Here’s the promise I was hoping Apple would better yesterday.
It’s interesting that Steve Jobs spent most of yesterday’s press conference reminding us how secure and established Apple is.
What’s with the chest beating? He doesn’t need to remind us how many time’s we’ve bought new iPods over the last nine years. We know. I’ve personally replaced my iPod four times due to crappy batteries, busted connections and/or random system errors!
Was this preamble pre-emptive damage control for the potential backlash over the launch of Apple’s latest “revolution”, the iPad?
I’ve yet to see a positive post or review of the iPad. Almost everybody is negative or at best “meh” over the whole thing. It’s surprising because the iPad actually is an attractive, fascinating piece of technology. How did this happen?
Apple let the rumour mill get way out of control on this one. Admittedly, it would’ve been hard to meet expectations on the iPad regardless of the product. However, Apple didn’t meet ANY of the expectations that consumers hoped for and have been raving about over the last 12-18 months.
Spoken or not, fiction or reality, most of us geeks held the belief that the iPad would be revolutionary. In actuality, this might be the ultimate case study for a botched product launch and a lesson in radical trust for Steve Jobs. By withholding specs and design details from brand loyalists and influencers, Apple effectively allowed consumers to fill the vacuum with features that now read like science fiction. I was expecting something that would behave like a digital moleskin notebook as illustrated in the Microsoft Courier video. Now I feel like an idiot assuming and advocating for Apple, having believed the iPad would be better than it is.
Not good Apple. Not good.
iPad won’t even let us run email and a web browser at the same time! How could they have missed this most basic of consumer expectations… multitasking!?. How could they launch a product designed for web surfing without compatibility with Flash? These are deal breakers.
Steve. You have let us down by shutting out Apple’s biggest loyalists, influencers and imagineers from its innovation cycle.
I never thought I’d say this… but Apple is falling behind the times. I’m really looking to see what Google HTC, or even HP have in the slate offering.
iPad? uFail, iPass.
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11 Responses to “Steve Job’s Radical Trust Fail Whale”
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January 28th, 2010 at 7:14 pm
interesting take on the iPad from @collindouma – http://bit.ly/bZEyE5
This comment was originally posted on Twitter
January 28th, 2010 at 7:20 pm
Perhaps we’ve just come to expect, as a society spoiled by technology, too much? The iPad does everything current technology can do and no more.
Are our expectations too high now? Perhaps Apple and others simply can’t live up to consumer expectations anymore?
Or perhaps we’ll embrace new media in a different way with the iPad? Who knows; sales results will be the teller.
January 28th, 2010 at 10:00 pm
I would also like my iPod to make me lunch but I am a realist. We have grown to expect too much. Nobody and I mean nobody was thinking iPad would start at $499. Sure it’s missing a few things but that leaves vs2 & vs3 to add some items for future sales. You heard them. Some software guys had 2 weeks. 2 weeks. Most companies can’t change their printer toner in 2 weeks. That means they were rushing it. I concur they let it go a bit long but I suspect Jobs liver transplant slowed things down a tad. I can tell you I will be there with my hard earned cash on the day it hits the Canadian store shelves and I suspect that 10 million other apple fans will be there right behind me.
January 29th, 2010 at 12:43 am
interesting take on the iPad from @collindouma – http://bit.ly/bZEyE5 (via @pirie)
This comment was originally posted on Twitter
January 29th, 2010 at 4:59 pm
[...] the lead story on radio, TV, print and online publications around the world. Whether the product can live up to all this hype is not a matter for TD&F (which has already purchased 76 iPads and counting). It’s a no [...]
January 29th, 2010 at 6:17 pm
iPad, uFail, iPass
RT @CollinDouma: Did Apple blow it? http://bit.ly/agBoyH
This comment was originally posted on Twitter
February 7th, 2010 at 2:59 am
I agree with Collin, from a communications stand point, bravo on Apple’s part, they did the rights things, pursed the proper channels and avenues to build the hype. Marketing and communications strategists get a standing ovation. But now the iPad must deliver, Sony is already set to launch it’s itablet. The difference previous Apple releases have been the impact they’ve made in their respective domains from IPOD, IPHONES, even MAC’s in general. Tablet PC’s have been around for a quite a while now, how revolutionary is the iPad is still left to be seen. It will be interesting to see how Apple reacts if indeed the iPad is a flop.
The implementation of the proper communications channels may save the product. It might have been a better idea to send out a beta version, and receive some feedback on the product before launching it mainstream.
