The iPad made its debut today and is bound to be a game changer. More than 700,000 were sold on day one. That number will float over the million mark Sunday or Monday or Tuesday. Then there will be people who see them in the hands of their friends and must have them. Then there will be their friends. Then there will be businesses that want the device as the resident tool for their employees. Then institutions, governments, and the expansion internationally into other markets. Then the next version.
All good. But maybe not good enough.
I'm still thinking the devices aren't there yet to serve our needs. I have a wishlist, circa 2010, that I don't think are unrealistic. (I recognize I will sound now like Andy Rooney. )
I don't want a backlit screen; I want something that will absorb natural or electric light and reflect electronic ink back to my senses. I am hard-wired for ink on a surface and our children don't yet go to bed reading Harry Potter on a laptop; the sooner we get nearer the experience of ink on paper, the sooner we'll have mass markets for these important devices.
I don't want a reflective screen. I read often in a bright room and don't want a mirror, and I don't want the sunlight in the window behind me to overcome the image in front of me. If nothing else, frost that screen.
I want the Internet on it all the time, just like a battery or an electrical current. I don't want to activate it or launch it. Not anymore. And not when I'm near a wireless router or inside a telecom's footprint. All the time.
I need it to deal with video --- taking it and viewing it --- and for the various stakeholders to deliver. I want a device that will take good video and I will pay very well for feature films, less so for recent releases, even less so for oldies. But I will pay if the device will stream it without glitches. If the producers can't figure that out soon, what happened to the music industry awaits them --- the speedy downloads are coming very, very soon, the last impediment to rampant movie piracy. Enough fighting and dithering.
I want my device to link my creations and preferences through networks. In other words, I want my device to be smart enough to tag everything so the largest number of people consume and share it. In short, a semantic, SEO servant.
I have to keep on top of things and my device should be curating that for me, alerting me when something significant is there to be consumed, and identifying any sudden changes in what others I trust are consuming. I know there is software that might help me do that, but I think that's too much unnecessary work these days. My device should do that for me if I tell it what I need. All the time, not just when I launch a piece of software through the Web.
I want to build trusting relationships and my device can help me find like-interested people and network our associations. But I then want our network to be mined by my device for recommendations and guidance to create a cohort of trusted goods and services. In other words, my device can steer me right.
And I want my device to charge me as I use it, not before I use it, and offer me the newest version as I reach a certain level of wear and tear. In other words, I want a lease-like, built-in obsolescence that will be a virtue and I never want to be stuck with something less-useful than the best device I can exploit.
Do I have a price point for this? Well, let's see, my laptop is worth about $1,500, my smartphone is about $1,000 a year, I pay about $1,500 a year for cable and Internet, and a few hundred more for downloads and a few hundred more on entertainment that could just as easily arrive in my home. I'd replace the entire distribution chain, so there's my price point. Of course, add a couple of these devices so my family can play, too.
All good. But maybe not good enough.
I'm still thinking the devices aren't there yet to serve our needs. I have a wishlist, circa 2010, that I don't think are unrealistic. (I recognize I will sound now like Andy Rooney. )
I don't want a backlit screen; I want something that will absorb natural or electric light and reflect electronic ink back to my senses. I am hard-wired for ink on a surface and our children don't yet go to bed reading Harry Potter on a laptop; the sooner we get nearer the experience of ink on paper, the sooner we'll have mass markets for these important devices.
I don't want a reflective screen. I read often in a bright room and don't want a mirror, and I don't want the sunlight in the window behind me to overcome the image in front of me. If nothing else, frost that screen.
I want the Internet on it all the time, just like a battery or an electrical current. I don't want to activate it or launch it. Not anymore. And not when I'm near a wireless router or inside a telecom's footprint. All the time.
I need it to deal with video --- taking it and viewing it --- and for the various stakeholders to deliver. I want a device that will take good video and I will pay very well for feature films, less so for recent releases, even less so for oldies. But I will pay if the device will stream it without glitches. If the producers can't figure that out soon, what happened to the music industry awaits them --- the speedy downloads are coming very, very soon, the last impediment to rampant movie piracy. Enough fighting and dithering.
I want my device to link my creations and preferences through networks. In other words, I want my device to be smart enough to tag everything so the largest number of people consume and share it. In short, a semantic, SEO servant.
I have to keep on top of things and my device should be curating that for me, alerting me when something significant is there to be consumed, and identifying any sudden changes in what others I trust are consuming. I know there is software that might help me do that, but I think that's too much unnecessary work these days. My device should do that for me if I tell it what I need. All the time, not just when I launch a piece of software through the Web.
I want to build trusting relationships and my device can help me find like-interested people and network our associations. But I then want our network to be mined by my device for recommendations and guidance to create a cohort of trusted goods and services. In other words, my device can steer me right.
And I want my device to charge me as I use it, not before I use it, and offer me the newest version as I reach a certain level of wear and tear. In other words, I want a lease-like, built-in obsolescence that will be a virtue and I never want to be stuck with something less-useful than the best device I can exploit.
Do I have a price point for this? Well, let's see, my laptop is worth about $1,500, my smartphone is about $1,000 a year, I pay about $1,500 a year for cable and Internet, and a few hundred more for downloads and a few hundred more on entertainment that could just as easily arrive in my home. I'd replace the entire distribution chain, so there's my price point. Of course, add a couple of these devices so my family can play, too.
