Tech Blog

[#1]

After having some time with the device, some big thinkers are starting to think the device may actually be a step backwards when it comes to the social web.

Leo Laporte's MacBreak Weekly panel last week got into a discussion about Cory Doctorow's quoting of Danny O'Brien's entry likening apps on the iPad to the CD-ROM era.

"If it's a lock-in, I'll hand you the key," said Alex Lindsay. "We know this is going to go somewhere, so I'm not worried about going down a dead end."

Then they got bogged down in an argument saying the iPad was convenient because it held all the apps in one device.  You didn't need to switch out cds to change albums.  They went on to point to the success of the iTunes store for music saying the app world would be just as successful for content.

But I think they missed a crucial argument in the discussion:

The iPad (and the apps that populate it) is turning the web into an non-interactive experience.  It's not collaborative. The social web has really been the trend of the last three to five years and this iPad and app world is turning the user base into an audience.

The iPad is retrograde. It tries to turn us back into an audience again. That is why media companies and advertisers are embracing it so fervently, because they think it returns us all to their good old days when we just consumed, we didn’t create, when they controlled our media experience and business models and we came to them.
[Jeff Jarvis]

We are a passive part of the process.  We view and use the app, but we can't expand on it or interact with it beyond the limitations set by the app creator. 

To say the iPad is recreating the CD ROM era is brilliant.  You buy Encarta, WineWorld etc and the content is easy to access, it's reliable and you don't have to search for it - but you're locked out from interacting and sharing it.

The internet is called the web because everything is interconnected. You can start at CNN and end on a food blog from Marseilles following links, clicks and recommendations along the way.  You can't do that with an app/CD-ROM.  You're in that app and that's the only place you'll be until you exit it.

Scoble says the problem with the iPad comes from the content creators.  They've been given a platform to lock down content and they're leaping at it.

I’ve already uninstalled that (Time Magazine) and the Wall Street Journal and New York Times apps are next. They suck. They suck the same way that Pointcast did. Greedy baaaahhhhssssttttaaaarrrrdddddsssss who don’t want me to tell anyone else about their awesome content.
[Scoble]

The web is evolving into a world of ubiquitous collaboration, however the mobile web (the app world) is once again becoming a walled garden. When Facebook's Like button starts to show up on every website, you'll appreciate that the internet is meant to be a shared experience - but not in the app world of the iPad.  There isn't even a Facebook app for the device.

When I said apps are the new website, it was a comment about the evolution of the web from this open era to one that is locked down.  It's this locking down of the apps that makes the iPod, iPhone, and now iPad, a device that people won't be easy to ditch.  Not only do you spend hundreds on the hardware, you then go out and spend hundreds more on music or apps that are locked to the device.

Here’s my theory: Steve knows that apps are lockin. They lock users into a platform. Heck, so far I’ve spent $200 on apps for my iPad. So, now, if a competitor comes along (say from Google) they have to convince me that their machine is worth more than $200 more to get me to switch.
[Scoble]

Then again, the iPad is a revolutionary device that is changing the nature of computing.  Noone can debate it's popularity or impact on design and the future of how we will access the web when mobile.

Google, who is quickly entering the race for mobile eyeballs as a provider for competing hardware manufacturers, will no doubt enter the tabloid market and produce an open model.  We've already seen with Android that many handset manufacturers are eager to have an angle on Apple.  Will the closed quarters of the iPad prove to be an Achilles heel? 

Remember, Apple was years ahead of Microsoft before the walled garden it created eventually became the exact reason Gates and company could pass Jobs.

What do you think?  Is the iPad as big a leap backwards as it is a move forward?

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