Why consumers will flock to iPads

Over at CNET, Rafe's Radar needs a tune-up. Rafe Needleman analyzes the potential for the purportedly forthcoming Apple iPad as if it were a computer. Yet the key to designing a winning product is gearing the design around the right usage scenarios. The right usage scenarios are highly unlikely to be the winning scenarios for a computing device of a different form factor.

Losing usage scenarios

The losing usage scenarios are extremely evident. Apple would lose badly were they to design an iPad with any of the following primary scenarios:

• a netbook
• a general-purpose computer
• a phone
• a notebook / note-taking device
• a vertical-market data entry devices.

None of these scenarios would work, because the form-factor, control mechanism or market size is wrong:

• Any computer replacement needs a keyboard. (Although alternative input styles mitigate this somewhat.)
• The purported size of the iPad is too large to use as a phone.
• The mediocre history of Windows TabletPCs prove that note-taking is not the winning form factor for a Tablet. (The Pulse Smartpen is an example of a winning notetaking form-factor.)
• Again, TabletPCs history demonstrates the limited volumes involved in vertical-market data entry devices.

Moreover, Axiotron have proven that a Mac Tablet focused on a graphic design sketchpad is simply too small a market for Apple to bother entering.

Winning usage scenarios

Winning usage scenarios are not too difficult to find:

• eBook reading
• portable video
• portable gaming.

Beware Amazon, Sony and Nintendo!

The keys to each of these scenarios are three-fold:

1. Each depends on consumable media.
2. Each are already consumed in similar form-factors.
3. Each represent sufficiently-sized markets to support Apple's desired sales volumes.

Examining the history of the iPhone suggests that, should Apple achieve substantial market penetration in any of these primary usage scenarios, then the owners of the device will stretch their use of the package to serve as:

• a phone—with a blue-tooth headset
• a netbook—with a USB keyboard, and with the on-screen keyboard while mobile
• an album and photo viewer
• a mobile Keynote presentation device—attached to an overhead projector
• sketchpad—if the device comes with dual-mode capacitive and resistive touch screen
• a zillion-and-one apps à la the app store.

(Once such a device came out, you can even imagine such novel applications as an audio-visual cookbook: containing text, audio, video, timing alarms and integration with grocery apps.)

Yes, some of the losing scenarios become successful auxiliary scenarios in a winning package focused on media consumption.

There's a design principle at play: examine potential success based on a usage scenario for the new form factor, not on usage scenarios based on old form factors.

2010.01.28: The original article speculatively used the name iTablet. The name has been changed to iPad since Apple's unveiling.