The iPad placed a clear bet on simplicity — and was criticized for it. The bet won. But now, can the iPad evolve toward more business applications without sacrificing its simplicity, without becoming a “fridge-toaster”?
Three years ago, the iPad came out. The device was an immediate hit with customers and (most) critics. Steve Jobs’ latest — and, unfortunately, last — creation truly deserved the oft-abused game changer moniker.
But, as always, there were grumblings up in the cheap seats. As Mike Monteiro, co-founder of Mule Design observed:
“Following along on Twitter I was seeing things like ‘underwhelming’, ‘meh’ , ‘it’s not open’, ‘it’s just a big iPhone’, etc. And most of this stuff was coming from people who design and build interactive experiences.”
Monteiro penned a sharp, relevant response to the naysayers. Titled “The Failure of Empathy“, his post is summarized by this picture:
A generation ago, geeks were the arbiters of taste in the world of personal computing. Programmers, designers, hobbyists and tinkerers…these were the inhabitants of “user space”, and we built computers with them in mind. By designing the Apple ][ for himself (and his fellow travelers) Steve Wozniak hit the bull’s eye of a large, untapped target.
Today, geeks are but a smallish subset of computer users. Their (typically exaggerated) negative comments may have some sting if you’re responsible for engineering the “brain dead” backing store for a windowing system, but in the real world, no one cares about “byte sex” or “loop unrolling”. What counts is how non-technical users think, feel, and respond. Again, from Monteiro’s post:
“As an industry, we need to understand that not wanting root access doesn’t make you stupid. It simply means you do not want root access. Failing to comprehend this is not only a failure of empathy, but a failure of service.”
This was written in February 2010; I doubt that anyone at the time thought the iPad would ascend to such heights so quickly: 65.7M sold in 2012, 121M since the 2010 debut, rising even faster than the iPhone.
This is all well and good, but with success comes side effects. As the iPad gets used in ways its progenitors didn’t anticipate, another failure of empathy looms: Ignoring the needs of people who want to perform “complicated” tasks on their iPads.
When the iPad was introduced, even the most obliging reviewers saw the device as a vehicle for consumption, not creation. David Pogue in the New York Times:
“…the iPad is not a laptop. It’s not nearly as good for creating stuff. On the other hand, it’s infinitely more convenient for consuming it — books, music, video, photos, Web, e-mail and so on.”
This is still true…but that hasn’t stopped users from trying — struggling — to use their iPads for more ambitious tasks: Building rich media presentations and product brochures, preparing course material, even running a business. Conventional wisdom tells us that these are tasks that fall into the province of “true” personal computers, but these driven users can’t help themselves, they want to do it all on their iPads. They want the best of both worlds: The power of a PC but without its size, weight, (relative) unresponsiveness, and, certainly, price.
The evidence is all around us. Look at how many people in cafés, offices and airport lounges use a keyboard with their iPad, such as this Origami combo:
Or the Logitech Keyboard Cover:
Both keyboards are prominently displayed in the Apple Store. We’ll assume that shelf space isn’t doled out by lottery (or philanthropically), so these devices must be selling briskly.
Of course, this could just be anecdotal evidence. What isn’t anecdotal is that Apple itself claims that the iPad has penetrated a large proportion of Fortune 500 companies. In some of its stores, the company conducts sessions to promote the use of iPads in business applications.
I attended one such gathering last year. There was a very basic demonstration of Keynote, iPad’s presentation app, plus the testimony of a happy customer who described the usefulness of the iPad in sales situations. All quite pleasant, but the Q&A session that followed was brutal and embarrassing: How do you compose real-world, mixed-document presentation? No real answer. Why can’t the iPad access all the documents — not just iWork files — that I dropped into iCloud from my Mac? No answer there, either.
