iPad Fallacy #1: "It's not for content creation"
Thursday, February 4, 2010 at 1:18PM I keep hearing this thing on the web that the iPad is "a consumption device, not a creation device". I don't know why people keep saying that. It's fast enough, it has enough storage and it has some seriously powerful applications. If that's your opinion, please enlighten me in the comments.
I spent this morning going through the Apple iPad videos - the keynote and the promotional video - trying to pick up some cues about how the UI conventions are supposed to work. The result is in a set on Flickr.
The iWork demos were most enlightening. Here are some screenshots. Apologies for the quality - they're screenshots of Quicktime Player:
Pages Styles Inspector
Pages Layout Inspector
Numbers Formula Library
Keynote Transition Inspector, showing Magic Move
Look at what's in here: a full stylesheet engine, multi-column page layout, a complete library of cell formulae and a full set of builds and transitions. You can create a Magic Move transition on the iPad. That's probably the most advanced technique you can do in Keynote, and it's there on the iPad.
Someone on iPad4Edu pointed out that the Tech Specs page states that:
The Camera Connection Kit gives you two ways to import photos and videos from a digital camera. The Camera Connector lets you import your photos and videos to iPad using the camera’s USB cable. Or you can use the SD Card Reader to import photos and videos directly from the camera’s SD card.
So you can import media from a camera on the fly, and you can use all the power of the iWork suite to create documents. I haven't even mentioned the Brushes demo that was in the keynote.
Are you still telling me this isn't a content creation device?
Reader Comments (35)
Tethered shooting to the iPad? A whole bunch of fuck yes please.
Frasier, I think you're spot on. The mere fact that Apple bothered to spend the time and engineering resources to redesign the iWork suite for the iPad ought to be evidence enough that they view content creation as an important capability of the platform. Coupled with the attention the iWork apps were given in Steve's keynote address, it's hard to understand how or why folks would seriously question that. Oh well.
By the way, thanks for posting those photos. I was just about to start digging through the video again for clues on iPad UI design, but I think you may have saved me the trouble!
- Jonathan
Not only that, but the tech of the iPad may help force a certain type of presentation---less text---which everyone agrees is a better type. It's interesting social engineering. Although my Keynote decks usually use photos from the web, which could get annoying on the iPad.
Tangent, but the way I use iPhoto (rarely edit, just sort, tag, post slideshows, make books), I could move all that to an iPad if only it had a bigger hard drive.
@stu At the moment, I'm assuming that the camera connector kit is for downloading images rather than live tethering but I bet Canon and Nikon are beating a path to Cupertino to get tethering kits built for the iPad.
I agree, it's not exclusive.
But I guess it's more a question of proportion. Most usage will be browsing/video/other consumption.
If only for a matter of comfort : good content often require time, and most rather spend time on a laptop or desktop.
It's not that one can't but won't.
Spot on, yet a bit conservative, I think. It's nice that the iWork apps were migrated and that they were included in the presentation. Still more significant are the new user interface elements that allowed Apple to successfully migrate these apps. They are really just demos of what can be done for any app or any idea for an app. An that, to me, is the most powerful part of the entire iPad revelation. We now have the tools to build some seriously capable applications that can thrive in a seriously small device. That's the BIG step forward. All the rest is just, well, nice.
For me, the iPad is all about freeing up content creation. A much wider spectrum of users will be able to use it. Children will take to it even more naturally than writing because they just have to touch it. Other people who just are not currently comfortable with the computer will suddenly have so much more confidence because there is so little to learn. But it is even more than freeing up who can create content, it is also about where you create content. If you get a creative urge whilst watching the TV, you can just doodle away on your lap, putting it down and taking it up whenever you feel like it. Reading and writing become much closer to the same experience because you can just flick from your ebook to your note taker and back again all in a form factor you can use whilst standing on the train. Even more importantly for me, it really does free up people working in the field to be much more spontaneous. Imagine a geologist working in the field. They don’t have to sit down and open up laptop, you can just take it out of your bag, download a quick picture, type a quick blog post and send it over 3G. The work becomes much more free and spontaneous for everyone working in the field like scientists, engineers, journalists, teachers, and even relief workers. Something so light and so useable really will change the way that we create things in response to the world around us. For me, I think the iPad will change the world even more than the iPhone.
I have often described the iPhone as the device for people who primarily consume content, but create lightly, vs. the Blackberry as the device for people who primarily create content, but consume lightly. However, as I've become more adept with the iPhone keyboard, I feel that the advantages of the Blackberry shrink, and while there are a notable few who can type ten million words per second on the physical keyboard, for most it's not a big difference after the initial "getting used to it" stage.
I fear that my initial iPhone biases took hold when I first saw the iPad. For initial adopters, it'll likely be pretty slow going to create content, but after an initial "getting used to it" stage it will be faster and easier. Sure, some people will be faster at typing on a netbook, but the difference will be negligible, and the benefit of typing faster will slowly fade as the benefits of the touch-centric interface start to shine.
