The Power of Possibility

Paradigm shift.  How many times have you heard that expression used to describe new ideas that ultimately proved to be anything but?  I know of one technology magazine editor who outlawed any mention of the term in his publication (along with that other old chestnut, the zeitgeist) to encourage contributors to focus on the true potential of products and technologies and ignore the wildly speculative claims of manufacturers’ press releases.

Most of the time, the beauty of the paradigm shift is that you can’t predict it; it’s a magic that occurs when you reach a point when you can’t imagine life being any other way.  It’s something that just “happens”.

I experienced such moment when I bought my iPhone 3GS.  I’ve worked in the IT industry for almost twenty years and in that time have seen a lot of new ideas emerge and either thrive and flourish or fade into “remember that…what were they thinking?” obscurity.  But in all that time, I’d never really been quite so personally touched by technology as I was with Apple’s amazing Smartphone-cum-handheld computer-cum network node to the digital universe, with myself as one of millions of star points in its galaxy.

At which point, you may be thinking: there’s an elephant in the corner here and it’s called the Internet. For sure, the internet has changed everyone’s lives.  But I didn’t start doing things in a different way overnight simply because the World Wide Web existed. Using the internet was more like a steady transformation, an slow incoming tide rather than a tsunami, gradually altering how individuals, groups, businesses and governments interacted with each other.  Like everyone else, I made online adjustments over a long period of time as products and services became available.

But with the iPhone, it was instant.  Instant in a ‘laser-guided missile strike’ kind of way.  Overnight, I started doing things with apps, email, browsing, buying, gaming and communicating that I hadn’t done before; the full power of the digital universe condensed to a hand held singularity, like some kind of reverse Big Bang.  Now I can’t comprehend how I ever managed without it.  My friends joke about my having surgery to graft it to my hip so I’ll never be parted from its miniature, sleek loveliness.  It’s fundamentally altered the way I engage with the world.  And that’s a paradigm shift.

Breaking free of keyboard slavery

So at this point, I’m now going to contradict myself and predict that the iPad will revolutionise lives in the same way when it begins to ship in volume and breaks out into the mainstream.  Given that Apple took something like 150,000 pre-sale orders on the first day alone, the line between early adoption and mass market may already be blurred by the time the device reaches the hands of end users. Based on what we know the iPad will be capable of, it seems clear (to me) that it’s a device that will allow people to do things that you just can’t do with an iPhone-like device. And that you certainly can’t do with a PC or netbook that you need to boot up and type on.

Freed from the shackles of the QWERTY keyboard, the simple fact of being able to browse and use the web, read, listen, watch and talk (though the iPad won’t be a phone, it will support Voice Over IP applications like Skype) on a 9” sized touchscreen will place almost limitless possibility in the hands of the user.  With a device like this, you can attempt almost anything, anywhere, with all the immediacy that an always on device can bring.  Because, whatever you wish to do, there is already an app for that and they all work on the iPad too.

I recently read an article in the UK’s ‘PC Pro’ magazine that argued demand for the iPad would fall as people got over the hype surrounding the announcement and became more familiar with the actual spec of what device will deliver.  The evidence provided for this statistic was a survey of the magazine’s own readership showing how the number of people who said they’d buy an iPad changed over a ten day period following Steve Jobs’ Keynote speech.  Well, they would say that wouldn’t they, I suppose.  This is a publication that writes articles on how to build your own Linux Server.

PC and Linux users may disagree

Dyed-in-the wool PC geeks and Linux warriors are probably not the right baseline against which to plot iPad adoption trends.  The thing that most strikes me about the iPad, and why I titled this post, “The Power of Possibility” is the fact that for the first time there’s going to be a device that alchemises the performance of a fully-fledged computer with a powerful, but completely intuitive touch interface, powered up at the press of a button.

Add to this mix what is perhaps the most iconic consumer brand in the world right now and you have all the ingredients for revolutionary change.  However much Microsoft would like us to believe otherwise in its Windows 7 ads, it is not one of us.  It’s a computer company that makes software.  People will never talk about ‘my Windows’ in the way they talk about ‘my Apple’, ‘my Macbook’, ‘my iPhone’, where user, product and brand become indivisible.  And with iPad, Apple has created a device that is going to broaden the ‘I, me, mine’ experience to many more users than would consider purchasing an iPhone or iMac.

I mentioned the always on nature of the iPad.  I think in some respects, this feature is the real killer app.  In the old days before I bought an iPhone, getting a genuine web-browsing experience (forget the limited menus and condensed ugliness of mobile phone internet) meant finding a wi-fi spot and booting up my laptop.  Now, even in my home, if I need to check something on the web, I just switch on the iPhone and I have instantaneous access to every granule of my personal and professional digital life.  This is so much easier that it’s now second nature – the thought of using a laptop or netbook never enters my head.

Rock Solid

It’s this television-like quality that will appeal those people who don’t read ‘PC Pro’ magazine.  The mainstream audience remains inherently suspicious of gadgets that need to be ‘booted up’ because such devices usually need a fair amount of kicking when things go awry.  In nine months of using the iPhone, I can count the number of times it’s crashed on the fingers of one hand.  That’s because iPhone – and iPad software – is based on the integral solidity of Unix rather than the add-on vulnerability of Windows which ultimately is an operating system running on a device, rather than something fundamental to the device itself.

And yet, even in my loved up state of iPhone bliss, I know all is not right, which is why I’m thirsting for the iPad.  I know the screen is small, that the keyboard is tiny, that there is no SD slot, no camera, no HDMI or even USB port and yes, I know that there is no Flash support.  The iPad won’t do anything about the latter point – HTML 5 might – but in terms of giving me the ideal amount of real estate to be able to browse, chat and write without cursing the size of my thumbs or the limitations of my eyesight, life is about to be transformed.

Forget all the things critics say the iPad should have – what on earth are they comparing it to?  If the iPad does no more at launch than what Apple has already promised, it will be a computer the like of which we have never seen.  My order is placed.  I wait with bated breath.  And I hope, via this blog, you’ll come along for the ride.