This brings us to a major iPad obstacle: On a “real” PC the file system is visible, accessible; on the iPad, it’s hidden. The act of creating, arranging, accessing files on a PC is trivial and natural. We know how to use Finder on the Mac and Explorer on Windows. We’re not perplexed by folder hierarchies: The MyGreatNovel folder might contain a lengthy set of “MGN-1″, “MGN-2″, “MGN-3″ drafts, as well as subfolders such as ArtWork, Reference, and RejectionLetters, each of which contain further subfolder refinements (RejectedByGrove, RejectedByPenguin, RejectedByRandomHouse…).
On an iPad you don’t navigate a file system but, instead, you launch an app that has it’s own trove of documents that it understands — but it can’t “see” anything else.
For example: Keynote doesn’t let you see the graphics, videos, and PDFs that you want to assemble into your presentation. Unlike on the Mac, there’s no Finder, no place where you can see “everything” at one glance. Even more important, there’s no natural way to combine heterogeneous documents into one.
On the other hand, we all know users who love the iPad for its simplicity. They can download and play music, read books, respond to email and tweets, view photos, and stream movies without having to navigate a file hierarchy. For them, the notion of a “file system” is neither natural nor trivial — it’s foreign and geeky. Why throw them into a maze of folders and files?
Apple’s decision to hide the iOS file system from iPad (and iPhone) users comforts the non-geek and is consistent with Steve Jobs’ idea that applications such as Mail, iTunes, iPhoto, iCal, and Contacts shouldn’t reveal their files and folders. Under the hood, the application stores its data in the Mac’s file system but, on the surface, the user sees appointments, photo albums and events, mailboxes and messages.
Still, some of us see this as the storage equivalent of Seinfeld’s Soup Nazi: No File System For You!
App developers and customers keep trying. iOS apps such as GoodReader and File Manager Pro valiantly attempt to work around the iPad strictures. PhoneView will expose and manipulate your iPad’s file system (not recommended). But success with any of these apps is limited and comes at a price: The iPad’s simplicity and fluidity is long gone by the time you achieve the desired result, the multimedia brochure or HR tutorial.
This places Apple at a fork on the road. On the left is the current path: more/better/lighter/faster of the same. Only evolutionary changes to the simple and successful worldview. This is today’s trajectory, validated by history (think of the evolution of the MacBook) and strong revenue numbers.
On the right, Apple could transform the iPad so that power users can see and combine data in ways that are impossible today. This could attract business customers who are hesitant about making the plunge into the world of tablets, or who may be considering alternatives such as Microsoft’s PC/tablet combo or Android devices with Google services.
The easiest decision is no decision. Let’s have two user interfaces, two modes: The Easy mode for my Mother-In-Law, and the Pro Mode for engineers, McKinsey consultants, and investment bankers. Such dual-mode systems haven’t been very popular so far, it’s been tried without success on PCs and Macs. (Re-reading this, I realize the Mac itself could be considered such a dual-mode machine: Fire up the Terminal app and you have access to a certified Unix engine living inside…)
The drive to “pervert” the iPad is unmistakable. I think it will prove irresistible in the end. But I have trouble forming a coherent picture of an evolution that would let Apple open the iPad to more demanding users — without sacrificing its great simplicity and falling into the fridge + toaster trap.
It’s a delicate balancing act.
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- iPad: Which way do you lean? TweetThe iPad is a strange animal—we don’t know where it fits, yet. Is it a laptop replacement? Is it an entertainment device? Can I do “real work” on it or is it merely a brobdingagian iPod Touch, a more colorful Kindle with better email and Web browsing? Spiritual traditions associate the angle of the spine [...]...
- iPad Second Impressions TweetI’m “stuck” in Paris (poor me), volcanic ash from Iceland has closed the airports. Stranded but not ignored. I have my iPad. In business meetings, in cafés and restaurants, the iPad is, as I reported two weeks ago, an all-around guy- and-chick magnet. Sit down, stroke the screen, and Parisians, not normally the easygoing sort, [...]...
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30 Comments
Indeed, Surface Pro falls into just such a trap. Perhaps as the marketplace for tablet usage matures, Microsoft and Apple will be able to rely on a clientele that knows what it wants, and can make the switch. As I do multiple times per day, moving from my Windows desktop, to my Mac laptop (sometimes, yes, to use the command line) and to my iPhone.
