Entertainment, news and education. Yes, it has some of the capabilities of a laptop and a giant iPhone… and there may be some that want to use it like that but what it is absolutely going to dominate at, is watching movies, sports games, music events and providing a new, rich reading experience.
Erik Qualman writes an excellent post here about the possibilities for enhanced knowledge transfer for educational books through the iPad. Imagine no more scribbling in text books or getting a second hand Economics book with the notes of a D- student masquerading as useful insights (I am still bitter about that one!). Instead, you will get the best notes from the smartest brains, even the authors themselves and be able to search for complimentary information all in the same place – very cool.
The latest industries to be disrupted by emerging technology, music and print, can start to tip toe their way back in by utilizing these platforms. Will people (micro) pay to have their chosen sections of the Times, Sun, NYT, FT downloaded to their tablet each day so they can read it on the train without attacking the person sitting next to them with a load of paper – yeah I reckon they might. How about the latest blockbuster while they are on a 4 hour train or plane journey? Definitely. The highlights from their team’s win in the Cup the day before as they lie in bed on Sunday morning…yes please!
Don’t expect it to do something that already exists. If Apple are good at one thing then its leading innovation and I think the entertainment industry as a whole is the most obvious application for the ipad and it should present a wealth of opportunities for the producers and gatekeepers of the content.
The iPhone or HTC (in my case) are too small to watch anything longer than 15-20mins worth of footage and people don’t want to hump their heavy laptops around everywhere they go. The iPad (I should point out that I am yet to touch one!) looks the perfect size to consume entertainment and that means new business models can start to appear – micro payments, freemium, sponsorship, content marketing etc.
What say you?
