A considered response to the unveiling of the iPad
First off, yes I know it's been a few weeks since Steve Jobs unveiled the iPad at San Francisco’s Yerba Buena Center for the Arts Theater, but I wanted to give the hype a little time to die down, and here what everyone else had to say about it. So, if you're sitting comfortably, here are my thoughts.
The product
When web/apple geeks like me were following the conference through live blogs such as engadget or gizmodo I think the majority would agree that the technical specs looked ok for a new product. With it being mobile and Apple's environmental policy, battery life was always going to be good, but I think up to 10 hours was above expectation.
The majority of my peers in the web industry I think expected the iPad to be a large iPhone with bells on, so the ability to connect to Wifi and 3G access didn't come as much of a surpris.With apps being integral to Apple's revenue income, neither did the ability to download apps, and subsequently, the accelerometer had to be included.
Apple's product design is always incredible, but personally I feel a little let down with the iPad. I certainly like the dimensions. It couldn't be too big anyway, and thickness at only 1/2" i scertainly impressive. The display itself at 132dpi and being multi-touch is obviousl the way forward for a fuller user experience, but there's one thing I think lets it down and that's the frame border. It just looks clunky to me. A bit too thick. But hey, that's one minor point and something that will probably improve when iPad² appears in 2011.
The controversial bit...
People in the creative industries, and maybe particularly the web design industry, believe that Apple products are built for them. They're high end products built for graphic intensive software to run. The iPad is something for the people, and this I think is where a lot of people in the creative industries felt let down. They thought this product (because it was an Apple product) was for them. The bottom line is that it's not. It's Apple's idea to get a greater market share in the mobile device market. As Steve Jobs said, they wanted to create something in the netbook niche, only better than a netbook. And how many graphic/web designers use netbooks?
A conversation I've been hearing a lot recently forums and on twitter is "how will the iPad change web design?" "Should we be designing for it?" And at the moment, I would have to say absolutely not. Many people have been designing specifically for the iPhone for a few years now, and in my opinion, this is wrong also. Apple's has a market share of about 14% (Q2 2009 sales figures) of mobile browsing devices, whereas Nokia (the symbian platform) has over 50%. Why aren't web designers designing for them? Why? Because they don't own them. The web is at the forefront of technology and a huge amount of innovation in other areas of life has happened because of the web. We, as web designers/developers, have the responsibility of making the web (and now also the mobile web) accessible to as many people as possible.