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But if there’s any truth to the iWatch rumors (and there’s certainly truth to their patent applications’ indications of interest), Apple is moving hard to produce even more streamlined, rather than more complex, devices. Perhaps these devices, by being linked into some wifi or Bluetooth ultra-local network, will provide the multiple functionality quite transparently without attempting multiple interfaces on a device for which those interfaces are ill-suited. So unless the patented slap-bracelet is merely a new formfactor for full iPodTouch functionality, any iWatch that comes into being wouldn’t have a keyboard interface to it, even if it uses Bluetooth: technically, not hard; making a use case for one, silly.
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Apple needs to keep working on making iCloud instantaneous, error-free and invisible, so that Macs can be Macs and iPads can be iPads. Until the day when Surface Pro succeeds, that’ll probably be our best bet.
These limitations of the Apple iOS have been apparent from the start. For anyone who wants to fully control his/her device rather than having it control his/her interactions, will choose an Android option. Perhaps it’s worth a posting on BYOD initiatives? An interesting survey here: http://www.avanade.com/us/about/avanade-news/press-releases/Pages/Global-Survey-Dispels-Myths-About-the-Consumerization-of-IT-page.aspx
Maybe we can think of two marginal players, Macromedia and Archos.
Macromedia which was bought then killed by Adobe had great presentations tools.
Archos which will build a tablet with 2 analogic sticks.
Make a different product which has different hardware – larger screen – and more complex IOS. So it’s not fridge-freezer but either fridge or freezer or 2 different types of fridges.
Having all the iSomething ecosystem, I must admit I’m LOVING my brand new Surface Pro. Of course the Microsoft Store is just ridiculous but, browsing it, I just realized that App Store has TONS of Office-like apps and, honestly, how many are really convenient ? Few years ago, showing a prospect a (painfully made) slideshow on my iPad and saw the prospect smiling I asked to myself “hey, does he likes the slides or the iPad” ? Microsoft doesn’t even try to be fun here : Surface Pro is for now mainly attractive because it’s so hard to get one, but it does the job brilliantly : you can really make you slideshow using the true PowerPoint and show it to your prospect in tablet mode if you want it. You can really use those business intelligence tools and browse great amount of data and show the resulting dashboards on a fancy touchscreen. Sure, it’s far from perfect, a little heavy, a little short in watts but hey, it’s as powerful as those state-of-the-art Ultrabooks for half the wheight ! Microsoft defintely holds something here. A few more iterations and…
At this point in time, the execution of a dual mode converged device capable of advanced tasks is still too early. The hardware power/performance ratio is not ideal yet and we’ve seen the results of it in the marketplace and in use in every Tablet PC device ever made, and in its latest incarnation, the Surface RT and Surface Pro.
I am reminded of when Apple was doing R&D for a tablet in the 2000s and the technology was not right for the tablet sized form factor, but was more appropriate for the sweet spot of a smartphone when it emerged as the iPhone in 2007.
Same for NeXT technology during the late 1980s and 1990s. I’ve been watching the demo videos on YouTube and it boggles my mind what we take for granted today in Mac OS X and in iOS was developed and released way back then except it was on hardware and software that cost $7000-$13,000 marketed to the extremely high end.
Jean: I love your statement you made about Apple choosing NeXT over Be at the panel discussion shortly after Steve’s passing… “Thank god!”
I’ve been reading the Innovator’s Dilemma series by Clayton Christensen and also keeping up with Horace Dediu’s Asymco blog, both highly recommended reads, and right now the majority market is currently being satisfied with iOS so far… There is a need for more advanced stuff and right now what we have is “Not good enough” and there is room for disruption in converging the jobs to be done now that the tablets are entering new uses and taking up time and space from jobs that PCs used to do and more importantly Non-Consumption where a computer in the old forms was not at all efficient or appropriate.
