“Some of the things you can do [with the Apple iPad] are just mind blowing,” says Steve Pacheco, FedEx’s director of advertising. “You are taking something that used to be flat on a page and making it interactive and have it jump off the page.” -Wall Street Journal
Mind blowing? Really?
The Apple iPad is a new device entering an untested market, namely, the space between a smartphone and a full-fledged laptop. There are plenty of legitimate uses for the iPad, both personal and business-related, but mind blowing the device is not.
This may sound a bit strange coming from an Apple Developer. But remember: the gesture-control technology behind the iPad has been with us since 2007, when the first iPhone was released. And as for printed magazines gaining the ability to be more interactive… Websites aren’t? Even putting aside the last 30 years of internet history for a moment, we’ve had interactivity, links, audio and video broadcasted over the web onto mobile devices, for almost a decade!
The iPad is many things. It is a sexy, sleek device with appeal only Apple can deliver. It’s perfect for business travelers who need a larger screen for watching movies while flying to a meeting. It’s ideal for a “family computer,” available in your home’s living room for some light web surfing while watching HDTV on the big screen. It’s suited for work as a light-weight computer for students in high school or college. It’s an e-book reader with more functionality than a Kindle or Nook. But the iPad is not mind-blowingly revolutionary. Certainly not like the iPhone was at its launch three years ago.
Due to the proliferation of media and the rise of the internet over the past couple of decades, newspapers and magazines have continually lost subscriptions and revenue. It’s refreshing to see publishers finally embrace new technology. The iPad does offer content owners – like Condé Nast Publications and the Wall Street Journal – the opportunity to sell advertising placed within their iPad applications. But the iPad is not the sole savior of print media. Despite the hype.
