Designed for the Rest of Us

Over the last 30 years Apple has led several paradigm shifts. First there was the original concept of a personal computer – the ‘Apple’, followed by a string of hits, the Apple II – the Macintosh, the iPod, the iPhone. Tomorrow the media speculates Steve Jobs will introduce a ‘tablet’. I hope so, because I’ve been wanting a viable tablet computer for a long time. It would not surprise me to see Apple introduce a tablet. The interesting thing about Apple is that it tends to not be the first to bring a new product concept to market, rather its often the first to bring the full solution to market. In the case of the Apple II ‘PC’, it was the combination of the hardware and VisiCalc (the first spreadsheet). With the Mac it was WYSIWYG, desktop publishing, the LaserWriter, the desktop metaphor and mouse. With the iPod, it was the combination of tiny hard disk, the iTunes music store, and a music industry intent of digital rights management – legal music in your pocket. With the iPhone it was the integration of phone, email, calendar, addressbook, and internet in your pocket. Throughout, Apple has earned a reputation for ease-of-use and the integration that comes with good design. Most of its products don’t even need a user manual.

I imagine it has to be in the 8 to 10 inch size range, touch-screen, WiFi. In terms of Industrial Design I expect it to look in between a Macbook and iPhone. I expect it to run MacOSX and for there to be the standard productivity apps we see on the iPhone, with a very well executed eReader app. A portfolio application like OneNote would be nice. One thing I know is that it will be accessible – Apple has worked hard over the last five years to ensure the Mac, then the iPod, now the iPhone are accessible. A tablet has great potential as an accessible device. At a minimum the screen magnification and text to speech capabilities in MacOSX on a tablet could be winners for people with low vision. The tablet form factor and large touch screen open up a world of input potential for people with motor and cognitive challenges.

I’ve used a few tablets and got one of the first Kindles, I’m no stranger to the form factor. What would make a tablet from Apple a hit? I think it will be about the content. I’ve long advocated that the introduction of micro-payments would lead to the creation of quality online content. I think Apple has the infrastructure and the audience to support this. Have a way for me to pay tiny amounts for the content I use and thereby open up a new paradigm in online publishing. I’d be very happy for a $10/month subscription to be shared among all the people who provide me with content. If Apple really pulled this off we’d see the emergence of new magazine, weekly news, newspapers, etc all designed for this form factor. That’s something I’ve been waiting for a long time.

What are the wildcards? What would delight me? An option to use a stylus (Inkwell), to dock it vertically for charging and connecting a keyboard and mouse.

And if all this does not come to pass, I’d be very happy to see Apple ‘just’ make a great eReader that sits in between my MacBook and iPhone and gives me access to my iTunes content, news, blogs, web, books, etc. Let’s see what comes to pass …