The next disruption will most likely have to be in some form of a new user interface again that manages to tie together the form factors or introduce a completely new form factor. Perhaps it may derive from what Apple has in store for the “TV” interface? Will we be interacting with the watch? More voice? Another paradigm? Time will tell, and right now there are hints and perhaps the pieces of the puzzle are sitting in front of us as Horace has been repeatedly been pointing out when discussing Apple’s TV plans.
It continues to be a truly great time to be alive experiencing the technology transformation occurring before our eyes.
I agree with the notion that the iPad is at a fork in the road, but the decision which way to go is a no-brainer. They sold 121 mil iPads and at the same time approx. 30 mil Macs.
So continue on the current path. Because anyone who want the complexity can buy an MacBook air.
Regarding dual modes, last time Apple tried it was about simplifying the classic Mac OS experience, and it was a bit of a mess.
But for iOS it would be about introducing a file browser and API for programmers to take advantage of… or not, as each app’s design dictates. I think in this case it would work: add complexity as sort of a discrete add-on instead of as a pervasive revamp that would negate the original ease of use, so that one can keep on using the current system without bothering with the more complex one if not needed.
(Actually, I would disagree about the supposed ease of use of the iPad in these regards. Yes, the iPad is simpler, but it actually is fairly uncomfortable when one takes iTunes into account. I don’t think the iPad’s triumph is due to such simplicity but in spite of that: my sister, your usual feature phone user, as much as she loves her iPad, can’t stand how this “invisible” filesystem and iTunes get in her way, and she’s not a power user at all)
The pertinent question is indeed “how do you compose real-world, mixed-document presentation” (and other complex documents) and not, in my view, how do you expose the file system. These two need not be casted into a one-to-one mapping. Not that I have the solution mind you but it’s certainly worth trying to be inventive.
On a lighter note, the discussion surrounding the iPad bet reminded me a lovely Dilbert cartoon with our friend stating “If you want to know who the boss is, enter the office and ask how much memory there is in his computer. If he knows the answer, he’s not the boss.”
Of course, I could have said she instead.
Mmm… About mixing assets coming from different apps in disparate formats, we need an easier way to access them than single copy/paste operations. A tray of sorts, some kind of “multiple clipboard for the Finder utility” iOS equivalent.
Such thing would be a useful means of alleviating the need for an explicit filesystem (up to a point).
One way to attack this would be to leave the iDevices as is but to add a setting in iCloud that would allow for shared access to files. Then implement something like access control lists for each app that is approved for access to shared documents.
That way, when going to open docs from iCloud there can be the normal ones and an additional folder (okay, not completely rid of a file system) that would have shared docs by application. If any app is used to open a shared doc then that doc (but really a hard link to it) shows up in the local folder as well as the shared.
Many apps now ask for permission to access photos or contacts, so this would be an additional step IF iCloud app sharing is on.
This preserves sand boxing on the devices and gives a big incentive for devs to use iCloud (many opt for dropbox over iCloud these days).
Forgot to add: this is more like a tagged file system vs. a hierarchical file system.
Apple have a conflict of interest.
It’s that simple.
See more http://henrysinn.com/apple-conflict/
Apple have a conflict of interest.
It’s that simple.
See more at http://henrysinn.com/apple-conflict/
iOS already uses the photo albums for sharing images and videos between apps. They should just improve on this and make it easier to search. A collection of shared media files should be enough for most business apps.
@Paul Firgens wrote, “These limitations of the Apple iOS have been apparent from the start.”
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Indeed, they were intentionally designed in by Apple. Just as they originally designed in a single-tasking environment, only exposing the multi-tasking that they allowed their system tasks AFTER they’d put them into a controlled environment so there would be limited or no chance of runaway, the need to kill apps, etc.
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Apple has the industrial-strength OS that @JLG wants, without the limitations that Mr. Firgens laments. It’s just not available in a tablet format because Apple has yet to figure out how to make all that power available to a user without sucking all that power from the battery. Allow me to SWAG that in two to three years, Apple will have battery, CPU and other technology such that Mac OSX runs well on a tablet.
