It was quite the week for Apple, first with its best-ever earnings and then the launch of the iPad. While Apple didn’t create this category of device, it did answer the fundamental question of why this form factor needs to exist. The meta lesson is that the story told is as important as the hardware, software and services being sold — and while everyone may not be convinced, I do think Apple will win over the majority of a skeptical audience with high expectations. But there’s also four important lessons that Apple taught the market this week, as it enters a space that’s been mostly a failure.

1. Define what your product does. The first thing Apple did was answer that question immediately and then define what the product needed to do. Apple explained what capabilities need to be in the this class of device and then went on to show how each of those features not only worked but were optimized for the iPad. That’s something we’ve seen lacking in this category to date.

2. Leverage what you’ve done before. I believe the iPad is likely to do well with consumers as it leverages Apple’s previous successes with the iPod and the iPhone. At the base level, that’s compatibility and synchronization with iTunes as well as backward compatibility with existing applications. That’s important — as a user I can use my existing content library and my application collection. It also means that iPad has 140,000-plus applications at launch. But it’s more than that. Apple is not only leveraging its ecosystem of devices and software, it’s leveraging the lessons it spent a decade teaching consumers. Apple taught its market about MP3 players, digital music, smartphones, capacitive multitouch screens and mobile apps. It can now go directly to selling the form factor, as well as new features such as productivity and e-books.

Continue reading Entelligence: Lessons from the iPad launch

Entelligence: Lessons from the iPad launch originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 31 Jan 2010 17:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink   |   | Email this | Comments

Man, Adobe and its kin are not letting up here. In addition to the company releasing a terse, carefully worded response to the Apple iPad’s apparent lack of Flash, the Flash Blog took a much more truculent approach. Exhibit A: a post entitled “The iPad provides the ultimate browsing experience?” followed by several mockups of sites laden with the infamous Blue Lego Block of Ambiguity[TM]. Adding to the conversation in the comments, Adobe employee / platform evangelist Lee Brimelow accuses Apple of not wanting the Flash player to succeed, and that the company’s tried to work with Cupertino since the iPhone. ”
They don’t want you to go to Hulu or play Flash games because they worry that you won’t buy their apps,” he says. Frankly, we wouldn’t be surprised if that’s the case, and while we understand Adobe’s frustration, this probably isn’t gonna help relations between the two tech firms. Hey Adobe, trust us, we feel your pain — we really want Hulu on the iPad, too.

In other, more amusing news, it seems Apple’s official iPad promo has slipped up a bit in showing off what the tablet can really do. Namely, one clip of the New York Times and an article on 31 places to go in 2010. Here it clearly shows a Flash-based module up top, inaccessible without the plugin. We’re not thinking this is a sign of things to come — if anything, it’s probably just a mistake by the producers. Don’t get your hopes up, folks.

Update: Clarified relation of The Flash Blog to Adobe.

Adobe employee ups passive aggressive stance on iPad while Apple promo forgets its limits originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 29 Jan 2010 18:38:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink   |  Apple Insider, The Flash Blog, NYT  | Email this | Comments

By now you’ve probably read more on Apple’s iPad then you ever dreamed possible. In the last few days we’ve covered a lot of angles on the tablet and compiled a lot of data. Still, we felt that we hadn’t given you clear hands-on impressions and collected the myriad details about the device in one, easy-to-reach place. So we’ve decided to bundle all of that info into a single feature, joining our first-hand encounters with the iPad together with all of the data and details you should be aware of — including specs, plans, release schedules, pics, and video. So read on for everything we know (so far) about Cupertino’s first tablet!

Continue reading Apple iPad: The definitive guide (so far)

Apple iPad: The definitive guide (so far) originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 29 Jan 2010 17:28:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink   |   | Email this | Comments