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Apple Ipad: Flat Screen + Multi-touch = Paradigm Shift

The Ipad will usher in a new wave of computing devices that will fundamentally change the way we interact with computers. Two reasons. Touch. And flat.

Like 500,000 of you, I was one of the first to buy an Ipad. I didn’t quite know why. The announcement disappointed me. I thought it was a big Iphone, and no more. But, we are in the business of investing in emerging technologies, so I figured I owed it to myself and to my investors to check it out.

2 hours into my evaluation of the Ipad, my 6-month old daughter gave me the “A-Ha!” moment. Multi-touch will change the way we interact with computers forever. Some background here. On a lark, I paid the $2.99 to download the Dr. Seuss ABC book. (It is very cleverly done by the way – nicely interactive.) I showed it to my 6-month old baby girl – who can still barely hold a bottle and can’t sit up by herself. She was momentarily mesmerized. She reached out and touched the screen. Dr. Seuss reacted, and spoke to her. She did it again and the page turned. She figured it out in seconds, not minutes.

Touch is intuitive. It is easy. And it is a better user interface for reading books. For surfing. For navigating media – like photos, music, videos. For playing games. For using almost every app I downloaded onto my Ipad. Sure. The virtual keyboard won’t replace a real keyboard when it comes to typing 500-1000+ word articles (I chose to type this blog post on my laptop – and not my Ipad.) But my interaction of late with my computer is perhaps 10% “extended typing” and 90% doing other things that require limited typing (meaning typing URLs, filling in fields on a web page, reading documents and spreadsheets, sending emails (more on that later) and managing my calendar.

I have two older boys in school. They both first interacted with desktop computers before kindergarten, and they started with an oversized mouse with a big ball on it. They figured it out, but not in seconds. And then they learned “keyboarding” in school. They had keyboarding classes for years. Sure, they can type OK now, but it was a heavy-learning and non-intuitive experience. It took my 16 year old to remind me that our modern keyboard has the distinctive QWERTY layout because in the days of typewriters, the keyboard was designed so as to minimize the chance of the physical extended type keys jamming. We have come a long way.

I have a prediction.  A touch interface, on a large flat screen device, will be as transformational to computing this decade as the mouse was to computing in the 1980s.  Ironic that Apple popularized both as well.

The Wall Street Journal app is the best example of how newspapers can re-invent themselves. I long ago unsubscribed from the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post, the Washington Times, the New York Times and USA Today. Yes, once upon a time a real person delivered them to my house everyday. No more. I learned to get my news through my RSS feeds, but I felt I was always missing out on something. The WSJ app changes that. It is an app I will use often on my Ipad. But an app I would never use on my laptop or desktop. Why? It is all about the UI. Only problem? The pricing is ridiculous at $18 per month. I expect that to change though as more entrants offer similar products.

The second “discovery” I have made with the Ipad is what I call “Flat.” The fact that the Ipad sits in one plane, instead of two planes intersecting at a 90-degree angle is transformational. As I sit typing this I am in thankfully in Economy Plus on United Airlines. Extra legroom. But the guy in front of me has his seat fully reclined. As such my laptop screen is not at 90 degrees. Rather it is inverted at about 75 degrees, making it really hard to read and type at the same time. My wife thinks that “flat” will help all of those who have developed carpal tunnel syndrome from bad posture, keyboards and mice. I agree with her. Flat also means you can hold it any way you want when you want to play a game, read a book, or watch a movie. It is much more like a hand-held gaming device in this regard.

Last year we invested in a company called Tap-n-Tap, which makes a touch-oriented user interface for other tablet manufacturers. My partner Todd Hixon did a great blog post on our investment thesis in Tap-n-Tap. See it here:

http://navfund.com/blog/five-reasons-to-believe-in-tablets

I believe that flat, touch-oriented tablets are going to replace entire categories of consumer products. And those companies that make these products will move quickly to replace their volume by making all different flavors of tablets. Who stands to lose? Stand-alone e-book readers. (As I sit, the man next to me is reading a book on his Kindle. But he keeps staring at my Ipad. The Kindle is SO yesterday next to an Ipad.) Portable DVD player makers. Hand-held game manufacturers. But the biggest losers? Everyone who makes net books. Why? The premise behind a net book is that it is primarily used for surfing, but at a more reasonable price point. The Ipad meets or beats those price points, and is a VASTLY superior device for surfing. I expect a lot of carnage in the net book space in 2011.

One comment to Apple. Please make it easier though for me to sync files from my computer to my Ipad. Don’t make me go through Itunes. Support Windows Live Sync. Or come up with a similar product yourself. Please!

So, do yourself a favor. Try out an Ipad. Show your young kids one of the Dr. Seuss applications. Try surfing with it. Read a book on it. Play a movie (Netflix streaming is also a terrific app.) And read a newspaper like the Wall Street Journal. And let me know if you agree with me – that Flat and Touch will change the world.