Anyone still out there that doesn’t yet realize that Apple has become quite savvy about design, development, marketing and business strategy, is clearly brain-dead.
Apple’s new developer agreement stipulates that “applications that link to documented APIs through an intermediary translation or compatibility layer or tool are prohibited.” That pretty much means that Flash is prohibited as a development tool for the iPhone/iPod/iPad. This takes much of the wind out of Adobe’s CS5 announcement and the Packager for iPhone tool.
It’s clear that Apple will no longer tether itself to any technology that may impede (or potentially impede) it’s innovation and growth. Apple may lose a few developers, but even the angriest of developers here know that this loss will be insignificant to Apple.
It’s projected that by the end of this year, there will be more than 100 million iPhone OS devices in the wild. If you are running a content site that doesn’t support this OS, there are 100 million reasons why you may be out of work.
Flash’s days are numbered… HTML5 will be the final nail in the coffin.
Apple's iPad
After 24 hours with Apple’s new iPad, I’m convinced of two things.
First, the iPad is a game-changer. It will change our relationship to information and education technology. It will change game playing. And, it may possibly bring gaming and educational technologies closer together.
Second, it has some significant evolution ahead.
After a relatively short period of time experimenting and playing with the iPad, it’s clear that in positioning the iPad in the seemingly narrow niche between the laptop computer and the mobile phone device, Apple may have hit the sweet spot of where most folks use personal computer technology. That is, most folks use personal computer technology to: send/receive email, browse the web, engage in social networking (e.g., Twitter, Facebook, Flickr, YouTube), acquire and listen to music, share photos/videos, and manage tasks and schedules. Most people mostly do these things, and most of them want a way to do it without hassling with file structures and device drivers and compatibility issues. The iPad mostly does this.
Whereas the more versatile and powerful laptop computer allows the user to be both a consumer and producer/publisher of web content, there’s no question that the iPad returns to the more TV-like approach of the user being primarily a consumer of multimedia web content. While the iPad certainly offers the ability to produce content, it is in a decidedly limited way. In as much as creating email, commenting to blog posts, and social networking interaction can be thought of as content-producing activities, the iPad has you covered. However, if you want to create, edit, and produce video or audio content, or even produce multimedia documents (e.g., PDFs or blog posts with graphics or audio or video content), you may find the iPad (in its present incarnation) quite limiting.
The iPad is a content delivery and presentation device more than a content producing device. And as such, I think Apple has identified a huge market.
Now for my gripes:
- The iPad cannot be charged by many slightly older computer’s USB ports
- Most of the iPhone/iTouch apps don’t translate well to the iPad
- The industrial design of the iPad is alarmingly poor. It doesn’t feel comfortable in your hands. (Perhaps Apple was throwing a bone to third party skin designers?)
- Seems that there needs to be some general interface guidelines agreed upon by all of the developers in order to make apps intuitive to users
- Camera. Hello? Third party or built in, it needs to be there.
- Apple, please reveal just exactly what kinds of input and output are possible with the USB/Power port and the Audio/Visual output port!
Overall, I am pleased with the iPad, and will continue to explore. I am pleased with battery life, impressive screen resolution, impressive sound quality from tiny speakers, and good processing speed. The screen rotation lock toggle is a good idea. I would like to see the Dragon speech-recognition technology integrated into all apps. And, Apple, please continue to explore and develop the eBook potential!
For more info about Apple’s iPad, go here: Apple’s iPad
The iPad? Really, Steve?
That is one epically bad choice of names. I over-heard one female colleague suggest that it may be the first pad that most males won’t feel ashamed to purchase. I’m not sure that I’m convinced…
Apple is making a bold statement about the viability of micro-niches with the iPad. Wedging open the position between the iPhone and the MacBook, Apple seems to want to take on the NetBook and Kindle markets in one fell swoop. One elegant and well-thought-out swoop.
The iPad hits most of the major sweet spots for such a device. It has the horse-power, the graphics capabilities, the form-factor, the user-interface, the extant 150K+ apps ready to go, the iBook Store, the provocative price-points, and Apple’s legendarily elegant industrial design and marketing prowess.
One would have to be a fool to bet against the iPad’s game-changing success.
Only one thing has irked my ire in regard to the iPad:
- 3-month wait
Oh, well, maybe also the name. Steve, call me next time you need to brainstorm product names, ok?
