[photo ‘leaked’ yesterday on Twitter of an iPad mini]
This is the first of two posts on the emergence of new form factors in computing and what they mean for the staffing industry. In this first one, I look at the devices from a consumer basis. In my next one, I’ll share an amazing story from a continent you’d least expect about how the low cost of these devices is disrupting our notion of work itself.
My daughter Anna is looking to replace her aging Windows laptop, and in a few weeks we’ll head down to the Mall of America and check out the fight that is about to erupt between Apple in one corner with its iPad Mini and Microsoft in another with its Surface tablet.
Recruiters will be facing the same conundrum of choosing between convenience and all-day-usability
Rumor has it that Apple’s iPad Mini will go on sale around November 2 and sport a price tag of $350. Microsoft is being coy about its Surface tablet. It will go on sale sooner, at the end of October, and they’ve been keeping the exact price and other details a better secret than even Steve Jobs could.
Either way, to convince Anna, she’ll need to see that the devices can serve both as a convenient hand held device AND as a word processing system. She writes a lot, and a good keyboard and a screen that doesn’t strain the eyes during all day use is a necessity.
Recruiters will be facing the same conundrum of choosing between convenience and all-day-usability. Some, like my friend Andy, will decide to make use of all the form factors. I met up with him this last weekend at a conference, and he was carrying with him no fewer than three form factors: his Android phone, his Nexus 7 tablet, and his Macbook Air laptop. Others, limited by budget or driven by a desire for simplicity, will try to get it all done with just a larger phone. Anna might just end up going with the phone and a laptop.
One thing to keep in mind as you make your own choices is how tolerant you are of not having your favorite programs on the different devices you own. This is a complaint I’m hearing a lot around the house. “Hey Dad, why can’t I play this iPad game on the Mac. They’re both Apple, right?”.
Get ready to hear that gripe a lot as the form factors increase in variety. My iPhone developers deal with this all the time. Even in the tightly constrained environment of iPhone and iPad which both get built using the same Xcode studio, making a display look nice on both form factors is a lot of work. Often, we need to design a different screen for each device.
Revolutions don’t happen at the country club.
This issue of inter-operability is Apple’s achilles heel. Its core libraries date back to the Next operating system that I coded on in the late 1980s and they aren’t keeping up. Apple is getting strangled by its own success. How can they do a major upgrade and provide a consistent core platform from the desktop to the phone when they’re making so much money on what they’ve already got? Revolutions don’t happen at the country club.
The bottom line for Anna and for many recruiters will be who can deliver apps that work well on multiple form factors. And if that in fact ends up as a key criteria for you, then Microsoft deserves consideration. Windows8 will serve as the operating system for everything from its phones to its surface tables to its desktops, and for the next generation of developers that will make it an attractive platform.
On the other hand (software developers have a lot of hands), price and a great app can mean everything. Disruption happens today at the user level, not at the RFP level. Both Google and Amazon are putting together spectacular products at prices below that of Microsoft and Apple.
In any case, have fun shopping. I know Anna and I will.
{ 9 comments… read them below or add one }
Ahh, that’s the right price point for a Pete Klein. I want it! Apple’s app store is curated, so it’s easy to find quality apps, so I don’t have to download 7 to find a good one, as opposed to the Android store.
I don’t know if the interoperability issue is an Achilles heel or a clever way to extract more money from users. Either way, it’s a tradeoff I’m willing to make.
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hi Pete…as i designer i would have guessed you’d give consideration to Surface and the ability to go from phone to desktop with roughly the same toolset.
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I’ve been using ‘smart’ phones since 2004, back with the Sony Ericsson P800, and when I was mocked for wearing a bluetooth headset. That said, I’m used to incorporating calendars, email systems, etc. between devices.
When I finally make the jump to a tablet, it will be either Android or Windows. I’m one of those who simply refuses to buy an Apple product.
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I’m with you Steve although I had my hand forced on the issue…I bought an iPad for ‘research’ purposes when it first came out but my wife swiped it and I’ve hardly had a chance to use it since.
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Being a geek and having touted the Windows 8 CTP on my home computer since it’s release, including playing with it on a touchscreen PC, I can definitively say that I *really* don’t like it. It appears to me that Microsoft is following the same ebb and flow in quality as it has historically with their releases; every other version is worth upgrading to. My experience with the desktop interface of Windows 8 guarantees that I will not be diving head first into a Microsoft tablet.
Having been a devout Google user for years, I have also been a pretty big opponent to Apple products. But, my Motorola Xoom stays in my car most of the time (it is heavy, large, and uses a pin-plug charger as opposed to micro-USB, thereby also making it inconvenient to charge). So, I am actually in the market for a new tablet, and the iPad Mini (or iPad Air, whatever the name ends up being) will likely be the one.
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Can i conclude Kevin that you see us getting into Win8 phone development as a mistake?
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I don’t think the Win8 phone platform will be nearly as big of a hit as you’d like. While it would be nice to have a relatively consistent platform between the desktop and the mobile platform, there are too many hurdles in my opinion. In order for Win8 phone/tablet development to give you a good ROI, you would need to ignore them all: Apple brand loyalty, Android device availability, and consumer psychological resistance to the unfamiliar. The tiled start screen on my home computer is so cluttered and unorganized that I cannot use it, for example. And, I have only installed a couple of months worth of applications.
If I were to make a recommendation, it would be to focus on Apple development due to the user base. As an aside, you also don’t have to fight against thousands of combinations of device specifications as you would with Android devices. You only have a limited subset of resolutions, capabilities, sensors, screen sizes, etc.
The survey from Appcelerator/IDC (http://www.appcelerator.com.s3.amazonaws.com/pdf/Appcelerator-Report-Q3-2012-final.pdf) summarizes my views pretty well: Declining Android development, HTML5 dissatisfaction, iOS smartphones and iPad apps being the platforms of choice, RIM being out of the market, optimism but reluctance about Windows 8 device scalability and excitement for the possibility of Google Glass in the future.
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We’ve had a Win8 desktop at the Dourgarian household for a year now. Those of us over 40 don’t like it much. Too hard to find stuff. But the teenagers like it better than ipad/mac/win7/etc. My son Andrew says the design lets him see what he wants very quickly – his Facebook updates, his youtube counts, his email inbox.
I’m also guessing that augmented reality stuff like Google Glass will come sooner than we all think.
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The reason Win8 doesn’t appeal to a range of people, myself included, is lack of what’s called affordance (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Affordance). A great example of this is the windows 8 start menu.
Where is my search?
Just start typing.
What in the interface tells me I can do that?
Nothing. You have to try random stuff until something happens.
It looks pretty, but in many places it is a usability travesty.
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