This comment was originally posted on Blogging Me Blogging You
February 26th, 2010 at 12:02 pm
iPad is interesting to watch. I feel like Apple was swinging for the fences and struck out on this one. Truth be told it is their first complete miss in a long long time.
March 4th, 2010 at 9:17 pm
Hey Collin-hope all is well with you and the fam. I’ve held off on commenting for a while now… but can’t hold back any longer.
Apologies for the essay
First off, the VISION video of the MS Courier is awesome. …Likelihood of MS being able to pull that off: very low IMHO.
True, most geeks have panned the iPad upon announcement.. exactly like they did when the iPhone was announced. Steve Balmer, for example had this to say about iPhone:
“There’s no chance that the iPhone is going to get any significant market share. No chance. It’s a $500 subsidised item. They may make a lot of money. But if you actually take a look at the 1.3 billion phones that get sold, I’d prefer to have our software in 60 per cent or 70 per cent or 80 per cent of them, than I would to have 2 per cent or 3 per cent, which is what Apple might get.”
We could make a long list of often heard complaints: No Flash, no removable battery, no “multi-tasking”…. and , well, you know what a failure the iphone turned out to be
iPad is going to be huge. Sheraz commented that Tablet PC’s have been around for quite a while now. iPad will be VERY different than a Tablet PC. OK, maybe I do drink Jobs’ KoolAid, but Tablet PCs have failed because they are trying to re-use the desktop metaphor (complete with a ‘mouse’ AKA stylus). Lots of people (myself included) were hoping it would have MacOSX, but I now realize that the fact that it uses the iPhone OS (developed from scratch as true multi-touch interface) is the primary reason it will be a huge success..
I know at least 20 people (from geeky friends to biz consultants) who were RIM or Windows Mobile who derided the iPhone as a consumer toy…. and every single one of them now uses an iPhone. Apple knows interface – and the iPad’s interface, elegant hardware, the avalanche of Apps and media that will be released this year (not to mention the-self propelling app/developer/consumer ecosystem called iTunes) will make this a runaway success.
PS. Lack of Flash is irrelevant. That didn’t stop iPhone’s adoption and it wont impact iPad. Major Websites will bail on it in favour of alternatives.. to make sure they get iPhone & iPad eyeballs. It’s already happening: Virgin announced that yesterday.. and there will be many more.
PPS. You’re mad at Steve jobs for not including the faithful in the innovation process… never has and never will happen. We’re talking about Steve Jobs, the ultra-secretive Genius who eschews focus groups because he knows how to distill user experience to its essence, and gets it so right that most users I know (including my wife Ali who is not technical) become die-hard evangelists because everything “just works”.
PPPS. Multitasking. Hmm..Geeks have their own meaning for this (aka that all these things can be done simultaneously). For regular humans, multi-tasking means being able to get a bunch of things done. Let’s see – with my iPhone I can: email, listen to music, surf the web, do my banking, tune my guitar, translate Japanese, manage my travel itinerary, tweet, facebook, make movies, watch youtube, buy things, level a picture, play games, find local restaurants, read reviews, make a reservation for dinner, comparison shop by scanning a barcode, well, you get the point.
Phew… I feel better now. Peace out
March 5th, 2010 at 3:09 pm
Really late to this one, but still… I remember when the first iPod was released. There was hype and even the die-hard Mac fans were really ho-hum about it. An MP3 Player? really? That’s the innovative new product? Big deal.
What everyone didn’t see was the content distribution that was to come a little later with iTunes music store. And how it was a stepping stone that lead to the iPhone. And how the birth of this one device has cornered one market, and gained considerable market-share in another. A the end of the day, the device is only as good as the content or software made for it. What we’re seeing is a 1.0 of a new product. What will version 2.0 bring? 3.0? What software and content distribution will come to the platform? Time will tell. The puzzle is not complete.
March 11th, 2010 at 6:24 pm
@Fred The fam is great, thanks for asking.
Re:Multitasking… sure you can do all those things one at a time… but when you are all curled up on your couch listening to music and wonder who wrote that song, you are going to have to shut it down to look it up on wikipedia.
Sure it will come out in the future, but I’m not swiping the bankcard for future world. No multitask, no money.
As for iPod, I was first in line. Bought the first generation 5 gig thing for north of $500 bucks. I had to get it replaced several times in the first year, and bought the 2nd generation as soon as i could. Lesson… I loved it, and saw a need. iPad… WTF?
thirdly.
Convergence only works in the pocket. It worked for the swiss army, it worked for iphone. Ipad can’t fit in the pocket, courier can.
nuff said.