Tonight I’ve read about 1,000 different iPad related posts.  The most succinct of which was from Gizmodo where they list “8 Things That Suck About the iPad” (which was actually the 11 things once all was said and done). 

I agree with the article.  Most of the things they list really do suck (As I said earlier, I’m not exactly thrilled with the product).  But I think there’s value in looking at why a company does something and to understand the strategy behind it.  To make that point I’d like to go through the list and point out why Apple might be acting in the way they are.

No Cameras

Touch Keyboard

No HDMI Out

Adapters, Adapters, Adapters

Let’s be realistic here: Apple is going to release a new version of the iPad some time in the future.  Given that it makes sense for them to leave off features.

I know this sounds like I’m an Apple apologist but that’s not the case.  I just realize the same reality that Apple does which is that enthusiasts will buy the lousy V1.0 and then turn around and buy the improved V2.0 a year later.  So Apple makes a lot more money if they don’t put in every feature up front.

Think about the original iPhone for a second.  No 3g, lousy camera, kind of slow, no GPS, and so on.  All things they remedied by the 3GS and all reasons I personally bought the 3GS even though I already had an iPhone.  That makes 2 sales for Apple simply by leaving stuff out.

No Multitasking

I hate the lack of multi-tasking as much as the next guy but as someone who actually interacts with users I see why Apple did it.  I can’t tell you how many times my department gets a complaint that someone’s computer is slow only to find they have 10 programs open at once.  Users abuse multitasking and blame the device when that abuse slows their system down. 

I do wish Apple would make a few special exceptions (audio programs mainly) but all in all I think lack of multitasking is a plus for them not a minus.

A Closed App Ecosystem

The problem with this complaint is that it has no real impact in the end.  Right now Apple is #1 by far in Smartphone Applications.  Should that change, or even begin to change, they could always throw the doors open and let everyone in.  So it really doesn’t have a negative impact on the company.

More importantly, no one on the consumer end seems to care.  Even the developers who have been rejected generally admit that (a) they still love their iPhone and (b) they still plan to develop for it.  That’s why it’s a big story every time a notable iPhone developer walks away from the platform.   Because it happens so rarely.

No Flash

This is the one that hurts me the most but it’s also the most strategically important point.  Apple wants to control all digital media.  They make no denials on that point.  But in order to do that they have to disrupt Adobe because Flash is still top of the hill when it comes to streaming video.

Apple’s advantage here is that upper income families tend to love their products and they’ve priced the iPad at a point where families making $100,000+ a year can write it off as an incidental purchase.  If Apple can get a significant chunk of that market they can accomplish a very important goal: They can deprive Flash based sites like Hulu of the viewers they value the most

Remember these Flash based sites make their money off of Advertising.  So by depriving them of high income viewers they weaken those sites and by weakening those sites they weaken every company that makes money from them…companies like Adobe.  Which means Apple has created a Win-Win for themselves.  Either sites like Hulu start supporting Quicktime (and paying Apple for the privilege)  or they get weaker allowing Apple to come in as a competitor down the line and kill them off completely. 

In the end, whichever way it goes, the Flash ecosystem is substantially damaged.

Conclusion

Again, I don’t like these “sucky things” any more than the folks at Gizmodo do.  But I see why Apple did them and I have to admit they’re right.  Because I’m going to buy an iPad now and a year or two from now when they add some of the features above I’m probably going to buy that one too.  So if you have to blame anyone don’t blame Apple, blame me.

Tad DeHaven of the Cato institute is my hero for today.  Throughout the Cato Institutes live blog of the State of the Union he was pulling quotes from previous SOTU addresses by George W. Bush in which Bush had said the exact same things.  I’ve always said the irony of liberals hating Bush and Conservatives hating Obama is that both basically pursued the exact same policies and this offers some proof of that.

