Why iPad should be the next Apple product

Apple  iPod and iTunes changed music business, not because it was the first portable music player or site  (Walkman? ), but because it addressed all missing links and subtle details to make it a breakthrough product: useful, easy and cool for consumers to make the major paradigm shift.

Then came the iPhone and changed the mobile phone (and maybe even web) experience.  I went through many “smart” phones – from Blackbery to Palm to Windows Mobile Disaster and finally ended up with this marvel. All of a sudden, with the touch of my thumb, I can get 90% of information I need from the web (to be more precise 90% of information I need, period):  news from my google reader, documents from Google Docs,  concerts from Eventful, movie clips from YouTube,  music from Last.fm and ITunes, TV listings from i.tv, movie listings from Flixter and million others, sports results from… come to think of it, I don’t even need a computer any more.

There is one little thing that iPhone doesn’t do great – not that it doesn’t do it, just the size limits it ability to deliver experience comparable to other features it offers: reading books or watching movies requires bigger screen.

But that’s the easiest problem to solve – the last addition to the iDevice family: iPad – book sized device, more elegant than Amazon Kindle and less clumsy than Sony PSP, thin, light, with large, bright screen, with familiar multi-touch and other features we already learned to love would fill the last need that I have from any electronic device, so I can comfortably read my eBook or watch movie in bed.

It is the pioneer, bold thinking and attention to detail that’s needed to make the disruptions of this kind. Apple’s done it before and I look to them to continue to shift our habits of interaction with electronic devices.

The funniest part about this post is that it comes from someone who never used a Mac – iPhone was my first Apple device, but what a device it is….

~ by dannygalic on December 13, 2008.