We know it blends, but is it useful?
Apple’s iPad sold over a million units in the first month after it’s release.
Pretty soon, there are going to be a lot of iPads out there.
Here in Canuckistan the locals still have a couple of days to go before they can get their hands on one. So aggressive early adopters in Canada have had to find ways to acquire iPads from south of the border. In Toronto it’s something of a statement to use one in public.
To be honest, I’m not so much of an early adopter as an early rejecter. I like trying out new devices and new software, but I don’t enjoy technology for its own sake. And (true confession here) I don’t like playing games on computers. Nothing. Not even Solitaire. So, for me, a product is either useful, or I get rid of it.
In the case of the iPad there are already some things that it does that I’m starting to find useful. Reading books. Looking at work documents in meetings and on planes. Browsing recipes on the kitchen counter. Looking at pictures in a restaurant. Quick e-mails on the run when my laptop is shutdown.
All of this was already possible with my laptop or my iPhone, but it’s the combination of its physical shape and size, the way you can interact with it, and the way that that the iPad is tied into my existing data and media that make the iPad seem useful.
Personally, I’m hoping that the iPad can replace the laptop and pad of paper that I bring to every meeting. That remains to be seen.
But so far, the iPad has not triggered my “early rejecter” response.
It’s not about the browser.
For most current computer users, and certainly anyone who uses a computer for business, the iPad doesn’t replace anything you currently have. It’s another window into your data and media that can be used in situations where you don’t really need or want a laptop, and where a smartphone is too limited in screen size.
Technically it could have been a general purpose task computer, and up until now, the tablet computers envisioned by HP and others have been just that. PC’s in tablet form with a Windows operating system.
Apple has intentionally designed the iPad operating system to be different. Apart from a very controlled ability to access contacts and pictures, each iPad App lives in a protected sandbox. It can communicate over the Internet, but it can’t tamper with other Apps or data.
Roughly speaking, that’s the way a web browser works. Except on the iPad there are no “sites”, just Apps.
Web browsing on the iPad is done using Safari (technically itself an App) but without any support for Flash content. So the browser on the iPad is limited in terms of what it can display.
The effective outcome of the iPad’s lack of Flash support is that current web sites viewed on the iPad are forced to be uncompetitive with Apps from the App Store. They cannot offer highly interactive animation, games, or other advanced interactive features.
It’s of no use pointing out that HTML5 can do many of the things that Flash does now, or may be able to in the future, the issue is that there is a vast quantity of Flash content on the web right now that is not visible on the iPad.
In the technology and interactive business we think that change is instant, but every platform, like the web, and Flash, have ecosystems of developers, content creators, and media providers that have taken years to assemble, and who will take years to fully react to any new opportunities.
Apple may claim that there are 250,000 Apps (they are including iPhone Apps, I presume, which is a bit cute), but there are millions upon millions of websites, and many of those depend on Flash.
The conspicuous absence of Flash on such a significant new platform poses the real question of whether the iPad might signal the end of Flash. But advocates for web standards and openness may want to curb any feelings of schadenfreude.
If a company has made a significant investment in Flash development for their website or web application, and they decide that being on the iPad is essential for the success of their application or campaign, then they are more likely than not, to redevelop the Flash portions of their site as a native App, not as an HTML5 application.
And if the highly interactive content on the web moves to Apps, browsing websites becomes just one other thing to do. The web is no longer the main entry point to the Internet. Flash becomes a legacy technology. But so does HTML.
It’s about Apps.
This shift from the “open” web is discussed in the the New York Times in The Death of the Open Web. As writer Virginia Heffernan describes it, we get a safer and better experience, but a migration that resembles the flight to the suburbs in the 1950’s and 60’s.
It’s an apt comparison, except, there is no lock in. The wild west of the open web is always available when you open the browser.
And while the rise of Apps (be they on iPads, iPhones, or Android devices) may be at the cost of openness, for those who have been using technologies like Flash to escape the interactive limits of HTML and the browser, that openness has come at the expense of function and usability.
With Apps we see the potential of interactive applications on the Internet when they’re not squirming inside the model imposed by HTML and the browser. So the iPad could be a potential turning point for the way we use the Internet, and for personal computing. And soon it won’t be the only tablet out there, or the only platform supporting “Apps”.
An App Store for Flash?
As an aside, applications downloaded over the Internet have always been a possibility on any desktop computer, but the danger of launching malicious software from an unknown source on the Internet has made that a poisoned well.
Only Apple’s App store has successfully created a secure channel for the purchase of trusted software from third parties. Not so much by implementing sophisticated technical protections for the users (it has those, to be sure) but by ensuring that an application’s source code is reviewed by a real human being.
And by the way, Adobe’s Air technology has many elements of the iPad in terms of providing a secure operating environment for downloaded Apps, even on desktop computers. If secure highly polished Apps become the de facto standard for accessing the Internet on the iPad, iPhone, and Android-based devices, might there be a demand for Apps of a similar kind on the desktop?
Might there be an Adobe App Store?
Keep calm and carry on.
The shift to a world dominated by Apps, if it happens, is going to take several years as companies and the interactive ecosystems absorb the change.
I can say that at DesignAxiom, we have had three clients directly inquire about the impact of the iPad on their current projects or future opportunities, and ask further about what technical strategy should be employed, if not to address the iPad immediately, but to avoid doing things that would make it harder to deploy on the iPad later.
For many of our clients and for many companies, the iPad will not be a factor in their interactive strategy, now, or for some time. But even for companies that do not intend to get on the bandwagon, they can adjust their interactive strategy to anticipate the shape of things to come.
One step is to start to differentiate between the information and content on your website and its major application functions. If your website becomes more of a pure marketing and communication tool then you can strategize about it’s form and content in various situations, and on various platforms, without further complicating your thinking with the design and technical considerations of application development.
The application or e-commerce aspects of your interactive presence can now be considered separately and the default assumption that application development is web development can no longer hold true.
Will a Flash-based web application be more compelling for your users? Do they, in fact, require a desktop application? Or are they content to open a browser and use an HTML-based application?
Should you publish an App for the iPad? iPhone? Blackberry or Android handsets? What functions are required for each device? What are the use case scenarios for those devices that make Apps a requirement?
Freed from the constraints of the website, interactive applications may find a new life as Apps on platforms including the iPad, Android, and, just maybe, Flash.
