iPad: Or, why you have to look at the advertising

http://www.rinich.com/post/357307070/this-is-why-its-worth-learning-about-advertising

by rinich • 16 years ago

118 102 16 years ago

angusgr2• 16 years ago

I gotta say, the tone of this almost turned me off. I got an impression of mouth-foamy vehemence in some of those paragraphs, and it was a little off-putting.

However, you're entirely right. It's going to be really interesting to see how this pans out.

rinich30• 16 years ago

Right now my entire blog's in a very stream-of-consciousness mode. I'm writing lots of long unedited things every day just to get it out in time for an upcoming major revision.

I submitted this because I was a bit irked at how commentary here is steadfastly ignoring what the iPad is and how it's going to be sold. I enjoy critics as long as they understand what they're criticizing. Aaronsw's post was enough to provoke me into submitting this.

If anybody thinks this isn't appropriate tone for HN, feel free to flag it! I have no particular expectations for this submission.

angusgr2• 16 years ago

Well, that's what I meant by "you're entirely right". I agree with you that these are points that are missing from a lot of the "geek" discussion about this, which seems to be the only discussion informing even the mainstream discussion about this so far.

And the "mouth-foamy" tone (Apple "the most powerful company that’s ever existed."?) kind of helps to make your point, so I'd suggest that it works both for and against you in that way.

csmeder2• 16 years ago

Your essay is great. It makes me feel less alone in this world. I didn't find it full of vehemence.

It is okay to speak with force. At times force is needed to cut through layers of of mental resistance. New ideas that we don't understand scare us. We fear what we don't understand. The points you are trying to make are over the head of most people. 99.9999999% don't get "it". If they did we would have more companies that could compete with apple not just copy apple.

What do I mean by copy Apple? One example is the iPhone. If Apple never made the iPhone. What would phones look like right now? We would have the the Razor3 and it would allow us to download ring tones, not apps.

Heres some food for thought from Einstein:

"Any intelligent fool can make things bigger and more complex... It takes a touch of genius --- and a lot of courage to move in the opposite direction." - Albert Einstein

"The intuitive mind is a sacred gift and the rational mind is a faithful servant. We have created a society that honors the servant and has forgotten the gift." - Albert Einstein

And the most important to this discussion:

"The significant problems we face can not be solved at the same level of thinking we were at when we created them." - Albert Einstein

The iPad is not a solution to the question of: whats a better computer or whats a better phone. Just as the iPhone wasn't a better Razor.

carsonbaker2• 16 years ago

For a readable font, paste this into your address bar:

  javascript:(function w(){document.body.style.fontFamily='Georgia';})()

rinich30• 16 years ago

Not a fan of Calluna? I'm partial to it.

It'll make you happy to know I'm switching to a no-holds-barred Helvetica/Cufón combination shortly. Everybody wins!

EDIT: Just for you guys, Georgia's the default font again.

carsonbaker2• 16 years ago

The Calluna would be alright, I suppose. However, I think a lot of users have your second preference, Didot, installed which is unsuitable for body copy.

pavs2• 16 years ago

>"... because that sentence will sell several billion of these things."

Several billion? what are you smoking?

rinich30• 16 years ago

    hyperbole /haɪp'ɜːʳbəli/
    Synonyms: exaggeration, hyperbola, overstatement

    If someone uses hyperbole, they say or write things 
    that make something sound much more impressive than 
    it really is.

pavs2• 16 years ago

Are you implying your audience are a bunch of idiots?

Seriously, that's not even a hyperbole. That's a really stupid statement, even for a hyperbole.

MaysonL• 16 years ago

Over the next couple decades, quite possibly [counting its evolutionary descendants].

barnaby• 16 years ago

Reading this article raised the bullshit alarm BIG TIME.

Yes Apple will make these things sell, using empty buzzwords that makes geeks cringe. But the author didn't have to be a dick about it.

The Howard Zinn story was more important than this.

rinich30• 16 years ago

Isn't that what sucks about HN's rise and fall story display? I completely agree with you. But if people read this and like it, the only way they can spread it to other people is to vote it, potentially past other stories.

