Some have been dismissing the iPad as just “a large iPod touch: a great device to draw your inspiration from, but perhaps not the seismic shift in technology that we were expecting.” Hutch Carpenter sees it as much more; he’s sensing a seismic shift.
Writing at Blogging Innovation, Carpenter says it’s Apple’s skill with design-driven innovation that will make the iPad a success. And what is the significant design-driven innovation in the iPad? It’s touch, of course:
In technology terms, it’s just an alternative form of interface. Touch, mouse, tab, whatever. But touch is a vital human sense, and a core part of experience. It’s how we interact with others, how we shop, experience textures and so much more.
Carpenter says the “iPad is tapping into an emerging dynamic of a more interactive, tactile experience with technology and digital information.” The interface is falling away from our awareness as our interaction with technology is subtly altered towards a melding with it. It’s beginning to be experienced more as an extension of us, and less of an explicit interface:
The Wii and iPhone, and before the iPod click wheel, have created a popular introduction to gesture based interfaces, demonstrating responsive feedback behaviours, applying “natural” physical effects like flipping and inertia, similar to the ones we are accustomed to in the real world, to improve usability expectations of an interface.
As new “cultures of use” emerge we are creating opportunities to form a language of gestures, similar to the conventions of “right-clicking” and standardised keyboard shortcuts.
Note the term “culture of use”. Not industry trends. Because the dominant form of interaction for computers and video games is still mouse and buttons. And consumers aren’t asking for touch.
But there is an underlying change in thinking about how people interact with technology and information.
Google’s Nexus One doesn’t have multi-touch gestures (patent problems?) it* does have some interesting 3D effects. Tip the phone and sophisticated sensors dip the photos in the same way. You can imagine one day we’ll tip the phone from side to side to slide photos forward and back.
The forthcoming Google OS, Chrome — demoed last November and greeted with a disappointment not unlike the iPad’s reception — could easily morph into Google’s, or any of Apple’s PC competitors’, version of the iPad.
The revolution is not in the device; it’s in that shifting computing paradigm. Apple’s taken the lead, but they won’t have it free and clear for as long as they did with the iPhone.
* Correction comes from Anna in comments. I’m not surprised that Android does have multi-touch. Now I even recall reading about it not being enabled. I should have checked before posting. Further, a simple Google search for iPad+Google+Chrome turns up lots of chatter, similar to mine about a Chrome iPad. Had I done that search before posting, I would have added links galore! Instead I posted quickly and zoned out to some season 2 Dexter. The larger point, about touch and the paradigm shift, stands as is.