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.

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.

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

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.