I was in PC World the other day and another customer asked the salesman “What’s that?” The salesman replied “It’s a Mac, basically it’s a bit like a Windows PC, but different” And with that the customer bought a PC. If Apple can’t solve this conundrum then it’s never going to grow sales.

There were variations on this theme. Why do I bring this up now? Well, the other day I was in PC World and a guy picked up an Android tablet and asked the salesman “What’s this?” Salesman replied “it’s a bit like an iPad, but different”

Game. Set. Match?

30 year itch

Apple has put the word revolutionary in nearly every press release it has sent out in the past ten or so years. The Dalmatian iMac was revolutionary, the iPod was revolutionary the iPod sock was revolutionary; every version of iLife has been revolutionary. Which is funny because just about the only things all those technologies have in common is the fact that they’re not very revolutionary.

During the war (that’ll be World War II to give it its full official title) the US military were doing sums on how to kill as many people as possible with as much accuracy as possible by hand and with mechanical adding machines. Imagine how many more people they’d be able to kill if they had some sort of electronic calculating machine thought some bright spark and ENIAC (Electronic Numerical Integrator And Computer) was born.

Like all good military projects that involve computers ENIAC was delivered a bit late: 1946 to be precise. Still, the impact was unprecedented. Overnight the world changed and at first nobody could tell – ENIAC brought a jump in computing power so significant that today it would be akin to upgrading from an original Mac to a Mac Pro with 32GB of RAM. Boom as Steve Jobs might say. Soon, however, people realised what this new device could offer, clones and similar machines were made and did everything from calculating missile tables to managing the payroll and stock control of the J Lyons and Co. empire.

Then for 30 years or so that’s the way things were; computers got faster and more reliable, they got ever more powerful and more useful and they took up a lot of space. Then Steve Jobs met Steve Wozniak and that was the end of that. Well, the story is a touch more complicated in reality, but there isn’t space here to go into it fully.

Where the Apple I was geek cool the Apple II revolutionised computing, it cut the room-sized computer down to size and made it mainstream accessible. It’s hard to express quite what an impact the Apple II had. Computers were no more just for the army and large enterprise, mere mortals could use them to do stuff like spreadsheets, word processing and, as it turns out, kill many, many people – digital people in games at least.

Of course, many people see the 1984 Mac as a revolutionary product too, but was it as seismic a shift as ENIAC and Apple II? Probably not. As hard as it might be for Steve Jobs to swallow, the Mac was just a natural progression. The computer was still personal even with its fancy new WIMP acronym. It wasn’t as revolutionary as the Apple II or ENIAC. Insanely great? Perhaps, but world changing? Not so much. The Mac didn’t turn an industry on its head as much as it made existing hardware easier to use.

And so here we are, roughly thirty years since the Apple II and 60 odd years since ENIAC. What if we’re looking at the iPad and comparing it to the wrong era? Instead of looking at how the iPad compares to the laptop, netbook or iMac, perhaps it’s bigger than that. Where the ENIAC brought powerful computing into big business and the Apple II brought it to the home what if the iPad is bringing computing to some other as yet undefined place?

Perhaps the iPad is the ENIAC or Apple II of its day and we just can’t see it yet. Blinded by 30 years of ‘the industry standard’ just as IBM and others were when the Apple II launched. No doubt that some of the good men and women of the 1950s, 60s and 70s super computer generation looked at the Apple II and asked: But what’s it for? It’s a question I’ve heard in reference to the iPad from more than one or two of the 1980s, 90s and 00s PC generation recently.

We can’t possibly know if the iPad will prove to be that revolutionary step right now because we’re living in the past most of the time. Perhaps the iPad is just a fad, but maybe Apple has just kick-started its second and the worlds third computing revolution. The iPad might just be a post-PC device after all – truly revolutionary.

* I knew about this well before the West Wing did it, but none of you will believe me so, um, Shoehorned West Wing Reference into a post FTW!

Apple Sells One Million iPads

CUPERTINO, California—May 3, 2010—Apple® today announced that it sold its one millionth iPad™ on Friday, just 28 days after its introduction on April 3. iPad users have already downloaded over 12 million apps from the App Store and over 1.5 million ebooks from the new iBookstore.

We’ve not had the usual early ‘magical sales delight and amaze us’ Apple press release. So, I’m wondering if they’re waiting for the 28 day threshold, for the iPad 1 we had:

300,000 in one day,

1 million in 28 days

2 million in 60 days and

3 million in 80 days

I looked at the various queuing pictures on Engadget

March 11th was the US release date and March 25th it went (sort of) global. So, 8th ish of April for the 5 million? 10 million?

Or, all those people queuing aren’t really buying them and the lack of a sales figure press release means that the numbers aren’t that good. <– Unlikely.

So someone decided that they’d really, really like an iPad 2 and that they’d like one on the day it launched. they made it to their nearest Apple (or other retailer) and stood in line to make sure they got one.