But you missed my point. They're not empty buzzwords. Looking at the tablet in terms of dimensions and RAM and DPI is like looking at a film in terms of how many reels it takes to project it in a theater. Yeah, there's something going on there that's worth a discussion, but to assume that the point of the movie is to make a long film strip is a little silly.

"Magic" is not an empty buzzword. "DPI" is. I don't care about DPI. I care about I can push a button here and it'll give me a blank screen and I can DRAW on it. Just like magic. Or I can watch baseball and TOUCH it and make things happen on the screen.

There's a lot of technology going on there, but the technology isn't the point. The magic is the point.

philk2• 16 years ago

I think you're going a bit over the top by saying they've killed every photo frame company on the planet. People aren't going to buy five iPads and put them up around their house.

rinich30• 16 years ago

I was referring to the digital frames. Maybe I'm missing something (entirely possible!) but I don't know what any other "display photos in a digital box" hardware has to offer that this doesn't.

Upvoted, among other things, for making me imagine a waterfall of iPads displaying upon them photographs of waterfalls. Unrelated imagery. Thanks!

jkincaid3• 16 years ago

Other "display photos in a digital box" hardware has a sub $100 pricetag, which means you can leave them around your house doing nothing but display photos without feeling guilty (or stupid).

KWD• 16 years ago

Price - would you rather spend $50 bucks for a digital frame or $500 for an iPad to sit on a desk?

alex_c2• 16 years ago

shrug

Let's see how well it actually does before we go on about how brilliant Apple's marketing guys are.

Yes, the iPad has potential. It doesn't make sense to dismiss it offhand just because some of us might not have a use for it.

No, not every single Apple product has changed the world, even though they're all introduced as revolutionary. It doesn't make sense to accept their marketing copy as gospel. Lots of companies pay lots of money for sentences like that, it doesn't mean they're all successful.

Ultimately, the market will decide this one. Yes, it MIGHT change the world, but it really is too early to tell one way or another.

rinich30• 16 years ago

Certainly marketing can lie. The "funnest iPod ever" didn't make the iPod touch into a brilliant gaming console. (Casual gaming, maybe, come to think of it, but that's beyond my knowledge. Anybody else know about this?) However, it's good at indicating what somebody wants you to think. Droid's ad wanted you to think: "iPhone sucks, Droid rules." Apple's ad wants you to think: "This thing was made by a wizard." Relevant to today's discussions because a lot of people seem to be wondering what Apple's thinking, when I think Apple's been pretty obvious.

I actually wouldn't call this revolutionary. That's why we're not reacting gleefully. It's evolutionary. It just happens to have evolved in a way that gives it a potential radical significance.

Semirelated: Studying advertisements is a brilliant way to study history. It lets you in on all society's biases and wants and needs and fears. Modern advertisement is as insightful to the human condition as modern poetry, though it goes at it a bit ass-backwards and rarely as tactfully.

benatkin2• 16 years ago

I disagree that it's just "potential" radical significance. I think the advertising claims are quite verifiable by looking at the specs and comparing with the iPhone's success, and thus it's a slam dunk. I think you made a strong argument that those who say it's not going to be a big deal because it lacks GPS and a camera aren't representative of the target audience.

greendestiny• 16 years ago

I agree with the author of this article, and I get where Apple is coming from with the iPad. I don't know what to say to the people who are disappointed it's not an OSX tablet computer - I don't know why you thought it would be. I don't think an OSX tablet would be a good thing either, but that's beside the point, Apple could still do that if they wanted.

I think huge segment of peoples computing needs could be met by a device like this. I think there is a whole segment of computing uses now that have left the keyboard and screen formfactor behind. Rather than this device needing a niche, I think it may end up that portable computers with keyboards are a niche.

