even more apparent when using IM apps.
On my laptop, I constantly multitask with a browser and an instant messenger. I browse the web and keep my conversations in the background. When I get a new message, Growl notifies me and the dock applies a simple numbered badge. I can continue to focus on my task uninterrupted until I decide to respond. This is a fantasy on the iPad (and the iPhone). While browsing the web, if someone sends you a message from an app like Meebo, you get a popup window that you must dismiss. It is both disruptive and frustrating. Lord help you if the person on the the other end sends you more than one message. Instead of reading a fascinating article or playing an entertaining game, you must dismiss popup after popup. Your context, whether it be a webpage or a game, becomes neither fascinating or entertaining. An article that could take you 10 minutes on a laptop will now take you longer, unless you quit Meebo.
I find it ironic that Apple has championed its push notification system as an alternative to true multitasking when every popup serves as a harsh reminder that you can only do one thing at a time… user be damned if you even think about trying. Apple should be ashamed for shipping such a broken system, even in their latest iOS 4.
The iPad is a second-class citizen.
Steve Jobs introduced the iPad as a device somewhere between a smartphone and a laptop. Six months later, he gave the iPhone a better display, better hardware, and more features than either a laptop or an iPad, and he did it in something you can carry in your pocket. As an iPad owner, this was a huge slap in the face.
I’m used to Apple withholding desirable features. They’re famous for incremental updates to help incentivize yearly upgrades, but to label the iPad as the premier consumption device, and to then give the iPhone such a huge upgrade was maddening. Small issues I had been able to ignore about the iPad previously (low resolution display, awkward UI holdovers) became inexorably highlighted. Website text and graphics are pixelated due to the display resolution shrinking the viewable area. The lock and home screens are laughably just blown up versions of the iPhone.
I can understand why Apple made these decisions. iOS fits on three different devices and each one is equally usable. You could even argue that the screen resolution and UI hold-overs are a non-issue. Applications like ‘Photos’ and ‘Reeder’ are beautiful examples of what the iPad can do (and I would agree with you). Nevertheless, these issues highlight an important fact at Apple: the iPad is a second class citizen to the iPhone.
I had this idea about having a glass display, a multitouch display you could type on…And I gave it to one of our really brilliant UI guys. He then got inertial scrolling working and some other things, and I thought, ‘my god, we can build a phone with this’ and we put the tablet aside, and we went to work on the phone.
– Steve Jobs, D8 Conference, June 2010
This has tangible consequences to users whether they understand why the choices were made or not. Gartner estimates that 172 million smartphones were sold in 2009. If I were Steve Jobs, I’d relegate the iPad to second place too. While it’s far from being terrible, it has purposeful flaws that will keep it from reaching its full potential (both with efficiency and features) for years. And while I don’t deny Apple will follow its tried and true playbook, incrementally updating the product until it’s the dominant player, the evidence presented by the iPhone 4 highlights the consequences this methodology has on Apple’s products. With my MacBook Pro always available and an iPhone in my pocket, the iPad was simply not compelling enough to keep.
Geof Harries said:
I completely agree. While the iPad is an interesting experiment that’s found its way into production, that’s really all the product is at present. The iPad is simply too restricted for real-world, regular use by a lot of different types of people, with a variety of skill and age. The product is still quite rough around the edges and undefined on many points. My bet, as is yours, is that the iPad will continue to improve and one day become the product will come into its own…just not yet.
todd said:
The iPad is definitely no laptop replacement. However, I love it as a media consumption device – whether it’s e-books, web articles (formatted by Readability or Instapaper) or light gaming and video.
It’s got a bit more mobility than my laptop – I can use it in situations in which my laptop would prove unwieldy, and with the longer lasting battery, I don’t have to go plug-hunting if I’m out and about and using it for more than a few hours. I look at it as a compliment to my laptop, not a replacement.
Also, with all the talk about how multitasking is BAD for our brains, maybe being locked into one task at a time isn’t such a terrible thing (of course I’d love true multitasking but what do I know?)
DC said:
Well, just wait until iOS 4 is available for the iPad before selling it. Then your complains about Safari page reloads will be gone.
John S said:
I too have admired most of Apple’s products having owned a few MacBooks and a couple Mac Mini’s and even a iMac. Not to mention the several iPods. But although I thought I wanted a iPad. When I finally bought one I found it hand more handicaps then advantages over my laptop. For one the internet is not magical with Safari on the iPad. The lack of Flash and Java are very much a handicap. Yes, I see Steve Jobs point but yet the we designers are still making a lot of sites using Flash and Java. So until the designers see it differently I am afraid its a bit too early to ignore these two. I will also end up selling my iPad for this reason alone. Although I have also had WiFi issues and other plain issues with using a Tablet like computer. For one its almost a challenge to type of a screen without the advantage of feedback from keys. Sorry Steve but you may not type out much more then a sentence but for me the iPad is really bad for typing. I think we have all been caught up in the drug called Apple and thought anything they made had to be worth a try. But as tablets go they are still no replacement for a laptop.
Rian S said:
I’m a technical writer, and I just picked up an iPad to write end user documentation for the developer of a popular iPad app. I share many of your sentiments. I’m typing this on my iPad, and it’s just terrible compared to a regular keyboard. The fact that ios4 isn’t available on the iPad drives me crazy, because the lack of multitasking–even crippled multiple-tasking–is absurd. The hardware can certainly handle it. I can’t listen to pandora while reading a newspaper article? That’s lame. That said, I found one way of making iPad life easier: I don’t use safari.
After trying the free version of atomic web browser, I went ahead and bought the full version so I could have unlimited tabs, session restore, and configurable homepage. The fact that the readitlater bookmark let works with it was a pleasant bonus.
I also like the move away from web apps for everything. Having native apps that do one or a small handful of things and do it well is wonderful. Feeddler, NYTimes editors choice, readitlater free. The iPad is a content consumption device for me… Doing real work on it would be a challenge.
Screenshot of atomic web browser for those interested. It really is a better browser:
http://bit.ly/bQz6c9
(No, the app I’m documenting isn’t AWB)