Retarded, idiots, saddos, people with no lives and morons are just a few of the names I’ve seen these people called on Twitter today. What I find strange is why the name callers care.

I couldn’t give a toss if someone I don’t know wants to spend a few hours on a nice day outside an Apple store. Why do others? Surely the process of judging and hating the queuers requires more mental and physical exercise than simply not caring?

I’m sure it’s not envy, as standing in a queue is hardly a task worth envying. Perhaps it’s because Apple has a reputation for fanboys and people feel more at ease having a go at ‘them’.

At the end of the queue, however, they are just people standing in a line to buy a ‘thing’ I refuse to hate or judge them just because I wouldn’t do the same.

I’ve read as many iPad will be a failure blog posts as I could to see what the people who have the opposite opinion to me were saying. Most, if not all seem to revolve around a sentiment that I really, really can’t agree with and it’s this:

People want what they already have.

They have USB ports they want them in everything, they have flash enabled browsers they want them in everything, they have multitasking they want it in everything. The list goes on. I’m just not convinced this is true.

The iPad lacks USB?

The most popular reason for the iPad to have USB seems to be so that I can transfer my pictures on to it and this is a perfectly reasonable request, however it’s not a deal breaker for a couple of reasons. First, there’s an adaptor and yes, I know that it’s extra cost and you might lose it, but there it is – you can transfer your pictures to it. Second, and this is perhaps the most important point in my view, in a few years all cameras will transfer images wirelessly. It just makes sense. I have an Eye-Fi card that does it for me already and that’s the way it’s going to be. Not now, not today, but soon.

The iPad lacks Flash?

The arguments sparked by a lack of Flash on the iPad seem to have split the tech journalists and bloggers right down the middle. I’ve seen some compelling arguments that Apple should just make it’s own flash player for the iPhone OS if they think Adobe’s is that bad, but on the other hand I’ve read compelling evidence that Flash is a big pile of technical hurt and it would be better for everyone if it we take it out back and put it out of our misery. I can’t say that a lack of flash on my iPhone has caused me any real problems, but obviously without an iPad to test I can’t say the same would be true on that device. However, as Kevin Costner’s dead dad said:

“If you build it they will come”

By this I mean if the iPad takes off in any meaningful sense all those flash only sites listed on that hilarious blog post are going to run, at speed, to whatever technology enables them to work on an iPad. Be that an iApp, HTML5, HTML5.5 GTI, etc, etc. If the iPad doesn’t sell I’m sure lots of tech pundits will say it’s because it lacked flash, but I don’t think that will really be the reason.

The iPad lacks Multitasking?

Well yes it does and as it stands I think this will be a restriction for many people. I currently have Twitter, Safari, TextEdit and Mail open, but the fact remains that I’m only using TextEdit right now. What I think the iPad needs is not a multitasking OS necessarily, but an intelligent switcher. A switcher that would allow you to swipe between apps rather than going back to the homepage to move between them. I wouldn’t be surprised to find that Apple doesn’t add either a switcher or multitasking for quite sometime, but I find it hard to believe they are simply being belligerent about multitasking or that they don’t have iPhones and iPads running more than one app at a time already.

The iPad lacks a webcam?

It does. How many people actually use them? Not one of my contacts has EVER suggested a webcam chat even when we’ve been using iChat with video enabled Macs. I’m sure I’m not alone and I’m sure there are other’s who do this all the time, but it’s a feature the iPad doesn’t need.

So why will the iPad succeed?

What I think people want is a product that does what they want. It’s that simple. It also has to make money for the company that make it. Tis a two way street.

Which leads me on to the reason I think the iPad will be successful and it has nothing to do with the hardware.

The reason the iPad will be successful is because it acts as a window to an important store front. Music, video and books in one place at one time with a simple one-click mechanism. I want to watch 2001 a Space Odyssey, but don’t have it on DVD? I simply press a few times on the magical window and hey presto there we go. I want to read the book on which the film is based, oh click here. Are you sure? Yes, and whilst I’m here I’ll buy the soundtrack too. Easy, simple, straightforward. And best of all? It’s not just Apple that’s making money here, it’s the companies behind those items and as long as they’re making money for doing nothing but providing content they’re going to be happy.

But it’s not just the music, video and books, it’s the apps too. I know a few developers have had issues with the App Store and its processes, but it must be worth something to somebody because there are lots and lots of apps on there and I imagine they’re making money from those apps because more and more keep being added. I’m not suggesting that App store developers are rolling in the green stuff, but there has to be a compelling reason to develop for the App store or the number of apps wouldn’t keep rising. As with all things: Follow the money.

The reason people are saying the iPad will fail is because they are comparing it to what they already have and not seeing it as a third way device.

The iPad isn’t a computer for non-geeks it’s an information device for everyone. This is why it IS the magical third-category that netbooks and slates failed to provide. Its not a computer at all and that’s the difference.