Playing game in iPAD – advantage and cons

Apple’s new iPad is a game changer for publishing, education and other sectors, including Canada’s wireless carriers that could find consumers snapping up the device that Apple is selling without having it locked into any network service.

It could take some time for the full implications of the new device that Apple CEO Steve Jobs described as “so much more intimate than a laptop” and “so much more capable than a smartphone” to be felt, but experts and industry watchers say it could change the way we work and play just as the iPod brought MP3 music to the masses and the iPhone catapulted smartphones into the mainstream market.

While Canada’s major carriers were mum Wednesday when asked if they have plans to introduce the iPad on their networks, Richard Smith, professor in Simon Fraser University’s school of communication, said Jobs’s move to end the subsidy model that locks consumers into long-term contracts with wireless carriers could change the way Canadians buy wireless devices.

“Apple is disrupting their business model which is to lock people into three-year plans,” said Smith. “There is no subsidy; Apple is just selling it as it is.

“It is very disruptive. It could be a year from now people will say, ‘So you have a contract with your phone, what’s that all about?’ People will wonder why did you ever bother doing that.

“It is very scary for phone companies.”

Not scary for Anthony Lacavera, chairman of Globalive, a newcomer to the wireless market with its Wind Mobile that is taking on the incumbents by giving consumers the option of no-contract, unlimited mobile voice and data service. Lacavera sees the new iPad as a potential win for his company.

“I think it’s another breakthrough for Apple,” he said. “I think it is an amazing device.

“One of the things that is fantastic about our offerings is we are out there with truly unlimited data plans. One of the reasons we designed our plan and our network to be able to handle unlimited data was because of devices like the iPad.

“We obviously want our customers to be able to use devices like the iPad without worrying, ‘Am I going to get a $300 bill.’”

Lacavera said he expects Wind service to be launched in Vancouver in March or April. It was launched recently in Toronto and Calgary. Lacavera said he can’t confirm whether or not the 3G version of the iPad will work on the Wind network, but he expects it will.

“We believe that it will, it certainly will at some point,” he said. “Apple has not released details on that that we can find. They did say any network.”

Wind’s unlimited data offering is $35 a month, considerably lower than other Canadian carriers. However, that only applies to Wind coverage areas, so outside of those centres Lacavera said roaming charges would apply amounting to 30 to 50 cents per megabyte.

Canadian pricing hasn’t been announced, but Apple starts releasing the first of its iPads — the Wi-Fi model — in 60 days, starting at $499 US for a 16 gigabyte version. Jobs said the 3G model will come another month later, with the top 3G-enabled iPad to sell at $829 US. Google’s new Nexus phone is also being sold as a stand-alone without being locked into a carrier contract, and Lacavera said some Wind customers are already reporting they are using it on the Wind network.

While unveiling the long-awaited device, Jobs suggested that since it wouldn’t be locked into any carrier, the 3G iPad could be sold to people outside the United States.

A year or two from now Wayne MacPhail, journalism professor at Ryerson University and president of the marketing and communications company w8nc, said he expects to see his classroom full of iPads.

“I think in a year, two years’ time I’m going to look out to a classroom of students who all have these things,” he said.

“They have done an outstanding job on the price.”

MacPhail is among those who see the iPad as a Kindle killer.

“As I said on Twitter, the Kindle looks like a one-trick pony on its way to the glue factory right now,” MacPhail said.

Jobs also took a shot at netbooks in his presentation — “the problem is netbooks aren’t better at anything,” he said, evoking laughter from the audience. MacPhail said the iPad “kicks a hole in the netbook market.”

“The experience of running an iPad versus a cheap netbook running Windows XP — there won’t be any comparison,” he said.

Apple’s addition of the optional keyboard to go with the iPad is the final blow for netbooks.

“If you can throw a keyboard on there you have basically a baby iMac, so there goes the need for a laptop,” said MacPhail.

Power user and self-described “Apple fanboy” Warren Frey wasn’t overly impressed by the highly hyped release. Even though he bought an iPhone in the U.S. before it arrived in Canada, unwilling to wait for the device to be offered here, and he has a MacBook Pro, he’s in no similar rush to get an iPad.

“I’m a little disappointed,” he said, adding that while the new iPad seems to be all about bringing content in, it is less about creating it.

“As a content producer myself, I do a lot of high-end video for the Web,” said Frey, whose company Freyburg Media is a video production boutique in Vancouver’s Yaletown. The iPad isn’t up to the high end video editing that Frey needs, and since he already has an iPhone, he doesn’t want to pay for another in-between device,

“I can do a lot of this stuff on the iPhone,” he said of the iPad functions. “It’s not ideal but it’s also not another 600 bucks out of my pocket.

“It’s by no means a bad device, I just don’t know if I’m the target for it.”

Alfred Hermida, a professor who leads the integrated journalism program at the University of B.C.’s graduate school of journalism said while there may have been too much hype around the release of the iPad, its impact will be long-term.

“We have a tendency to underestimate the long-term impact of these kinds of devices,” he said. “What Apple does really well is combine form and function.”

It’s not only the device but what people will be able to do with it that will deliver the long-term impact from the iPad.

“It is less about the hardware and much more about the user experience,” said Hermida. “One thing is the delivery system, the technology and the other thing is what we do with these devices.”

Just as the iPhone has much less impact than the iPhone combined with Apple’s app store, it is the e-bookstore, iTunes, the app store and other potential functions that will make the iPad transformative for behaviour — and not just a cool-looking device.

“I think is where the game changer is coming,” said Hermida.

Content producers, whether they are in the business of publishing newspapers — one area that is looking to Apple’s new innovation as a saviour from diminishing revenue and readership — or in the business of books, will have to adapt if they are to maximize the potential of the iPad.