So for those who have commented or e-mailed claiming I hate Real Time Media I post this to show I’m not against it (I’m just against those who think it’s a news source)

P.S.  For the record my favorite quote of the night came from Katherine Mangu-Ward of Reason.com who said…

I think they might be cheering for "pass[ing] the problem on to another generation of Americans"

(It’s funny because the timing of the applause made it seem like that was exactly what they were cheering for)

I think Apple’s reputation is working against them at this point.   I mean, we all knew the iPad (a.k.a. Apple Tablet) was over hyped.   So a little disappointment was inevitable.  But even with that in mind I feel let down.

Not because it’s a bad product.  At $499 for the base model it’s a phenomenal product.  Both for what it can do (run iPhone Apps) and what it has the potential to do.  I’d encourage everyone to check out gdgt.com’s live coverage of the event and go down to where iWork is shown.  The amount of polish is incredible and it shows that a tablet could replace a notebook/netbook for many people. 

But in the end this devices is still just a big ol’ iPod Touch.  No camera,  or facial recognition, or Flash, or new gestures, or revolutionary e-book platform, or really anything beyond a bigger screen.  Worse it makes some of the iPhone’s shortcoming’s worse (Not being able to view Hulu on the iPad is a real let down).

Don’t get me wrong, I still fully intend to buy one.  I just won’t be too excited for it (which might be a good thing given that it won’t be out for 90 days)

(On a side note, anyone who pre-ordered the JooJoo has to feel pretty stupid right about now)

My days of using the New York Times to rebut free content supporters may be coming to an end.  Today New York Magazine has an article detailing the Times’ plan to charge customers.  I wanted to address some amusing comments by NY Times columnist Thomas L. Friedman that appeared in that article. 

In this quote he’s addressing TimesSelect which was the NY Times’ original attempt at a pay wall (they discontinued it in 2007)…

“As we got into it, it was clear to me I was getting cut off from a lot of my readers in India and China where 50 dollars per year would be equal to a quarter of college tuition,” Friedman recently told me by phone. “What was coming to me anecdotally from my travels was the five worst words that as a columnist you ever want to hear: ‘I used to read you before you went behind the wall.’”

Friedman is now “pro some kind of pay model,” he says. “My own feeling is, we have to do anything we can to raise money,” he told me. “At some point we gotta charge for our product.”

I asked Friedman whether any of the technologists he meets during his globe-trotting had presented any groundbreaking ideas for how to save the Times and journalism. While he’s optimistic about the coming crop of tablets and e-readers, the answer is no. “We’re in a megatransition.

One of the points I desperately try to make on this blog is that technology, while empowering, doesn’t change the basic rules that have always been present in society.  In this case that means people purchasing something are willing to pay what they think it’s worth and no more.  That was true in the days of Horse and Buggies and it’s true now. 

So called “innovations” such as MicroTransactions are just alternate pricing schemes.  Basically a nice way of saying the stuff you’re selling is only worth a penny.  When I was a kid I used “MicroTransactions” to buy cheap gum balls with flavor that only lasted for half a second. 

Which is my point here.  The reason Newspapers are having so much trouble profiting from their content is because their content isn’t worth that much.   When they tried to charge for it no one paid because people are only willing to pay what they think the content is worth and those people simply weren’t willing to pay for Mr. Friedman’s column. 

To prove my point I wanted to look at the most recent NY Times column by Mr. Friedman.  It begins…

Frankly, if I had my wish, we would be on our way out of Afghanistan not in, we would be letting Pakistan figure out which Taliban they want to conspire with and which ones they want to fight, we would be letting Israelis and Palestinians figure out on their own how to make peace, we would be taking $100 billion out of the Pentagon budget to make us independent of imported oil — nothing would make us more secure — and we would be reducing the reward for killing or capturing Osama bin Laden to exactly what he’s worth: 10 cents and an autographed picture of Dick Cheney.

So we’re basically dealing in opinion and cheap political attacks. Not out of line for a NY Times Op Ed but no more intelligent than the stuff you’d get from the college guys protesting the war on my local street corner and they’re giving it away for free. 

