After Initial Euphoria, Then Letdown, iPad is Poised for Glory - The Mac Observer After Initial Euphoria, Then Letdown, iPad is Poised for Glory
The iPad launched with great enthusiasm in 2010, and just about everyone had to have one. It was boldly declared to be the harbinger of the Post-PC era. But then it faltered. Now, Apple is positioning the iPad to take up its long-intended role as the PC replacement. Here's how Apple is going to do that.
Apple executives don't accept failure easily. And, for a time, it certainly did look like the iPad, after the new-car-smell wore off, that it was a product too far ahead of its time. It wasn't ready to be the pace car of the Post-PC era. Sales have declined in recent years at an alarming rate. (To Apple, anyway.)
The analysis of the sales slowdown invariably led to the idea that the technology wasn't changing fast enough and that the constraints of iOS, more and more, were holding the hardware back. As a result, millions of customers found that their iPad 2 or iPad 3 was "good enough" and there was no practical reason to rush out and replace their iPad every year.
One can only imagine the meetings at Apple, led by Tim Cook. I suspect, I know, tough questions were asked and orders given.
The iPad is faltering. Figure out why. Fix it.
In contrast, many pundits have been eager to see the technical situation as unsalvageable. They proposed that the iPad was a brilliant pipe-dream, but it just can't compete with notebook computers with any OS, be it Chrome, Windows or OS X. To suggest that Tim Cook and Phil Schiller would sit back and shrug off the temporary failings saying, "Well, that's life," is laughable in the extreme.
This week's article pick is a splendid analysis of the situation by Michael Cowling. "Apple is taking its first steps towards a more comprehensive post-PC world." There are several notable concepts that are collected into focus.
1. The development of Swift Playgrounds. This is no doubt the byproduct of one of those tense Tim Cook "fix it" meetings. It's not a toy. Rather Swift Playgrounds is likely the first in a series of ever more sophisticated tools to provide for code development on the iPad. This augments and elevates 3rd party coding apps like Pythonista.
2. The terrific advances in iPad's CPU and graphics. Hardware improvements must not only lead to a better user experience, but they must lead to breakthroughs in Apple's vision for the roadmap of the device. That seems to be happening.
Apple SVP Phil Schiller shows the iPad performance gain over the years. GPU data similar.
3. The interoperability of devices. Apple's development of interoperability amongst its various devices isn't just a fanciful notion of better consumer experience. In reality, the idea is to allow us to do our work on whatever device suits us at the moment. That brings coherence to the evolution of the multiple platforms. As Mr. Cowling points out:
Ben Thompson, of Stratechery, called this concept Continuous Computing back in 2015 when he envisioned a world where we move seamlessly between devices to get our work done.
One of the stellar reminders of the current reality is the inclusion, by Cowling, of the seminal "truck" video by Steve Jobs. In that video Jobs lays out the analogy.
Cars : trucks :: iPads : PCs/Macs
It's just that the transition to mostly cars and a few powerful trucks is taking longer than expected.
iPad Potential Yet to be FulFilled
It's worth watching again. Right now, I see Apple's emphasis on making the iPad fulfill its actual potential emerge in those three bullet points above. But first, we more or less had to struggle through the classic iPad "Hype Cycle" with its often mentioned "Trough of Disillusionment". It's a classic graph, so I won't repeat it here.
The original iPad had just enough horsepower to achieve its goal as a convenient content consumption device. However, as technology has advanced, more and more constraints will be lifted until we get to an inflection point. Finally, we'll hit that Plateau of Productivity in which the iPad can begin to grow again, not as a second-screen toy, but as our go-to device. In that case, like the former PC era, keeping up with the hardware and software advances will become essential.
That's when the real Post-PC era will launch. And that's when sales will takeoff again.
Next page: The Tech News Debris for the Week of July 18th. The Case for a Shatterproof iPhone.
Page 2 – The Tech News Debris for the Week of July 18th
The Case for a Shatterproof iPhone.
This article by Will Gomez about the iPhone 7 starts off well in its analysis of shatterproof smartphones. "What iPhone 7 Needs More Than Anything." But he jumps off the track at the very end when he proposes that Apple wants our iPhones to be fragile. That's so that when it breaks, we have to send Apple more money for a new one.
This contradicts everything Steve Jobs and Tim Cook have ever said about building only the very best products. As we know, one unhappy customer can cause a lot more damage than the revenue gains made from one replaced iPhone.
So you can skip that part at the end of the article. What's more, along the lines of making the iPhone customers ever more happy, we now know that Corning has been working to address the issue of an iPhone's damaged display when dropped. "Corning's Gorilla Glass 5 has drop protection up to 5.2 ft, likely headed to future iPhones."
The optical and mechanical properties of Gorilla Glass have been pushed to the limits, but there are more gains to be made. Tech improvements like this make customers happy and sell new iPhones by the millions.
Ever onward. Only the best from Apple and its suppliers.
_________________________
Just how will robots take over many manual labor jobs? Which jobs are more likely to be replaced? How fast will the transition occur? What are the prospects for the economy? All of this and more is discussed in this Vox interview with author Robert Gordon. "This expert thinks robots aren't going to destroy many jobs. And that's a problem." Mr. Gordon's book analyzes the factors that led to "Rise and Fall of American Growth." The interview at Vox is fascinating.
Two weeks ago, right here, I pondered how Apple may be at a competitive disadvantage against other tech giants because it lost its institutional expertise with supercomputers. Here's another example of that Apple decision, perhaps, coming home to roost. "Google is using its highly intelligent computer brain [DeepMind] to slash its enormous electricity bill."
One way to make money, as Steve Jobs taught the world, is to make great products that people need, want and appreciate. Microsoft seems to be following that advice recently with its cloud services. Here's a BI chart of the day that tells the story. Somehow, CEO Satya Nadella has figured out not only how to succeed, but how to be charming about it.
Speaking of cloud services, Kirk McElhearn has written a very nice comparison of cloud services for consumers: "Cloud Storage Comparison: iCloud Drive vs. Dropbox vs. Google Drive vs. OneDrive."
Storage costs and features are clearly laid out. Good stuff here.Most bloggers would bet their next paycheck that Apple will be releasing new MacBook Pros this fall with Thunderbolt 3. If you'd like to learn more about the history of Thunderbolt, its future and how it will relate to USB 3, here's a fantastic, highly readable tutorial in the OWC blog. "Tech 101: A Brief History of Thunderbolt Technology." This is required reading for every Apple customer.
Finally, you've heard that the Intel Skylake processors (required to support Thunderbolt 3) are now shipping in quantity. They'll certainly be in the new MacBook Pros this fall. What's next? It's "Kaby Lake – two words – this time." It's very early in the production cycle, and who knows if/when we'll see them in Macs in 2017? The article above notes, intriguingly, that versions of Windows before version 10 won't run on Kaby Lake. Why this is so and how that, in turn, affects backwards compatibility with OS X, I do not yet know. I'll report when I learn more.
~KLM\ "The one who follows the crowd will usually get no further than the crowd. The one who walks alone, is likely to find himself in places no one has ever been." ~ Albert Einstein //
Posted by: David Smith <david.smith.14916@gmail.com>
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