http://createdigitalmusic.com/2010/01/27/how-a-great-product-can-be-bad-news-apple-ipad-and-the-closed-mac/

The question is if this will keep anyone from buying an iPad. I doubt it, at least in the short term; people seem perfectly willing to spend money on TV shows through iTunes so far, though I don’t know the exact numbers. Anyone have an idea how much Apple makes via TV show sales through the iTunes store?

They’d LIKE if this would create an environment where someone would own all three (I’m 2/3 of the way there with my iPod Touch/Macbook combo), but they also need to sell the iPad to those who have neither. I don’t think that there is enough of a gap in terms of what the iPad can do different from a laptop (it’s not THAT much lighter, or that much slimmer) to suggest that the iPad fills an actual gap. Instead, it’s the product you didn’t know you needed, and that you will buy for one particular purpose with the promise of it being able to do much more than that. Apple’s job, then, is selling the user on the rest of the package: you might buy it as an E-Book reader, but then you’ll decide to pick up the New York Times App, or maybe try out one of the games, and begin using it to read your email.

Some will simply use the iPad’s capable laptop-like functionality to make it work, buying the keyboard accessory. Others, meanwhile, might even be tempted to go on and buy a MacBook Pro to extend the Apple family (they’d love this). However, yet more might take a serious look at the product, and the limitations that would come with the $500/16GB model (especially in terms of storage space) and the touch keyboard and the like, and decide that their money is better spent on a white MacBook, or on another competitor’s computer for around the same price point.

Apple’s job is convincing those people to take the plunge: once you get them hooked I think they’ll start to see the product’s potential (which, conveniently for Apple, will keep evolving with OS updates and App revolutions), but the product isn’t answering a common desire or anything similar – heck, most people don’t even watch TV and movies on their computers, yet alone on their iPods or iPads.

I think Apple angling it as a Netbook killer was particularly interesting, because the netbook is the current default for when you don’t feel you need a “real” computer but you do feel like you need a computer. And what, as Sean mentions, if you had an alternative that could offer the usability of the iPhone OS but in a larger package, with more features and increased usability? Apple is banking on the iPad to, effectively, answer that question.

The problem, of course, is whether there is anyone who actually sits in that particular third category; I don’t think it’s that substantial, which means the device depends on people who are currently Macbook owners or laptop owners making the switch to the iPad. The aggressive price means that they should be able to tempt people into this category, but the question is whether they’ll stay, and whether they won’t (as many netbook owners end up feeling) end up with Macbook envy after a few months.

As for how we consume our media, I consider the iPad a larger iPod Touch until we get final word about potential Apps for Hulu/Netflix/etc. However, even then, it effectively becomes a laptop with 3G access, so it’s not really breaking any new ground on the media front either way, at least not until we see proof of how this new market forms in the next few years.

In my mind, these are all secondary issues, however… I’m interested in the iPad because, if successful, it could bring about Apple’s biggest (and the industry’s) biggest shift in decades. That’s not just silly blog comment hyperbole, I honestly think it has the potential to be that huge, if they can pull this off.

Note how the keynote began: First, Jobs highlighted that they are now a “mobile devices” company, one of the world’s largest (depending on how you do the math). This statement alone is a significant change; what was once the personal computer company hasn’t had “computer” in the company name for a couple years now, and it now seems as though they’re trying to further redefine what it is the company makes and does. With the reveal of the iPad, they’ve continued to reverse the direction of OS design. Instead of features from the desktop/laptop computer trickling down into handheld device (first, the iPod playing music, then video, then games, next the iPhone with the web and apps), now the organizational scheme/user interface is working its way “up” from handheld devices to what’s traditionally been thought of as a “computer.”

So, this is potentially a Very Big Deal — Apple’s basically trying to replace the laptop for a large number of its users, those for whom surfing the web, goofing around on Facebook, playing a few games here and there, watching a TV show, listening to music, etc. are all one really does with a computer. In other words, a very significant portion of “computer users.” I was struck by the video shown during the keynote (now available on Apple’s site), and the difference in tone they were trying to strike there as well compared to previous product videos. Note Jony Ive’s flabbergasted “I almost don’t understand how this thing works!” and another employee’s statement that, with the iPad, you “don’t think, you just do” when using it. It’s a difference in disposition they’re trying to impart with the advertising for this device, and unlike others they’ve released — they want to change (or at least make you believe they’re changing) how you interact with things you’ve normally assumed involved “programs” and “mouse clicks” and those pesky “physical keyboards.”

They’re pushing this streamlined (some would say limited) interface of the iPhone into the territory that’s been normally held by the “computer,” scaling up a popular and easy to use interface to a larger device so that it can presumably occupy a different role than either the phone or the laptop. Having successfully shown that the iPhone OS works well enough for many people, they’re gambling that we need a new sort of device for our everyday digital media uses, that the laptop or desktop are overkill, and having a simpler, streamlined device will actually work better for most people. I buy this claim — I use my iPhone for a great many daily tasks, and a larger, easier-to-type-on, faster device with the iPhone OS might be even more useful. For most non-work purposes, do we want or really even need “computers?”

And that’s what I think Apple’s asking us; it could be a brilliant question or just reflect a big steaming pile of Apple hubris, none of us know, but it’s certainly got the potential to be something we haven’t seen in the computer industry before (um, if this is even the “computer industry” anymore?) Apple held off on this release for years, so this isn’t about building a Kindle killer or just coming up with a way to effectively sell more downloads of Grey’s Anatomy, it’s about changing long-standing assumptions “computer users” have about how their media are delivered. And, of course, it’s about carving out — and dominating — a new market for those devices before someone else does.