The headlines were utterly predictable, yet no less annoying for their triteness: By Saturday, Jan. 30, news sites worldwide already were declaring a widespread iPad backlash. Backlash? For a product not yet out of prototype? Come on into the abuse pool, Apple, now you know how smartbook vendors feel!
Let’s distinguish between real-time critiques as iPad was launched Jan. 27, which were inevitable given certain less-than-optimal features like overpriced 3G, and the blanket comments by week’s end suggesting Apple was kaput, with a Newton or Lisa on its hands. There might be an element of truth in such a comment, but the jury will remain out at least through the calendar year. In fact, given the years Apple spent trying to give Newton legs, we can expect several quarters of price cutting and software developer enablement to come.
The problem, of course, stems from the attention-deficit-driven demand for uniqueness in a 24-hour blogosphere/tweet-kingdom. Hype cycles used to be criticized when they were compressed to weeks. Now they can be measured in nanoseconds. You can be riding the rails at noon, only to be seriously shot down by 12:05 p.m.
As more sober analysts have reminded us, smartbooks and the iPad alike were launched at the end of a brutal recession, when spending habits are not expected to pick up for months. Even among gadget fetishists, gear acquisitions are being pushed out in favor of luxuries such as food and housing. The ability of a useful handheld platform — whether smartphone, smartbook, netbook, or tablet — to penetrate into the less-tech-obsessed middle class, will be sorely challenged by an economy that remains on life support.
And here’s the real irony, as our picture indicates: The ubiquity of handheld devices will encourage yet more multitasking, yet more always-on analysis of the world at large, and yet more ADHD behavior from people who should know better, but no longer have the faculties to see just how ridiculously compressed their attention spans have become. Who knows? The next generation of gadget may be declared obsolete long before photos of the first prototypes are leaked to TechCrunch. At least that way, OEMs won’t have to bother with any silly activities like literally manufacturing consumer products.
Loring