I can't wait to get my hands on one to find out for sure.
This is what I've been trying to tell people for the last 7 days. It's these apps (and the coming explosion of similar apps from 3rd parties; just look at Omni Group) that I find the most compelling about the iPad.
One word: OmniGraffle.
Ha... "iPad or Bust" - http://blog.omnigroup.com/2010/01/29/ipad-or-bust/
Of course a bigger multi-touch device will enable new ways of interaction ...and therefor also new ways of content creation. That is great! But question is what one means by content. I see that the iPad is perfect for my mom, my family. But will they create content?
I don't see professional designers to switch to it for their day-to-day work (human fingers are just not precise enough compared to the small pixels) I don't see students write theirs thesis on it either (no tactile keyboard). In the business world I see people rather "show off" stuff on it. (Except for maybe "Please sign here" and similar use cases)
The iPad is just better for other things - and for other people. It could really rock for the average joe. But frankly speaking I don't picture that guy as a creator at large. So what's so bad about it not being for content creation?
Personally, I'm holding out for a wide-screen wrap-around gesture interface ala minority report.
Why?
Because for the last 30 years my writing process has involved papers, notes, and books spread over every surface within reach.
Tethering would indeed be nice, but I hope Apple writes the app. I can't speak to Canon, but Nikon software sucks.
I've never warmed to the redesigned iMovie, but I suspect that it actually would be better suited to a touch-based user interface. Apple is bound to pull that rabbit out of the hat sooner or later. I love the idea of carrying around a compact and versatile television production studio.
further to the tweetage. I'm trying to work out what the iPad means for that consumption/creation/tinkering triangle that computers excel at. The iPad eschews the tinkering aspect of computing (which is neither consumption nor creation, and usually a waste of time, based on stupid knowledge, and the definition of busy-work).
The computer part of the iPad is hidden away in the same way the battery and chips are (mmmmm, battery and chips). Nowadays, software tinkerers are complaining the same way hardware tinkerers complained when a soldering iron got obsoleted out of the computer toolkit.
It's a natural progression, first the hardware was abstracted away, and now all the visible workings of OS have been abstracted away (no filesystem, no registry, no visible application support folders). That's a good thing.
Anyway, sorry to use your comment stream to develop this undercooked idea.
Cheers ta for your practical derailment of the consumption meme.
@Torsten Curdt, who doesn't see professional designers switch to iPad for their day-to-day work (because "human fingers are just not precise enough compared to small pixels"):
AS FOR OTHER CREATIVE USES:@diskgrinder: I just have to laugh at this, the filesystem its self is a high-level metaphor that was designed to hide the inner workings of the operating system. The developers of that metaphor specifically chose physical symbols like file, desktop, folder, and home to make that metaphor comprehensible to people with a minimum of computer science education. It's certainly possible that the iPhone OS offers a better set of abstractions and metaphors, but I really think we need to understand that we are already talking about abstractions that are pretty far removed from how the computer actually works.
And, I'll be pleasantly surprised to be wrong, but we've been here before and quickly got HyperCard, Applescript, and MS Word within in a few years. Computer interfaces grow in complexity because real-life tasks are complex; and it's proven to be an intractable job to design systems that accommodate a billion different needs.
Human beings are content creaters by their very own nature. There is no greater or more productive content creator than the human brain. For example, it creates a visual image out of electromagnetic rays with the little help of an input device called eye, it creates a written word that bears content with the aid of a hand, a pen and a piece of paper, it constantly creates (generates) ideas, feelings, anger, fear, lust, hunger, thirst, and so on and so forth. In other words, human beings can't help themselves, they must create content. Be it an email, a graffiti on a wall or a castle made out of sand on the beach. Anything, any device, any item that only remotely fits the bill to create content is used to do so and in some instances even transformed to do so - pimp your car, spray a train, carve a loving heart onto the bark of a tree. Human beings crave for content creation, it's as natural as breathing, eating and sleeping.
Now here's a new little device called iPad that at first sight doesn't look like an easy one to create content. However, since it's input capable, there's no way that it won't be used as a content creation device. People are smart. I bet, iPad content will be created that is unheard of and unseen of with tools that we, at the moment, only barely envision. I'd even go so far to say that soon it will be the foremost and most ingenious content creating device known to man. Far better than a typewriter (and by that token I include computing devices called laptops and PCs equipped with a keyboard), a painter's brush, or a writer's pen. The iPad heralds the end of the typewriting age. We won't create content anymore by typing, including the sorts of "shift-command-E", but by moving, mingling, mixing, merging or extruding objects with the tips of our fingers. This will be content creation squared to the power of 2. Unfortunately, we can't go back in history and read what bloggers blogged by the time the typewriter was invented (beginning of the 19th century). But if blogging had been invented then, what would certain bloggers have to say about that awkward new device called typewriter ?