Mr. Friedman goes on…

Am I going isolationist? No, but visiting the greater China region always leaves me envious of the leaders of Hong Kong, Taiwan and China, who surely get to spend more of their time focusing on how to build their nations than my president, whose agenda can be derailed at any moment by a jihadist death cult using exploding underpants.

Now we graduate to flat out ignorance.  Anyone even vaguely familiar with either the internal strife in China or the dicey political situation between countries in East Asia knows the leaders of all those countries have plenty on their plates beyond blissful nation building.  One last paragraph before I’m done…

Has anyone noticed the most important peace breakthrough on the planet in the last two years? It’s right here: the new calm in the Strait of Taiwan. For decades, this was considered the most dangerous place on earth, with Taiwan and China pointing missiles at each other on hair triggers. Well, over the past two years, China and Taiwan have reached a quiet rapprochement

Again, anyone who thinks 2 years of peace means something has no grasp of history (or Wikipedia apparently).  In the end things are not more peaceful now than they have been in times past.  China has repeatedly vacillated between peaceful co-existence and threats.  They employ each strategically in order to manipulate the political climate in Taiwan to their advantage.  But in the end China still thinks of Taiwan as a member providence while 85% of the Taiwanese people think of themselves as a separate country. 

So how is it that a NY Times columnist knows less than me, a guy with a $350 a year StratFor subscription?

Because all Friedman has going for him is arrogance.  He has no experience in this area.  He clearly makes no attempt to verify his facts or engage those who disagree with him.  In short, his opinion is worth virtually nothing. 

Which returns me to my original point.  Mr. Friedman is a talented writer and he’s welcome to his opinion but that doesn’t mean it’s worth a lot to the public at large.  That realization tells you more about why newspapers are failing than all the digital ink that’s been devoted to the topic in recent years.

One of the promises of the digital age is a return to meritocracy in the arena of written opinion.  I think we’re a long way from that goal but I can’t help but see the fall of newspapers as a sign that we’re still on the right road.

P.S.  Mashable has a poll asking whether users will pay.  As of this writing 83% say "Probably Not" or "Definately Not" while another 11% aren't sure (answering "Possibly").  I rest my case.

Yesterday Steve Ballmer took a few minutes of his CES keynote to reveal several Microsoft based “slate” PCs.  These are the devices that are designed to compete with the Apple Tablet (a.k.a. iSlate until a more official name is made public).

All in all it was a pretty terrible announcement.  Ballmer came on with a prototype, had no pricing or availability to offer, had a half finished 17 second ad from HP to show and then did a demo that looked bad even by “Microsoft Demo” standards.  Worse yet he stole Apple’s rumored terminology (“Slate” PCs) making it even clearer that this was a hastily put together attempt to “one up” Apple. 

The whole thing was horribly embarrassing and I don’t think it’s a coincidence that Microsoft’s stock dropped after the announcement.

But here’s the important part: Microsoft did the exact right thing with this announcement.

Not everyone can be the cool kid in class and generally when those who aren’t the cool kid succeed it’s because they accept that fact and go with what strengths they do have.  Microsoft is never, ever going to out-do Apple in the flash department.  That’s historically been the case and that’s almost certainly not going to change.

If Microsoft wants to get back to the success they had in the past they have to do two things in regards to Apple.

1.  Be Good Enough

2.  Be Cheaper

That’s how Microsoft wins, that’s how Microsoft has always won and that’s how they’ll win in the future.  As horrible as last night’s announcement was it did one important thing which is to tell consumers that Microsoft will also be in the “Slate” market. 

Steve Ballmer was basically up there saying “Look, if that Apple tablet looks too darn expensive you can do everything it can do with this Windows 7 based tablet [albeit in a much less refined package]”

So in my book yesterday was a success for Microsoft even though it didn’t look like it at the time.  Apple will always seem cooler and the Internet News and Blog sites will always spend more digital ink praising Apple.  Again, that’s always been the case.  But Microsoft always made more money and if they can get a “slate” out the door that fills the two requirements I outlined above I think they’ll continue to make more money in the future.