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To get a better estimate than mine, watch to see how well the Surface Pro expands the Windows marketplace. If it enjoys only tepid acceptance, Apple will deem that customers in no hurry to make the compromises that Microsoft offers.
I think what you are asking for is a tablet Mac. A tablet for coders of every kind — software developers of course, but also a graphic artist who writes AppleScript workflows. And producers who usually need some code also. The instructions for preparing a music album or iTunes sale include bash commands.
I think a touch Mac is coming. I don’t see where else Mac OS v11 would go. We already have gestures, simplified toolbars in many Mac apps. And more people are used to the idea that a mechanical keyboard is a wireless accessory you evaluate and choose separately from the computer. Other than the notebook, the keyboard has always been separate. And if you look closely, many Mac apps don’t really use the keyboard: Final Cut, Logic, Photoshop and many others use key shortcuts as a poor man’s touchscreen.
I really don’t think anyone but coders and producers needs file system access. Even in Microsoft Office workflows, the documents are now often in a repository on the server, managed by system administrators.
I think we can look forward to most people using an iPad, and coders have both iPad and Mac tablets. The Mac shows an editing view, the iPad the consumer view, like an old video editing setup with a display showing the editor and a real TV next to it showing the finished product.
I think the key differentiator is finding a new market to grow into. PC’s evolved from geeks => business users => consumer. iPad rebased and started with consumer, its time now to place the bets on the secondary market that will decide the next set of features. I think a viable secondary market is creatives which are much better suited to iPad human friendly input or highest level executives whose main job is to “consume” documents rather than general business population. I guess this is where Jobs ingenuity shone through
Great post! One thought is that an exposed file system logically leads to storage management. The Windows available memory pie chart is far from satisfactory as a way to manage memory. In the Post-PC era, I see a new paradigm emerging in terms of how people manage apps and memory, and this is related to the discussion around exposed file systems.
I wrote further on my site here: http://ianrosenwach.com/2013/02/exposed-file-systems-in-the-post-pc-os-is-it-worth-it/
Re: “But I have trouble forming a coherent picture of an evolution that would let Apple open the iPad to more demanding users — without sacrificing its great simplicity and falling into the fridge + toaster trap.”
Agree. And that’s why Apple will probably never merge the iOS and OS X device lines or OS lines. Separate device lines with separate feature sets. Separate OSes for each device line, both sharing iCloud. Trucks and cars both sharing the same road.
@ Hamranhansenhansen re: “I think a touch Mac is coming. I don’t see where else Mac OS v11 would go.”
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Not likely at all. If Apple thought that was a good idea, they would have done it 10 years ago. It isn’t. They didn’t.
If you talk about hierarchy file system than you must talk about Ted Neslon. Please take a look at:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zumdnI4EG14
The reponse to the gradually mounting pressure to offer wider storage access for iOS should not be merely exposing a hierarchical file system, however prettily. Something a lot bolder should be the aim. The Newton soups were a very interesting way for data to be shared among applications and OpenDoc was another valuable experiment. There is a pressing need for a higher-level view of ones data, which iOS could be very good at. Serious improvements in the area of data visualisation, linking and management beckon to the brave.
The current iPad file system has a name it is called DropBox
For Power Users who want a file system, Apple can simply create an iPad PRO which does this and has a Finder.
The iPad PRO – of course – will cost more than the regular iPad. It simply won’t be a software difference since the iPad has encryption hardware to protect itself. The iPad PRO will have certain hardware features that will also justify its much higher price.
A bit late, but i nonetheless wanted to underline the resemblance of this article with this one from Horace Dediu :
http://ceklog.kindel.com/2013/02/19/why-nobody-can-copy-apple/
I believe a key sentence is this one :
“In my experience, the behaviors and culture of an organization (large or small) that focuses on the Consumer as a customer is diametrically incompatible with the behaviors and culture of an organization that focuses on Business as a customer.”
Which basically translates into : if iPad is meant for consumers, it cannot properly reach the needs of business. Any attempt in this direction will be “half-baked”.
My mistake : the earlier linked article is from Charlie Kindel, not Horace.
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