{"id":161,"date":"2010-06-03T03:31:00","date_gmt":"2010-06-03T03:31:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.appleoutsider.com\/?p=161"},"modified":"2020-08-07T03:27:52","modified_gmt":"2020-08-07T03:27:52","slug":"ipad","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.appleoutsider.com\/2010\/06\/03\/ipad\/","title":{"rendered":"What if iPad Came First?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>The most interesting revelation from Tuesday\u2019s D8 talk with Steve Jobs was that Apple started with the iPad, and\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/video.allthingsd.com\/video\/d8-steve-jobs-on-the-iphone-origin\/3BBFA695-DC39-4834-9E39-7097C9CE1243\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">shelved it<\/a>\u00a0to build the iPhone first. Many people suspected this was the case, but it was surprising to hear Jobs personally confirm it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>It\u2019s tempting to wonder how differently things would have gone if the iPad did in fact come first. Whether by chance or by design, it seems quite clear that the order in which things ended up happening was the right one.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Many already believe that iPad will end up having a greater impact than iPhone has had, as it aims to redefine personal computing for the first time in more than two decades. But without the introduction and success of iPhone to pave the way, iPad may well have been too disruptive on its own to be anything close to a hit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Apple\u2019s success is largely rooted in the way it embraces familiarity, even with \u201crevolutionary\u201d products like iPad and iPhone. Remember how iPhone was positioned when\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=vZYlhShD2oQ\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">announced<\/a>\u00a0in 2007:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul><li>An iPod<\/li><li>A phone<\/li><li>An \u201cinternet communicator\u201d<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>Everyone knew and understood the first two. iPod was already a hit. Many people hated their phones and were waiting for someone like Apple to reinvent the experience. These traits were not only familiar, but anticipated.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The third\u2014internet communicator\u2014was much more foreign, and drew a lukewarm response compared to the other two as they were announced. But we know now that that third, unfamiliar trait is the one that has defined iPhone as a product and a platform. \u201ciPod\u201d and \u201cPhone\u201d are now but two icons among hundreds of thousands.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>This is what Apple does so well: it brings you aboard with something familiar or intuitive, and then takes you someplace you wouldn\u2019t have gone otherwise.\u00a0It is also what Apple\u2019s competitors and detractors never seem to understand. With every product launch, naysayers inevitably turn to a PowerPoint slide and note that company X\u2019s product overview has more bullets.\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.appleoutsider.com\/2010\/05\/23\/features-dont-matter-anymore\/\">It\u2019s not about the bullets<\/a>. It\u2019s about people wanting to use the product. Tapping into that is very, very hard\u2014especially when refusing to acknowledge its importance. How they can continue to ignore it as Apple\u2019s sales and market cap soar is a mystery.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>iPad is neither an iPod nor a phone. It\u2019s positioned as something entirely new between a laptop and a smartphone. iPhone gave users a much softer transition to this new interaction model, and built a tremendously successful platform off of it. People immediately understood iPad as a result. Without that transition, it risked being completely misunderstood: a new platform, form factor and interface that intentionally does less than a PC and has&nbsp;<em>no third party apps<\/em>. Not only would this have been a harder sell, but any lackluster reception would have completely tarnished an iPhone introduction later. We could be living in a much different world today.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Decisions like these also explain why Apple doesn\u2019t talk. It not only has the stones to shelve a project like iPad, it has the patience to keep quiet until the goods are real\u2014so that whenever it does come out, it\u2019s special rather than just late. Imagine a company blabbing about a new computing platform and floating contrived After Effects demos to the press, only to cancel it and instead release something entirely different much later. Actually\u2026 there\u2019s\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.engadget.com\/2010\/03\/05\/microsofts-courier-digital-journal-exclusive-pictures-and-de\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">no need to imagine<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Whatever thinking went into the decision, iPad is unquestionably a stronger product thanks to those few years on the shelf.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The most interesting revelation from Tuesday\u2019s D8 talk with Steve Jobs was that Apple started with the iPad, and\u00a0shelved it\u00a0to build the iPhone first. Many people suspected this was the case, but it was surprising to hear Jobs personally confirm it. It\u2019s tempting to wonder how differently things would have gone if the iPad did [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.appleoutsider.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/161"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.appleoutsider.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.appleoutsider.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.appleoutsider.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.appleoutsider.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=161"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.appleoutsider.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/161\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.appleoutsider.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=161"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.appleoutsider.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=161"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.appleoutsider.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=161"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}