Having said all that, I was disappointed by the release. The bezel is ugly and I'm not convinced that it's necessary for holding. The aspect ratio seems wrong and ugly. The screen is much lower ppi than the ipod/iphone. Half an inch seems too thick as well. All in all its not the sleek futuristic machine it should be. Hopefully version 2 will fix some of these things.

rinich30• 16 years ago

That's how I feel, too. The bezel I'm uncertain about, the aspect ratio is certainly different if nothing else. I'm curious how it'll feel when held. Perhaps the radical screen change will prove to feel surprisingly natural.

I think the huge (relatively) screen will make up for the ppi. As for half an inch, I suspect that with something this big anything thinner might even seem fragile. But we'll find out on launch, and whatever we hate Apple will fix and sell to us again.

jkincaid3• 16 years ago

You say that the entire world wants an iPad. I disagree. I think this will appeal to a specific (but fairly common) kind of computer user. Namely, the sort of person who really doesn't know what they're doing on a computer, and only uses their PC for very basic tasks. This kind of person will be able to replace their laptop (or even their desktop) with an iPad, and I think it will be a fantastic solution for them.

The problem, though, is that this "magical screen" probably won't be very efficient for getting work done. Which means most people won't be able to replace their computers. And I think it's going to be hard to convince these people that they need a so-called "middle device".

EDIT: I should also add that I think the appeal will be much broader once publishers make digital books and textbooks that are actually superior to their paper counterparts. But that might take years.

rinich30• 16 years ago

Jason —

I think it'll appeal to more people than just that. I suspect it'll make headway into the e-reader territory — some people will pass up e-paper for flexibility. It'll also be considered by anybody enthusiastic about newspapers or magazines, and I think there might be more of them than we currently see. Certainly that's what my neighbor was excited about when he dropped by to talk.

It's going to be absolutely enormous for students. Anybody who uses their laptop for casual notetaking will want this. I use my iPod and I want it also, though for me it would be a gratuitous purchase. People that want a Macbook but can't drop a thousand dollars will consider paying half that for a tablet.

As for getting work done: I can see myself using this as a primary writing tool. I'd prefer that to a Macbook, actually, because of the flexibility. (I don't mind touch-typing.) I can also see a lot of powerful applications being made around this. Could you replicate Coda as an iPad app? I think it's possible. Could you make a powerful image editor? Perhaps not in the iPad's current state (though maybe?), but as it becomes more powerful I think there's easily enough space to create a gorgeous editing interface. I can already run Final Cut Pro on my laptop with no problem, and using flash memory means things move even more quickly; we won't see professional-class applications by the end of this year, but by 2012 I suspect we'll start to see them.

Within my immediate family one purchase has been decided (my mother wants an ebook computer and a music program) and I suspect several more are on the way. When one thing can do so many things at once, it appeals to lots and lots of people. I doubt people who already have two Apple products will need this third one, but people with only one or the other or people looking to make a switch suddenly have a brilliant bridge.

jkincaid3• 16 years ago

Agreed on textbook/student note taking angle. But I really think you're in the minority as far as not minding touchtyping on a glass screen — I think that would get old fast for writing anything longer than a paragraph.

I'm eager to see how this works as an eReader. I still think that reading a book on a backlit display sort of stinks. I'm wondering if people will spring for the iPad as an eBook reader because it has so much else to offer, and then realize a few days later that they just can't ignore the eye strain.

harpastum• 16 years ago

"Namely, the sort of person who really doesn't know what they're doing on a computer, and only uses their PC for very basic tasks."

From my personal experience of being "that computer guy" for countless friends, relatives, and random people on the street, that statement accurately describes over 90% of the home computer market (i.e. everything but business/professional use).

pyre5• 16 years ago

Really? No one in that 90% does something like build a resume in Word/OOWriter?

armandososa• 16 years ago

I don't know, 95% of the PC userss that I know, just want to watch youtube videos and talk on Live Messenger (or whatever they are calling it this days).

mixmax• 16 years ago

I think you're missing the point. I have friends that are nurses, mechanics and fishermen - and they don't even have a computer. They don't get work done on their computers, they don't use their computers for basic tasks. They don't want a computer. It's easy to forget that these people exist when you're a hacker, but out there in the real world they're the majority. And for them this product is a perfect match.

jrockway4• 16 years ago

If HN ever wanted to make some money, I would be glad to pay to not have to see articles like this one.

