It was interesting watching the furore on the web yesterday about the iPad (or for some moments not watching it, as the fuss caused the net to temporarily stutter and stall). For the record, before I say what I thought was particularly interesting, I will one day get an iPad, I know I will, not because I want my life branded with Apple logos, if Apple brought out something duff, I wouldn’t want it, I for example am typing this on my HP (not Apple laptop) and I haven’t opened my browser using Safari either (even though my iTunes account keeps trying to persuade me) but when Apple produce something that is priced at a level I could at least possible attain to, something that is user friendly, simple, well thought out, innovative and most importantly imaginative (is imagination even in Bill Gates vocabulary?), I want it. And in the case of the iPad, I specifically want it because of it’s price point, at the starting level of $499 (around £300), ok I don’t have that money laying round the house, but when my not particularly reliable (HP) laptop finally gives up the ghost, what am I going to do? Find nearer £400 (at least) to replace it, for something that, compared to the iPad, is big, clunky and takes up space, put it this way, not exactly something I can snuggle up in bed with or spend £300 on something that I can confidently predict, for what I use a laptop for, do pretty much an excellent job, and at the same time do so much more, in a far more user friendly manner, Steve Jobs, you win again. So, I won’t be getting an iPad when it comes out, I have to eek out as much life as I can out of this laptop, but when it dies, I’m jumping ship.
I am particularly excited about what the third party developers are going to do with this, I can think of two particular fields of apps that I use regularly in my own life, that I think could be amazing on an iPad. Notably cookery books and pre-school / early Primary year programs. There has already been an explosion in some rather neat pre-school / early primary apps on the iPhone, which my kids adore, talking, interactive books and simple games that help numeracy, literacy and hand – eye coordination (Boy Lacer adores the Sesame Street Waiter game), I think on the larger scale of the iPad, there could be some amazing, far more detailed and even more interactive things produced for small children. And I’m excited about what this sort of technology (not necessarily produced by Apple), will mean for my children by the time they’re in secondary school, I remember my secondary school years, they were lessons interspersed with the experience of being a pack horse, as I lugged a straining back pack and an over flowing carrier bag, full of large ringbinders and textbooks, around the school grounds, it’s well documented, the damage bags like that do to children’s spines. I think I can fairly confidently predict that my children will not have that problem, Girl Lacer will just be slipping her generic tablet into her small bag and on it will be all her text books and all her notes and I am glad.
As for cookery apps, I already use my iPhone a lot in the kitchen, if I’m cooking from a recipe on the web, I’d much rather take my phone into the kitchen than my laptop, just down to size, and Jamie Oliver and BBC Good Food, amongst others, have already produced excellent, interactive recipe books, imagine what that could be like when the app is the actual size of a book, complete with audio and video clips, it’ll be fantastic!
So, what did I find really fascinating about the iPad furore yesterday? The number of people complaining about it. Last time I checked, when a group of people enthuse enthusiastically about something, it is impolite, if you’re not interested in said subject, to point that out, well maybe if you’re stuck in a car with an Apple bore, in a traffic jam, maybe then, but when you’re in an open public forum, if what is currently being discussed bores you, you switch off your generic piece of technology you profess to be not that bothered about, it’s just a tool after all, and go and do something else. That’s what interested me yesterday, the number of people who weren’t switching off, but instead were moaning. In fact on my Twitter stream, I’ve seen more people talking negatively about people talking too much about the iPad, than people actually talking about the iPad, so now who’s continuing the ‘excessive’ conversation?
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