For textbooks, Hermida said that means transforming them into dynamic multimedia products that can be updated and enriched with content that goes beyond basic text.

“It is not about replicating the print experience but about creating new experiences,” he said.

Pete Quily, an adult ADHD coach, who is a longtime Apple fan and who once sold Apple computers, said aside from the name — which he predicts will elicit jokes for some time before people stop laughing — the new iPad “is pretty amazing.”

“The future really is something like this,” he said. “It’s kind of a game changer.

“Yes you can surf the web on your iPhone and it’s cool, but this is 10 inches of real estate versus the screen on your iPhone.

“Apple has really thought this out. They have worked with content providers and anyone who is producing long-form content really wants to get a handle on this.

“The smart media companies will want to take a long hard look at this and what can be done with it.”

CourseSmart, an e-textbook publisher, is already anticipating the iPad will make e-textbooks the norm.

“We have seen there are lots of students out there interested in e-textbooks; our sales in 2009 were 400-per-cent higher than in 2008,” said Frank Lyman, executive vice-president of CourseSmart.

“I think this device will really take that to the next level, this will take that to a whole other group of people out there who will say, ‘Why aren’t my textbooks digital.’”

Lyman said the Kindle “user experience just isn’t what college students want.”

“This is going to unlock a whole new group of students who aren’t already using e-books,” he said.

Apple’s just-announced iPad looks like an iPhone on steroids, and it boasts a price tag that’s a lot lower than people feared. But many of the enticing rumors about Apple’s new tablet—such as chatter about a built-in camera, monthly TV subscriptions, and support for Verizon’s 3G network—turned out to be dead wrong. Also: no iPhone for Verizon, at least not yet.
You can check out the details on the new iPad right here, and don’t get me wrong: judged on its own, away from all the gargantuan hype, and considering its $499 price tag (for the 16GB model), Apple’s new tablet is certainly one sexy piece of gadgetry.

But … is it a category-changer, like the iPod and the iPhone before it? That’ll be hard to judge right away, and I still need to see the thing in person before I start making any sweeping generalizations.

That said, some of the coolest would-be features that had been rumored for the iPad failed to materialize Wednesday, starting with …

No 3G support for Verizon
One of the earliest rumors about the iPad (which I’d still rather call the iTablet) was that it would come with embedded 3G support in addition to Wi-Fi. Well, the 3G part was true (monthly pre-paid plans will start at $14 for 250MB of data, or $29/month unlimited), but alas, no Verizon; instead, we’re stuck with good ‘ole AT&T (which is either a good or a bad thing, depending on how you feel about AT&T).

No jaw-droppingly new user interface
One of the most amazing things about the original iPhone was its ground-breaking touch interface; just pinch to zoom into a Web page! Tap to turn on the speakerphone! Swipe to flip through your photos! So maybe it was only natural that many of us gadget hounds (myself included) thought that Apple would come up with some new, “Minority Report”-style interface for the iPad … perhaps some cool haptic feedback for the virtual QWERTY keypad, or maybe (as outlined in some recent patent filings) the ability to sense a finger that’s hovering near the screen but not touching it. What we got, instead, was … pretty much the same touch UI as on the iPhone, except with a lot more room. Not bad, but not all that revolutionary, either.

No built-in camera
The iPhone has a camera, the MacBook has a camera … heck, even the new iPod Nano has a camera (well, a video-only camera, anyway). So, what about the iPad? Ahhh … nope, and that’s especially disappointing given the chatter from the Wall Street Journal that Apple has been toying with facial-recognition software that could potentially be used to, say, identify the various members of your family and deliver their own, customized iPad interface.

No Flash support
When, oh when, Apple, will you let us view Flash videos and Web modules on the mobile version of Safari? Who knows, but it’s definitely not starting with the iPad, which is just as bereft of Flash support as the iPhone and iPod Touch are.

No user-replaceable battery
Steve Jobs claims that the iPad will come with an impressive 10 hours of battery life and a full month of stand-by time. Pretty cool, but as with the iPhone, the iPod Touch, and the latest MacBooks, the iPad battery comes sealed in the case, and there’s no way to swap in a new one yourself.

No TV subscriptions
One of the more intriguing recent rumors was that Apple was going around to all the TV and cable networks, trying to sell them on the idea of monthly TV subscriptions that viewers would be able to watch on iTunes, the iPhone, Apple TV, or … the iPad. Word even had it that Disney’s Bob Iger was in San Francisco today, all set to announce a new content deal with Apple, but … nope, didn’t happen. (The writing for this non-event was on the wall, thanks to a recent New York Times story that reported that TV execs looked over Apple’s subscription proposals and said “thanks, but no thanks.”)

No iPhone software 4.0 announcement
Yet another interesting rumor had it that the reason that there hadn’t been a big iPhone software update lately was that the new code was too intertwined with the iPad OS, and therefore we’d get a big announcement today for iPhone software 4.0—complete with full-on app multitasking, UI enhancements, and other goodies. The rumor sure sounded plausible (and hey, the part about the new iPhone software being closely interwoven with the iPad may well be true), but the Apple event came and went Wednesday, with nary a sign of iPhone software 4.0.

Last but not least … no iPhone for Verizon
Besides the iPad itself, the Apple rumor that seemed to generate the most excitement was the possibility that Steve Jobs would announce the end of Apple’s exclusive iPhone deal with AT&T … and announce an iPhone for Verizon at the same time. After all, most believe that the Apple-AT&T deal is set to expire this summer anyway, so why not get a jump on the news? But as with the talk about the iPad coming with support for Verizon’s 3G network … well, maybe we’ll get a Verizon iPhone in June or July, but we didn’t see one today.

So, what were you hoping for Wednesday that didn’t quite happen?