Seriously though, the article is pretty good -- I can feel the stickiness of the jizz on his keyboard.

rinich30• 16 years ago

Oh, jrockway. Here's to our upcoming 2-year anniversary of you being a fucker and my calling you a fucker. You've been with me since the start!

I think it's all right for me to call Apple my favorite company. If we want to be douchesnobs, they've earned their pedigree. More red dot design awards than any other company in history, more black pencils, an impressive list of advertising trophies, and business sales that shock and awe us all. As an entrepreneurial advertising major who enjoys industrial design, I think it's safe to say I've got a good excuse for liking Apple.

jrockway4• 16 years ago

Your article is pretty good, but it just gets annoying when every article on HN is about how the iPad is going to solve world hunger with its super-shiny screen. It wasn't you personally that I was reacting to, but rather the onslaught of similarly-themed articles whenever Apple releases a new product. (The jizz reference reflects well on your writing ability, but not so much on Apple. The fact that your article exists proves the points your article makes. Excellent. :)

As an entrepreneurial advertising major who enjoys industrial design, I think it's safe to say I've got a good excuse Apple.

And I think it's safe to say, that as someone who makes a living from writing software, that I am not going to like devices that restrict users from running my software... even if it has a really pretty case. (I have eyes. I know Apple's stuff is beautiful.)

FWIW, I was a long-time Apple fanboi, diligently lining up to buy whatever new product they had the first day it was available. But then one night, I was debugging some software, and some debugging functionality didn't work because Apple specifically broke it to prevent someone from reverse-engineering iTunes. (Google "PT_DENY_ATTACH".) I formatted my Powerbook that night, switched to Linux, and never looked back.

Apple's not going to win me back with a nice screen or great marketing. When they stop selling music and videos with Restrictions Management and when anyone can run any code on any of their devices, Apple will be my favorite company too. But I doubt that will ever happen.

NathanKP• 16 years ago

When I saw the word "jizz" I wasn't sure whether I was reading a comment on Reddit or HN.

jrockway4• 16 years ago

Cry about it?

(If this were Reddit, I would have said "fuck yer". Actually I wouldn't have... but someone would have.)

philk2• 16 years ago

I really like some of the points of your blog post, namely:

- Apple does marketing really well.

- Apple does ridiculously awesome UIs

- Complaining about the fact that it's not particularly technically impressive is irrelevant, most people buy Apple products because of the magic rather than tech specs.

However, thinking about it some more I can see a few problems for the iPad in general:

- Two of the previous 'magical things' Apple produced - namely the iPod and iPhone, had a clear application to get people in the door. In the iPod case it was n-thousand songs in your pocket, in the iPhone case it was 'look, it's an iPod you can make calls with'. People were already sold on portable music players and phones beforehand, Apple just took that need and made a much more awesome device.

- The iPad on the other hand does not have such a clear application. All of the cool stuff like maps/music/games and things can already be done on the iPhone (which most people will be carrying around anyway). The other side - normal web surfing, applications, writing, graphics, etc. - is handled quite nicely by Apple's laptops. I'm not sure why someone would buy an iPad instead of an iPhone, and then, once they have an iPhone, I'm not sure what the iPad offers that makes it worth the extra $500.

- Apple have had beautiful, well marketed things in the past that haven't conquered the universe (the G4 cube, for instance, which was lovely). Marketing isn't always enough.

Still, I have to love Steve Jobs if only for his ability to (apparently) congruently gush that as a tablet the iPad is much better than either phones or laptops, both of which his company sells lots of.

rinich30• 16 years ago

That's my favorite part about Apple: When they introduce a product that makes other products of theirs look obsolete. I used to love my laptop's multitouch until I tried a Magic Mouse; now my scrolling all feel stodgy.

