Can the Apple iPad transform the digital publishing industry?

What is Apples objective here? Where are they going with this? Why isn't it more like a computer? blah...blah...blah... The one thing you can be sure of is that Apple has thought through everything. Every omission and every inclusion is there for a reason. I have a few thoughts on the strategy and where the iPad might be headed.

1. The Screen

This is not and cannot be a reading device. I imagine these type of devices replacing laptops in classrooms eventually but you cannot use a backlit device as a primary reader as it hurts to read for any extended period of time. Just try reading text on your laptop for more than 30 minutes straight. 

If Apple is to compete in the reader space for personal, business and education reading markets it will have to develop some kind of new non-backlit technology that is easy on the eyes. Can a device have this and a screen great for watching movies and playing games as well? I am positive they are already working on it.

I think from looking at it in the hands of some people online that the screen may be a touch large. According to some who have tried it its not much fun to type on and its form factor is just a fraction too big. I can't wait to pick one up in the Apple Store and see how it feels in the hands though.

2. Content

The war for content is on. Amazon has already been in a spat with of its publishers about pricing with Amazon threatening to not only kick them off the Kindle but removing their physical books from Amazon.com as well. What this tells us that Apple is definitely serious about competing in the reader market and they must in that case be working on better screen technology.

Magazine and newspaper publishers have been looking for a way to monetise content and this is the future. They will be fully behind these devices. Will they be distributed as apps like the New York Times? Will there be a virtual magazine rack like the iBook store? Remains to be seen, however there is an opportunity for some bright spark to create an entire publishing platform here. In this YouTube video you can get an idea of the future.

Video and music are a little confused on the iPad, it cannot be a primary storage point with its small amount of memory an music and video can be watched and are more mobile on the iPhone. I think that its possible I would use the iPad at home instead of my laptop to access iTunes and the iTunes Store. I don't really like iTunes on the desktop. I prefer to control iTunes with the remote app on my iPhone. The iPad for me would become the place to buy, download, organise and direct media content to the home theatre.

Applications will be the maker of the iPad though. I can see already tons of real world possibilities in medical, education, stock management, mobile publishing and hospitality that can take the iPad to a whole new world of functionality. The price allows it to be affordable by small businesses. Couple that with games and social networking apps and we could definitely see a revolution with younger generations at home as well.

Will website publishers be praising or cursing the iPad. Does this mean we have to go and build yet another version of our site? I think the praise will be pretty unanimous here from everyone except Adobe. Steve Jobs has now publicly bagged Adobe as being lazy in its implementation of Flash for Mac and will not be supporting the format on iPhone or iPad. According to Steve the world is going HTML 5. I for one agree.

3. Operating System

One of the biggest initial shocks was the use of the iPhone operating system on this device. I was pretty convinced that we would see some kind of variant of OSX here. But after I thought about it, this makes complete sense. The iPad has to be targeted at people who don't own a laptop or desktop Mac at home. The primary audience for this device aren't early adopters or gadget geeks, this device is for the masses. For people who want to get into computing but are daunted by operating systems and file management. 

In this case Apple may have shown its true genius, not only have they created a new category of device, they may just go and open up an entire new category of tech consumer. Those without the want or need for the complexities, those that want to enhance their lives and not make it more complicated. I think that if technophobes can get their hands on this device and see how easy it is they may just go crazy for it.

4. Connectivity

Wifi and 3G are the way forward. Wireless connectivity with this device is what Apple wants to see. Why would you want to have drives and dongles and rubbish tethered to it. Mass storage will be available via apps wirelessly for media and I am sure that some bright spark will invent a great file transfer app if they haven't already. The idea here is simplicity. Apple wants somebody who has never used a computer before to be able to just intuitively use this device. Too many ports and options confuses and scares people.

5. Camera or lack thereof

Your iPhone has a camera for taking pictures and video. The only real value camera would be a video conferencing camera. Now this may have been a cost equation on the hardware but more likely is that Apple doesn't consider mobile devices and associated networks ready for this yet. They maybe concerned that Skype has too much of a dominance in this area and is concerned that the experience of using Skype may not be up to Apple standards. Whatever the reason it will be there eventually.

Conclusion.

Will the iPhone transform the publishing industry? With this version of the device, no. Then again I am not convinced that this device was developed to transform the publishing industry, I think this device has been released to appeal as an alternative to the low cost computing market. Those of us who can't afford a laptop at home and are sick of using cheap Windows machines that are far too difficult to use and maintain. Open standards  pundits say there is not enough control over the device. I say this is the whole point, not all of us want control, we just want stuff to work. Open standards haven't really helped develop and real polished, useful tools. Look at Google, they have some amazing ideas and technologies, most of it however is half baked. This is because there are too many cooks and not enough control over direction.

Apple controls the direction, they control the hardware and software to create the best possible experiences. At the end of the day this is what it is all about. If I can get experiences that help my life become easier and more fun then I am willing to relinquish that control to Apple.