This might well be the new Apple iDevice. The housing you can see is made specifically for the device it is holding. Only Apple would do that, surely / Image from Engadget
During the last few weeks I have a had a few conversation about Apple’s expected tablet, some of which have involved the other person saying “Yes, but what is it for?” I think it is aimed at various audiences, and here are some very subjective musings on why that might be: Most evenings, after meals have been eaten and small children put to bed, some members of my family sit on the sofa looking at Facebook, using email or avidly reading Mumsnet on laptops which really look too cumbersome for the task at hand. Sometimes my partner print out PDFs of chapters she needs to read for a course – which she then sits and reads in bed. Home is one place the iPad would be welcome. Away from the home, the newspaper industry is in a troubled state, and at the same time the habits of millions of commuters have been changing over the last few years, due in no small part to the iPod which along with Amazon and eBay and iTunes taught us to buy stuff from the ether, and that spending a little more on the device brought you an improvement in experience which could not be measured. And then along came the iPhone, which rolled the iPod and the experience of the web into one small but large screened touch device. A device with great reader experience, with updates and other benefits to make the commuters life easier while offering new routes to revenue for troubled publishers.
Turns out it was the iPad, and here's Steve on a sofa!
MultiTouch brings us closer to the experience, and has begun to enable us to fully realise and the potential of great software combined with great hardware. I am typing this on my iPhone. I can emulate all sorts of activities with it and the experience is much closer to direct interaction than anything else i’ve experienced. I am connected to the internet, but not as the entity I am used to but via apps which update automatically and websites crafted to use the touch interface. The formulaic approach you often encounter in website design is melting away as a result. These great touch devices are becoming much purer tools than the computer has ever been.
So tonight there will be a larger screen device. I have seen many comments from people on guardian comment boards and on Twitter complaining about the level of excitement. There are reasons to be excited. This device takes the ideas of the last 25 years and crystalises them into a device which opens up a whole new series of possibiities. Many small changes transformed into a qualitative shift.
I think it will be aimed at education, use in the home and commuters (and gamers, but that goes without saying). I think it will be priced at around £500-600 in the uk and less if you sign up for a data contract with a phone provider. How’s that for optimism!
It will send ripples through many ponds, the obvious ones being book and newspaper publishing, both of which are seeing their industries damaged below the waterline by the effects of the Internet.
But the impact will be felt in the web as well. The multitouch OS and Apple’s developer resources hint at the possibility of a web design renaissance. Websites which take the interaction of web 2.0 but add polish, user experience at the core, and great interaction. I have seen a few sites and desktop applications which have learned from their diminutive counterparts on the iPhone. Designing for touch requires you to focus on compelling experience – combine that with freedom to use more type, high resolution and the close user attention which it encourages and you get am environment which rewards good design practice.
The ripples from tonights launch wil also shake business models. Suddenly micropayments which have been seen as a Grail to many are here in app sales and subscriptions. People have an account, and the amounts are generally quite small and the payment method is very easy and mobile. Adverts are often an unpleasant experince on the iphone, but with apple also buying into ad provision, i think that there will be some creative shakeup within the ad industry and that new ways of consuming content will lead to new ideas from advertising agencies.
It’s time to try out ideas, invest in products and turn your world upside down, but in a good way.