Over the last few months the internet has been swirling with predictions about the forthcoming announcement of Apple’s tablet. Tech blogs are brimming with excitement and YouTube is rife with fake video “previews’. Whether Apple’s tablet is ultimately called the iSlate or the iPad or some other name, there is one thing these Twitter Fools know for sure, the device will be a game changer. After this, nothing will be the same. Here’s why…
Why the Apple Tablet Will Change Everything
During Apple’s earnings call on Monday, Steve Jobs said, “The new products we are planning to release this year are very strong, starting this week with a major new product that we’re really excited about.“
Unlike its competitors’ announcements at CES earlier this month, Apple’s tablet offering is ready to ship and will be available for mass consumption (re: pre-order) on Wednesday.
But even more important during Apple’s product announcement on Wednesday will be the new businesses that it will create. Apple has already revolutionized the music industry with iTunes, and it has also pioneered the smart phone application market with the App Store for the iPhone and iPod. We expect something similar with the new Apple tablet: an extension to the digital ecosystem being born in Cupertino that will not only create new opportunities for traditional print/publication companies and help to move them into the digital landscape, but it will allow for everyone to jump on board.
The Tablet is NOT the End of Print
Acclaimed graphic designer David Carson published “The End of Print” back in 1995. This book generated great conversations throughout the advertising and publishing worlds when it was released simply on its title alone. But while the book was nothing more than a portfolio of Carson’s graphic design to date, it was the nature OF his design that issued the end of print. Some have described his design as grungy and dirty or beautiful and brilliant. What his design is really all about is layered communications. Thousands upon thousands of conversations all on one page. Much in the same way that we are bombarded by signals, images, tweets, IMs, emails, YouTube, friend requests, and so on, every moment of every day. The information flow is abundant.
Back in the early part of this decade, the music industry was under siege by scurvy-ridden, red bull drinking pirates. And due to these pirates an old world industry was dying simply because it failed to keep up with the times. Apple was not the first to develop an online music store but they bought and then developed the best. And in so doing, they created a new way for the music companies to do business. With the iTunes store, Apple opened up a direct path to the consumer for unsigned artists to sell their own music to without the aid or need of the big publishers. When they launched the iPhone and announced the App Store they created an entirely new economic engine for both Apple and application developers.
And that is a big key right there, the whole “creating new opportunities for everyone” thingy.
A Tablet™ is born
With so many print publications struggling for ad dollars even before this recession started, it is easy to proclaim the End of Print is near. In reality, it is not an end at all. Instead, we’re in for a change, a total shift from using plain paper alone, to using paper in conjunction with other formats. Why? Because there is an overwhelming need for people to consume their information by reading it everyday. Remember, reading is fundamental. It’s what you are doing right now. THIS IS NOT A VIDEO.
The Kindle, Nook and others are already leading the way for an eReader revolution, and if we stayed on this course then 2010 would certainly be ‘the year’ of the eReader. But is that enough? Has the eReader explosion changed an industry? Has it taken into account all of the other communication, the other signals, that are floating around out there? It is true that I can not travel without noticing someone using one of these devices. And for every eReader encountered I notice even more people using an iPod, a Nintendo DS or a laptop.
OMG, eReaders are dead!
While eReaders are currently dominant in this space, we think they will have a relatively short shelf life. They fill a niche and will continue to do so for a relatively short time. We think that products like Apple’s tablet have a recipe for longer term success. With the tablet you will have everything an eReader can do, but in full color. It will be a full fledged entertainment system with access to hundreds of thousands of Apps and of course it will be internet capable. So yeah, Apple Tablet will do all of that and more. It just won’t do flash. What will be interesting in the future is how other developers adopt to the tablet or challenge it overall. Microsoft has shown amazing concept videos for what it “might be” developing. And Google is planning the “browser as everything” interface via Chrome OS which will launch on Google-branded netbooks.
The larger trend that we’re seeing is clearly revolutionary, and we see the tablet as one step in a long journey toward a very interesting future. We started writing on cave walls, maybe by the light of a campfire with no more technology than a knowledge of which pigments would stain the rock face better. Over the years we communicated through writing and art using various technologies, and that trend reached an important plateau with printed type on paper. Computers and even eReaders have been pushing the technological envelope for some time, and we think Apple is about to push it even more. Interesting, the “revolutionary” part about this is that early in our history, we wrote on clay tablets like the Rosetta stone, and Apple is taking us both forward and back to our roots at the same time. Who knows, maybe we’ll see iPaper before too long.
Bring on the tablet, we’re ready for it!
So, will you be buying an Apple Tablet tomorrow??
Update: Saw this on Gizmodo and had to add it.
And, yet another view on the harangue surround Apple’s impending announcement . You can click on the image to view a larger size.