I don't get it that the majority of people seem to fail to recognize the iPad for what it is, a truly revolutionary device. Blinded by the light, err, blinded by the lack of Flash. The iPad is as least as revolutionary for human content creation as the typewriter was for writing text. Obviously, it took some time until people, mostly female secretaries, learned to use this new device to full speed (capacity), i.e. type a hundred words or so per minute.
@CBrachyrhynchos "quickly got HyperCard, Applescript, and MS Word within in a few years" . Well, matey, I have to laugh at that. How is "quickly" by any stretch of the imagination, measured in years?
You're just pointing out my levels of abstraction don't go as deep into binary as yours do. Time to break out the soldering iron and poke some bytes back in their register.
@Michael Schwabe: And on the contrary, content creation has NEVER been about the tools and devices used to create it.
@CBrachyrhynchos Meant well, of course. Apart from the condescending opening, I understood and appreciated what you said (well done me).
I see your point. I still think it's more consumption than creation. Sure Apple rebuilt iWork for this device. I don't care how fancy pages is, I wouldn't do long form typing on it. I've already got enough RSI problems as is. I'm sure third party teams will create productivity and creation apps, much like we already see on the iPhone. To do lists and project management applications became hugely popular when we could all start doing it from the iPhone.
I don't spend my days creating slideshows or editing spreadsheets or writing reports, that would be utterly terrible. If I had to do it in really squished qwerty mode or dual thumb mode I'd walk off a cliff. Maybe instead of content creation it could be used for content modification.
This device will do one thing really well. It will make publishing profitable again. Magazines, books, graphic novels, newspapers, etc. Will it take gaming to a new level? No. What about TV/Movies/Music? Not a chance. I watch TV and movies on a large screen. In widescreen. Not a 10" 4:3. And I've got a home stereo and my iPhone for music. Will I be able to do any Processing/Openframeworks, HTML, CSS, jQuery, or Actionscript work? Most likely no. What about graphic design? Well, probably not. Especially considering I won't be able to install additional fonts. And I doubt there will be app versions of any Adobe program or Quark. There's a few finger painting applications which will be useful at the larger size.
Will designers buy it on opening day? Yes, we're trend whores. That's just how that works. But so will hardcore PC nerds. And socialites. Why? They're trend whores as well. Again, that's just how it works.
It's not about whether the storage is plenty or if the applications are powerful. The interaction you have with a device like this doesn't lend itself well to work. And I don't feel that way just for the iPad. The whole range of these touch screen devices are consumption products. Even the huge touchscreen HP. I want a mouse and keyboard to do work with. I want proper ergonomics. Tablets/slates/pads don't support that kind of work.
That's just me though. If you can work with a tablet, all the best.
@CBrachyrhynchos: I'd suggest that calling a filesystem a "high level metaphor" is stretching things. The only thing high-level about the concept of "referring to a stream of bytes on a storage medium by a name" is using the name "file" for it -- a directory on a disk is at heart a lookup table. The "abstraction" you're talking about is the "abstraction" of having a disk operating system at all. Sure, in a sense that's an abstraction -- but in the same sense that a programming language is an abstraction. To say that it's a high level metaphor to allow us to have files on our storage media is roughly akin to talking about the high level of abstraction a dictionary has, seeing that it's alphabetized and follows typographical conventions that make it easy to distinguish where definitions begin and end.
When we talk about the "desktop" and "folders" we're no longer talking about the filesystem, exactly: we're talking about a desktop GUI. These provide a level of abstraction, but it's an abstraction expressly geared toward making it easier to manipulate the filesystem as it exists on the storage device. Folders, "home," even the desktop itself are all simply mapped to subdirectories. What we're talking about with the iPad is getting rid of that abstraction, right? It's saying, in effect, "You don't need to know anything about the folders these files are being stored in. Just let the system find them."
This isn't going to be what everyone wants and no, it won't be the best possible thing for all possible use cases; the question is whether it will be a good enough thing for a vast majority of use cases.
Derek 'n all: part of iPad's sex-appeal (if you like) for content creation of any kind will be the unprecedented i.n.t.i.m.a.c.y of the process. Before iPad we had to create while sitting at our desks [writing a novel on a laptop resting on airplane tray is pure fantasy], at an arm's length. Now all of a sudden we'll be able to do that in far greater proximity to the emerging content. I know it sounds like of no consequence, but.... mark me words, it WILL MATTER.
@American Black Crow. Not quite sure what you mean by saying <content creation has NEVER been about the tools and devices>. I think, content creation EXCLUSIVELY depends on tools and devices. The tool/device dictates the content. Paints, brushes and canvas enable one to create distinct contents than PC, keyboard and mouse. Consequently, the iPad will allow for contents other than the ones we're used to created on keyboard-driven devices.