Will the iPad sync or swim?

A little bit of Apple history. Putting aside cassette players and the like, the iPod was not the first portable music player. It also wasn’t the first digital music player. An argument could be made that it MIGHT be considered the first to get it right and capture enough market-share to make it the de-facto standard. Sort of the same could be said for the iPhone. Not the first smartphone, nor the first with a touchscreen and so on, but the first to grab the attention of the consumer market which has led to its success (like it or Apple or not, the iPhone has been an amazing success).

Now we have the iPad which is building on the foundation of Apple’s other consumer devices. It has the iTunes store to feed it content from a variety of sources, it has the marketing arm that has managed to feed the appetite of the world’s consumers for small devices, it has the “i” brand name that mostly has done well, it has the touch OS of its smaller siblings that too have done well. Most people who pick up an iPad will already know how to use it and that in essence is what makes the iPad almost guaranteed to be a success. Why have most other tablets failed to gain any traction? Not cost, many are pretty affordable and some are even cheaper than the iPad with a full OS (Windows 7 which I still claim to be the best thing Microsoft has made in 10 years). What has made Win 7 (and by extension Linux) tablets fail is that they offer nothing that any user can’t already get from a desktop or laptop. Just a little bit harder to use (with more parts since almost all of them require a stylus) with all the inherent flaws of running a full OS. Why would anyone beyond niche groups like doctors or inventory specialists with specialized software who need an easy to carry tablet to do their jobs want one? Possibly artists wishing to have specialized software that only comes on Windows or another full blown OS? What’s the common thread? Niche groups that aren’t actually using the full OS for general computing, but for small tasks.

The iPad is a general computing device that just about anyone can pick and use for any task that an app has been created to fill. Where it could fall apart is that (as far as I know) currently the BEST way to interact with a device like this is to sync it to a computer. Fine and dandy but now we’re back to having to use a full blown computer OS to just maintain this thing and therefore the ease of use argument flies right out the window. Except what if you didn’t need to physically sync it for new or pre-purchased content? What if someone (say Apple with your iTunes account) else kept track of it? What if you could just think to yourself, “I think I’ll load Movie X, TV Show Y, and Music Z today?” Then you just do it wirelessly (3G or WiFi) and move on with your day. Traveling across the country? All you need is WiFi or 3G for your latest content. No need to plug it in because you don’t actually have physical drives or files at a home computer. Now some of the purchases that Apple has made (LaLa and a 400,000 Sq ft data farm in NC) makes sense.

At this time I still don’t want one, but it’s starting to sound a little more intriguing.