Do You Really Want a Touch-Screen Notebook Computer?

I'll admit it, one of my pet peeves is going to my portable computer, opening it up, and finding somebody's fingerprints all over my screen. I have at times found myself telling people, "Please point, don't touch", when they're drawing my attention to a detail displayed on my computer monitor. When I have to sit and stare at a screen, I want it to be nice and clean. And I'm far from a "neat freak".

The idea of touch screens on portable computers is interesting. I can see how some of the elements of the iPad interface would translate well to a portable computer, or even a desktop computer. But even with an iPad, sometimes you move to a new location, experience a shift in the lighting, or find that something is stuck to its surface and... it's cleaning time! I suspect that the few times I would want to use a touch-screen interface on a fully featured portable or desktop computer would be vastly outnumbered by the number of times I would find myself wishing for a clean screen, and that in most of those occasions I can do just fine with a mouse or trackpad.

Perhaps the concept will work better on a computer that's more of a tablet than a portable, an iPad-plus. Microsoft appears to believe so. But I'm presently leaning toward Steve Jobs-style skepticism that, once the novelty wears off, people will get much use out of touch screens on their regular computers.

And it Should Walk on the Water - And Be Free!

Consumer expectations like this lead me to believe that, should Apple produce a 7" (or so) tablet computer, it will be sold as an iPod.

Update: Upon reflection, I would consider branding the mid-sized device the "iPad Reader" - to attempt to position it as something other than a budget iPad, and also to provide clear notice up-front that the functionality will be a bit different because it's primary purpose is for reading.

A Walled Garden, Yes, But....

A persistent criticism of Apple is that, with the iPhone and iPad, they have created a "walled garden", limiting what users can do on the devices and restricting which vendors can sell applications that will run on them. For example,

I have no plans to be captured by the Apple ecosystem. It is the height of control-freakery, with Apple telling app developers and even journalists whether what they sell through its storefront is acceptable. Apple wants customers to live in its gorgeous walled garden. No thanks, I prefer to make my own decisions.

It's a fair criticism to a point. Inherent to its business model, Apple does restrict what you can do with your iPhone and iPad. From the technological side, the restrictions keep malicious programs, viruses, worms and the like off of the devices, as well as avoiding technology that causes frequent crashes or drastically shortens battery life (sorry, Flash). Apple was savvy enough to recognize that users would blame it, not software companies, for crashes or for short battery life. Second, yes, by controlling the storefront Apple gets a cut from every product it sells. Apple has made some mistakes in excluding apps from its App Store, and imposes restrictions that keep certain apps out of its store, but pretty much all of that content can be accessed through the browser build right into the device.

The complaint reminds me of the early days of computers, with the introduction of the Mac and mouse. If you remember that era you may recall hearing from PC aficionados that a GUI was too limiting - that you were removed from the real power of the line command, a faster and more efficient means of controlling your machine. That's true to a degree, but even when they were forced to use line commands, most users learned little more than they needed to learn in order to run basic software packages. With improvements to GUIs, most computer users never even fire up a command prompt. Yes, probably 5 - 10% of computer users like and benefit from at least occasional use of a command prompt, most computer users were happy to see it go. The iPad and iPhone can be accused of continuing in that direction: making that same 5 - 10% of the potential user base grumble about it being difficult to program or customize iPads, the pros and cons of "jailbreaking" a device, etc., but producing an easy-to-use stable product that the other 90% of users enjoy.

But if you look at things from another perspective, the iPhone and iPad have, at least, made the cage a lot larger. Consider what was available on the market before the iPhone. If I wanted to develop a software product for the Blackberry or Palm, what was the mechanism through which I would have been able to push it out to the masses? What about a cell phone app - what if I wanted to produce software to run on Sprint's phones? What if I wanted (or want) to sell a VOIP app that will run on any cell phone and let people switch from their cellular minutes to making calls over an Internet connection at a coffee shop? Apple has produced beautiful devices that make us recognize that a cellular phone or tablet-type device is in fact a computer and is capable of doing more than its maker allows (unless you jailbreak the device) but while you're still in a cage, the cage is enormous as compared to what other handset manufacturers previously allowed (and in many cases what they presently allow).

I don't know if the author is a power user. I don't know if he's off writing apps for his Android phone, or if he considers it to be an exercise in freedom to watch Flash videos through a cell phone browser. I suspect that, as with most of the people who used to talk up the freedom and power of the PC's historic command line, it's an "I like to know that I could modify the OS and write my own Apps if I wanted to, and learned how, even though there's no realistic chance of either actually occurring." Let's say, however, that he wants to write and market an app for Android devices. Does he have a realistic option other than selling it through Google's app store or Amazon's app store? If he produces a product that competes with an add-on service from a cell phone carrier, can he be sure that his cellular service won't block or disable the app? That is, where in this market can I find the garden that is not walled - let alone one that has not been forced to expand in response to the iPhone?

As tablet computers become more powerful and capable, we may move into a future in which your cell phone can truly be your personal computer - use it on the go with it's built-in screen or use a wireless connection to have it power a monitor and keyboard for full computer functionality. If that's what the market wants, that's where Apple, Amazon, and the larger world of Android devices will go.

After the Fire

E.D. Kain wonders what Apple will do in response to the Kindle Fire. When I try to predict what Apple will do, at least as I remember it, I'm usually wrong. That said, I'm going to take a stab at answering.

