iPad Points to the Future
Unless you've been bunkered down in a hole without an internet connection, you've probably heard that Apple has announced its latest revolutionary product, the iPad tablet.
Personally, I think this product is indeed revolutionary and that many businesses would quickly adopt the iPad. The key reason isn't the iPad itself. Its because Apple re-wrote their iWork productivity suite to work on the iPad. iPad and iWork together makes a very compelling combination for businesses who have lots of traveling white collar workforce.
I can see lots of salesmen giving slick presentations using iWork's Keynote app with just a flick of their finger. Likewise, insurance agents will be easily filling in customer data using Number's data form on the iPad. Such businesses will be buying hundreds if not thousands of iPads. Needless to say, I think Apple has created another hot product that will be flying off the shelves.
Hurray for Apple, but that is not the point of this blog post. The reason is that I see the future of computers in the iPad. More specifically, the future of how we interact with computers. Apple has taken the simplified user interface developed for the iPhone and shown that it can not only works on a much bigger screen, but also showed that it enhances applications by making them much easier to use than conventional window-based applications. This can clearly be seen in the re-written iPad iWork suite, which is much easier to use and is still able to incorporate a lot of the same functionality contained in the full fledged Mac OS X iWork suite.
Personally, I think this product is indeed revolutionary and that many businesses would quickly adopt the iPad. The key reason isn't the iPad itself. Its because Apple re-wrote their iWork productivity suite to work on the iPad. iPad and iWork together makes a very compelling combination for businesses who have lots of traveling white collar workforce.
I can see lots of salesmen giving slick presentations using iWork's Keynote app with just a flick of their finger. Likewise, insurance agents will be easily filling in customer data using Number's data form on the iPad. Such businesses will be buying hundreds if not thousands of iPads. Needless to say, I think Apple has created another hot product that will be flying off the shelves.
Hurray for Apple, but that is not the point of this blog post. The reason is that I see the future of computers in the iPad. More specifically, the future of how we interact with computers. Apple has taken the simplified user interface developed for the iPhone and shown that it can not only works on a much bigger screen, but also showed that it enhances applications by making them much easier to use than conventional window-based applications. This can clearly be seen in the re-written iPad iWork suite, which is much easier to use and is still able to incorporate a lot of the same functionality contained in the full fledged Mac OS X iWork suite.
Apple has brought the old WYSIWYG paradigm to a whole new level of simplicity.
I foresee the end of applications being housed in resizable windows. Instead, applications will now fill the entire screen. You will directly touch and alter things on the screen with your fingers instead of having to plow through multiple levels of menu bars. Indeed, the simplicity over complexity and rich features that few people use would be the key to future applications.
I would not be surprised if Apple brought not only touch sensitive screens, but also this new user interface to their Macbooks and their Mac software in the near future.
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