I agree that the iPod and iPhone were much easier sells. But I suspect that the iPad will be seen as a superior product. I mean, the one thing Apple does not corner the market in is standard computing. OS X machines lose out to the Windows market. If anything, this is an entry into that market, same as netbooks were; if you look at this as a cheap, simplistic laptop that just happens not to be a clamshell, then it makes more sense. People looking for a good deal can buy this, and it handles basic computer-y things for them, and it turns out that they don't need all the cruft modern computers bring with them.

But actually in this case I've got some perspective, because last month my mother began asking me about the tablet. She owns an iPhone but no laptop; she likes my laptop but doesn't want to drop that much money for something she won't use much. Her questions were things like: Can I watch a movie on one? Can I check my email? Can I read books? For somebody who needs to do basic computer things like email and Internet, but who doesn't need anything specialized, there's nothing you need that the iPad can't do. (I'm curious as to how many people in the US own laptops. I've never thought about it before.)

As for the G4 cube comparison (though that made me think for a second!), I think there's one huge difference: The OS. This is easily the best operating system ever made in terms of usability. There's almost no abstraction. No mouse, no doubleclicking, no app folder, no dock, no task bar... you push a button and it launches something, and that thing is usually designed so that it makes perfect sense without instructions.

I didn't get why that was a big deal until I saw the streaming keynote and actually looked at the applications. I'd bet that Youtube on an iPad is simpler and funner than Youtube on a Macbook, because there're fewer steps to going about doing anything. The simplicity of the OS allows for far more elegant app design, to the point where I think people will notice and be sold on that design alone.

z8000• 16 years ago

Hyperbole is the best thing ever!

This made me laugh: "and so the only thing you need to make a beautiful program is a beautiful graphic designer"

rinich30• 16 years ago

In every field of art, you see the biggest innovations when the technical barriers to doing things are taken away. Make film equipment cheaper and a lot of brilliant people without much money hit the scene. Make synthesizers cheaper and you have the 80s.

Something very similar is happening here. If I have an idea for a great hardware product, now I have the option of using this existing hardware, which is beautiful and has a beautiful method of interacting. Certain of the UI specs have already been handled for me. So there's less of a gap between my having an idea and my launching it than there was, say, five years ago.

I'm hoping for further similar breakthroughs. It would be nice if making a program was simply a matter of sketching out the user interface and seeing it realized.

xcombinator• 16 years ago

I agree with the article, but I understand the reaction here. HN is a group of very smart people, and logical genius, that despise the power of emotions.

Human beings are not machines, and one of the most important things is how they feel. Apple knows that,that is what marketing is all about and this means for me that Ipad is going to be a success because:

1)When you rotate the screen, it feels responsible instantly.

2) When you touch, it feels responsible again because of the hardware accelerated touch screen.

3) People could use it to write without making sounds(silence).

4) No cables, no strings, it just "feels right" like a physical notebook.

5) No ugly keyboard.

6) No limits in the orientation.

7) First serious computer you can rotate to read a book right, when you use a laptop and rotate for changing the aspect ratio ugly keyboard gets on your way.

I'm happy for the ipad, it means computer competitors that don't get it will just copy it, like the iphone.

cabalamat3• 16 years ago

> 1)When you rotate the screen, it feels responsible instantly.

Not to nitpick, but ITYM responsive.

dozba• 16 years ago

> Not to nitpick

That's exactly nitpicking.

scotty792• 16 years ago

> They figure the only people who won’t want an iPad are people who don’t like magic.

Now I understand why I don't want one. I don't like magic in my reality. I prefer tech.

ghoerz• 16 years ago

"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." - Arthur C. Clarke

scotty792• 16 years ago

"Any technology that is distinguishable from magic is not sufficiently advanced" so Steve, round up your engineers and send them back to drawing boards because everybody (apart from apple marketing) can still see the difference.

zppx• 16 years ago

> 'I will give you this magical thing that can do anything' Well, it will not open to applications at the same time.

rinich30• 16 years ago

No, it can't, but it really doesn't matter that it can't. Most applications save your place in them, so the only cost of switching is that you have to wait a second for it to relaunch. If you've got a powerful enough processor, then relaunching applications is simply like switching. And because we've got a single-process tablet, there's no slowdown over time, no gucking up as things run dry.

