I’m a PC and you may be a Mac, but my take on Apple’s tablet, is well cynical. Yes it looks beautiful, you know that whatever apple does now, has a specific design ethic. The fact that all reports seem to point to an oversized iPhone/iPod, don’t seem to be of the world changing type. Here the device is insignificant, as compared to, controlled software, and the idea of paid subscription content.
What Apple have done with iTunes, basically a sophisticated online, one stop shop for media, is still driving their hardware production. It may seem like a simple idea, but Apple have basically created a closed environment. It’s not a new idea, plenty of premium sites, expect you to pay to subscribe.
That sort of subscription model is not new, and most of us are familiar with the analogue model. The paperboy.
Probably the most powerful, marketing change that comes with the iPad, is the perceived transformation of print media to digital. Get your early morning news sustainably, cut out the middle men. No paper use, no printers to set type, no trees dying to create your morning read.
Let’s face facts here, the design and production values that Apple bring to the mobile computing market, make their devices must have in some circles. The marketing nouse though, that created an ever expandable one stop shop for media of all kinds, is really the key to Apple’s success. If they manage to get all of the major news providers, to provide content for the iPad, via iTunes, print media may actually die. Digital Media though, may actually be monopolised.
If the iPad is going to revolutionise anything, it will probably be how we pay for data we access online. Current news will become a commodity, via journalists, employed or freelance. It’ some how scary, and paid for internet content, may drive a lot of peeps away. but if you want to set up a shop, Apples got it!
iPad, Trend setter or Follower?
You must log in to post a comment.