The Amazon Fire is a " $199 gadget" going up against the $499+ iPad? As I've already suggested, I think that if the Fire shows that there's a significant market for a mini-tablet computer, something that's sized in between the iPad and iPhone, Apple will add such a device to its line-up.

Top this off with Amazon’s cloud storage, the ridiculously cheap Amazon Prime service ($79/year gets you cloud storage, free 2-day shipping, and a bunch of online streaming video) and the new cloud-based Silk web-browser, and the Kindle Fire looks hard to beat.

I would venture that if offering an inexpensive library of streamable content proves to be a huge selling point for the Fire, Apple will offer such a service. If it finds that adding features to iCloud will better position it against a popular competing product, I expect that it will add those features. (So far this doesn't seem like much of a challenge, even with my poor track record.)

Fundamentally, the issue is not so much that "Amazon has a great new device that nobody else has been able to create." It's that Amazon is selling an Amazon-branded device that is comparable to mini-tablets unsuccessfully marketed by other vendors. As Kain observes,

The biggest threat to Apple, however, is the infrastructure that Amazon offers its customers. Few of Apple’s competitors already have a large online offering of music, streaming video, and eBooks. Amazon has that in spades, and a healthy e-Reader business.

That is, unlike the company that produces the Fire, Amazon can offer a tempting array of content to buyers and, for that reason, can expect to sell a considerable number of devices at a price point that not even the manufacturer can match (i.e., Amazon can treat the Fire as a loss leader) while offering a product that is a lot more appealing to the consumer.

But that's not all bad news for Apple.

If Amazon effectively monopolizes the low end of the market, offering tablets at a loss in order to sell subscriptions to Amazon Prime and to push book sales and movie rentals, it will make it considerably more costly and difficult for manufacturers (other than its suppliers) to stay in the tablet game. As much as Amazon may be willing to sacrifice profits for market share, its suppliers will need to turn a profit - not just for R&D, but simply to stay in business, so the price can only go "so low". At some level, Amazon will have to choose between pressuring suppliers for cheaper product and starving them of the capital they need to develop and manufacture quality products. A reduced number of manufacturers would also likely translate into a significantly reduced incentive for Google to produce an OS for tablets, particularly if the bulk of Android users were making purchases through Amazon's app store instead of Google's.

If Amazon were only interested in pushing out its "Prime" content, it could do so through an iPad app. If Amazon were primarily interested in selling tablets, it can do so without having Amazon-branded tablets. The actual competition would appear to be for the most lucrative corner of the market, the sale and rental of music, video and apps, from which the store owner can take a @30% cut.

As much as Apple likes to sell hardware at high margins, I expect that their business plan contemplates a future in which tablet hardware is a commodity item and the "real money" comes from the store, so I really don't think that there's anything in the Fire that would take Apple by surprise.

Will Mini-Tablets Carry the Day

Everywhere I look it seems that I'm reading that Amazon has released a major competitor to the iPad, in the form of a small tablet computer that runs a modified version of Android. Amazon is, of course, attempting to grab market share and is reportedly selling these small tablets at a loss. Apple has a very comfortable lead in the tabloid market and sells its products at very healthy margins, but can be expected to respond to any significant competitor. Good stuff for consumers.

But when I read articles that suggest that a smaller, plastic notebook is the first serious competitor to the iPad because "it seriously undercut[s] the iPad in price," I can't help but think that the author has all the sophistication of somebody who would suggest that the Yugo was the first serious competitors to Volvo. No, I'm not suggesting that Amazon's quality is comparable to Yugo's, but you really do have to look at more than "it's a tablet". You should be considering size, quality, components and functionality when comparing products, not just declare, "They both have tires, gas motor, seats - they're cars! Who wouldn't choose the Yugo?"

Rumor has it that Steve Jobs consistently rejected proposals to produce a smaller version of the iPad. I am not going to venture a guess as to whether that was a, "No, it would be a bad product," or, "No, I don't want to increase our costs and divide our market by making a smaller iPad when we're functionally the only game in town," but one way or another Amazon is doing real world market research into the viability of smaller tablet computers. If the "Kindle Fire"¹ sells millions of units, I don't expect Apple to take long to offer a competitively priced mini-iPad.

I don't want a smaller tablet computer - but if I were a Kindle user I might consider the "Fire" if it were time to upgrade. Even there, with the ability to compare products, I would be inclined toward the larger iPad screen, but if cost were a serious issue.... Let's just say, it will be interesting to watch this play out.

What I see in looking at the Fire, and at the expansion of "Amazon Prime" streamed content, is a potential - and the foundation of a plan - to offer serious competition to the iPad, but I see the Fire as being more of a serious attack on the Nook, crossed with a perception that it's a good time to strike at Netflix.
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1. Are Amazon's references to fire in relation to its book readers part of a marketing strategy? For me, they evoke Fahrenheit 451, but I don't think that's the marketing message Amazon intends.

"He Said 'Pad'... Huh huh huh huh"

A surprising number of media outlets seems to be going into "Beavis and Butthead" mode over the Apple iPad. Either repeating or "covering" the "joke":

Then there are the jokes bouncing around the Web about the name's suggestion of a feminine-hygiene product. A headline in the Winnipeg Free Press reads: "The iPad Is a Really Bad Name. Period."

You know, there's just nothing particulary funny or taboo about the word "pad".

If Steve Jobs declares a larger version, branding the two options as 'mini' and 'maxi', I'll concede that it would be a bad branding decision. (But guess what - he hasn't.)