I'd like Apple to figure out a policy that lets Pandora stream in the background, or Last.FM. Those are the only two I care about. Using push notifications for IM works perfectly for me: I see the messages as they happen, which is all I care about.

zhyder2• 16 years ago

I'm underwhelmed not because the geek in me finds the technical specs lacking, but because I don't see anything innovative. The hardware and software are absolutely predictable (except for lacking a few features like a webcam and a USB port): no brilliant UI solution to the problem of typing while holding the tablet, no special screen tech to work well in reflective mode, no new business model for news or books, nothing. It's the lowest common denominator of all the rumors and anybody's guess at what a "big ipod touch" would look like. It shouldn't have taken any CE/computing company, much less Apple, years to design this.

telemachos2• 16 years ago

I'm sorry, but did you actually read the post you're commenting on?

You may not agree with all his arguments, but the post addresses the "no innovation" claim head on (scan for Sgt. Pepper’s, if you can't find it).

zhyder2• 16 years ago

I read it, and found the 'Yes, but it’s never been done all at once' assertion weak. The OP's general point is that the iPad is 'magic', which I correlate with 'innovation'; I think many of us are bummed because we see neither. (If it matters, I was giddy when the iPhone was announced; there was a lot of innovation in that device.)

RyanMcGreal2• 16 years ago

> Other companies are selling computers. Apple’s selling magic. Which one would you rather have?

I'd rather have a computer, which is why I don't like Apple products. However, I understand why this puts me in the minority.

cabalamat3• 16 years ago

Last time I looked, Apple's market share of computers and laptops was a good deal <50%

RyanMcGreal2• 16 years ago

Given that Apple is primarily in the business of selling magic devices rather than computers, their share of the computer market isn't really relevant here.

cabalamat3• 16 years ago

Is it me, or is computing not boring anymore?

I'll explain what I mean. From about 1995 to about 2007, the copmuter industry was predictable. Microsoft dominated the desktop and the laptop. A user interface in 1995 (e.g. Windows 95) looked and worked much the same as one in 2007 (e.g. Ubuntu 7.10). Sure, Microsoft had competitors, but Linux and Mac OS were niche systems that seemed likely to continue to be so.

But now, we have new user interface paradigms, e.g. the gesture systems used by the iPhone and iPad. We have new computing devices, particularly smartphones. We have new killer applications -- telephony and TV and books are all merging into computers, i.e. becoming a program you run on your computer.

It's even exciting on the programming language front, with new languages like Clojure, Erlang, Haskell, F#, etc having the possiblity of breaking out into the staid corporate computing world dominated by Java and C#.

Microsoft's dominance no longer seems assured. Apple or Google could easily exceed their market capitalisation in a few years. And platforms are doing deals with search engines: Firefox with Google, Ubuntu with Yahoo. Everything seems up in the air, uncertain, exciting.

davidmathers• 16 years ago

Yes, I think it's safe to say that the middle ages/dark ages of personal computing are over.

stcredzero• 16 years ago

It's one thing to make great technology. It's another thing to market and sell it. Apple can do both. Apple really gets it. But what is it exactly that they get? Here it is, they can do 5 things very well:

    - Hardware
    - Software
    - Human Interface Design
    - Marketing
    - User/Developer Ecosystem

If they weren't able to do all 5 of these very well, it wouldn't matter how great the devices are. Other companies do the hardware & the software. Some are even pretty good at the marketing. Very few companies do all 5 of these things as well as Apple does and make that a seamless whole.

Of these 5, the last two are often the missing secret sauce. Of these 5, the last one is the most powerful. They realize this. Why do you think they do everything that they do with the stores?

Open Source shows that you can have nothing but software and ecosystem.

iPad: Or, why you have to look at the advertising

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