Further iPad thoughts

I’ve been thinking more about the iPad, and I believe I have a better grasp on the intention behind the product. It doesn’t make it a more attractive product for me. But at least now I can see the intended market for it. And why the iPad might turn out to be a massive hit.

Here’s the deal. The Macintosh has traditionally been a great product for producing creative content. Writers, artists, musicians, film makers, photographers all have a variety of reasons for loving the Mac platform. In particular, Mac OS X has a really sweet spot between simplicity and power that appeals to creative professionals, people who create content.

And that’s not what the iPad is for. The iPad is intended to be the ideal platform for consuming creative content. Read books, listen to music, watch YouTube videos, surf the web, read email… the iPad should be very good for those. And, because the iPhone OS (guess we have to come up with a better name for that, huh?) is much simpler and more limited than the Mac OS, it’s a hell of a lot harder to break. Think about all the time you’ve had to spent doing tech support for Mom, Grandpa, etc. The iPad should be an ideal product for that family member who knows jack squat about computers, who isn’t producing content, who merely wants a rock stable, reliable, very easy tool for viewing and consuming content.

Okay, I get it now.

Took me long enough.