In 1967, American consumers were introduced to the new, must have item for their kitchens: the microwave oven. This device, manufactured mainly by defense contractors such as Raytheon due to their expertise with magnetron, the device that generates microwaves in a radar system or microwave oven, was now supposed to be a fixture in every home, restaurant, and more. It could heat food faster, use less energy, and be less likely to burn your house down than a traditional oven. And it cost just under $500. What more could you ask?
Actually, there was a lot customers could ask. First, why in the world do you need yet another way to heat food? Kitchens already have an oven and range, plus perhaps a toaster, waffle iron, or a grill on the back porch. And the coffee pot can keep coffee hot anyhow. Do you really need another oven? Plus, surely it won’t work quite like an oven, or quite like a stove. It’s like something in the middle. How could we need that?
Looking just at the specs, a microwave didn’t make sense to many. So manufacturers bundled them with cookbooks that detailed the many things you could cook in a microwave. Look, you can make this great Chinese dish in a microwave! Our microwave lets you bake a cake! Need a hot cup of this complicated spiced cider? It’ll only take 15 steps in our microwave! They thought the microwave needed to be a full oven
But, wonder of all wonders, people started buying microwaves and using them regularly. In the store, a microwave didn’t seem like a must-have item to many, but once you incorporated it into your daily life, it was irreplaceable. How in the world did we used to heat up leftovers? Sure, people tried out the crazy, complicated recipes, but for the most part, they found new uses for microwaves. The microwave didn’t have to be a regular oven or stove; it was a wholely new category of cooking device that made cooking accessible to even the least talented guy on earth. Who would have ever put an oven in a hotel room, but it makes perfect sense to put a microwave in one.
The microwave isn’t easier for every cooking task, and perhaps it takes longer to prepare a complicated meal in a microwave. Perhaps no award winning meal will be created in one, unless it’s a special contest for microwave cooking. But it simplified simple cooking, and consumers around the world saw it as a necessary piece of equipment within in years of it becoming popular.
Last year, Apple introduced the iPad, a computing device many have struggled to classify. It’s bigger than a smartphone or iPod, smaller than a computer, but can do some things you’d otherwise do on both of these. You can type a document in Pages or find your way with GPS and Google Maps. So what makes it so special? From a specs perspective, tablets don’t make sense. It cost just under $500, but if you’ve already invested in a computer and a smartphone, it’s just another expense. Plus, netbooks only cost $300, right?
Everyone thought the iPad needed traditional computer programs to be successful. After all, if you can’t use Office, what’s it good for? And so Apple made the iWork apps for iPad, and amazingly managed to capture the best of office productivity with the best of touch screens. Then VNC apps were all the rage, and tabbed browsers, and everything else you could think of that made the iPad like a PC.
And then customers bought them, took them home, and something special happened. They realized that reading eBooks or browsing the internet from their couch was nice on a tablet. They found things they would have never thought to do on a computer were fun and simple. Apps that never made sense on computers with keyboards and mice, like GarageBand and finger paint apps and eReaders, suddenly found life on a 9.7″ slate of glass and metal. Flipboard would have never become as popular on a desktop, and who would have thought of Twitter for iPad’s interface without an iPad? People that would have never touched a computer suddenly found ways a computing device could help their lives, and techies that spent 10+ hours a day in front of their glaring monitors could now break away from their hefty PCs easier. Not doing the same old stuff, but new, innovative things that you would have never thought of on a traditional PC with a screen, keyboard, and mouse on a desk. As Marco Arment said, it’s time to move on from office productivity apps; the iPad opens the window for all types of creative, interactive, personal programs. Finally, the term Personal Computer actually makes sense.
The world has discovered that the iPad doesn’t have to be a full computer to be successful. It’s a new form factor that makes computing more accessible to more people than ever. Sure, you might not create a new app on it, and there’s still not Photoshop on iOS. You can’t bake a medium-rare roast in a microwave, either. But now instead of waiting for your computer to boot, you can read the news, type a short document, and get on with your day all in the time your aging desktop takes to boot. And for millions, it’ll be their primary computing device; there’s simply no reason they need email to be more complicated than a couple taps and a device that runs days of normal usage on one charge.
Come to think of it, sounds like preheating your oven versus taping QuickOn 2 on your microwave to warm up your food…
Great analogy and well written article.
I got my microwave today and its beautiful.
Spot on. One reason tech people don’t like/don’t get the iPad is that it makes the amazing things that computers can do for users available in a way that is as close to magic as makes no difference.
This is a blessing and a curse – just like microwave ovens. Did people stop bothering to cook properly because they had microwaves, or did people who couldn’t cook start eating hot food because of microwaves? Both.
Around ten years ago, it began to be cool to be technically competent – everyone seemed to think they needed a PC, and you couldn’t get far without developing a little bit of savvy. Nerds became Geeks, and got respect. This was a Good thing.
On the other hand, many people just got burned, with $1000 worth of gray box in the corner of the room that never seemed to work properly, and gave up. They were disenfranchised from a new world. This was a Bad Thing.
So along come Apple, with their mission to wrap up technology so the least savvy person in the world can do it, and being technologically competent will begin, once more, to seem quaint and a little sad.
On the whole, I come down on the Bad Thing side. I think there will be fewer competent young techs from a generation that grow up with the closed, inaccessible environment of iPad, where being dumb will get you anything you want.
As well thought out a response as the article itself, good one.
but for every dumb lazy user with no initiative will be those who have natural talent and inquisitiveness … jailbreak and the world opens like captain crunch on an old phone line.
As long as Apple kicks the Kindle app out of the store, I’m not buying the iPad 2.
This sentence make no sense. Did you mean until Apple kicks out the Kindle app? I’m still not sure I understand. If you think Apple doesn’t allow the Kindle app, then you are wrong, since it currently can be downloaded for both the iPhone and the iPad.
Great post Matthew!
I use a microwave because it can heat up food in a fraction of the time it takes to do it in a regular oven. Outside of heating up leftovers, I’d never even look at one. You’d certainly have a hard time eating healthy with only a microwave oven.
My laptop with SSD boots in 5 seconds, and does everything the iPad does, but better. Typing on a touch screen is painful at best. And while it has long battery life, laptops are fast converging on that level of efficiency.
Everything is there with my laptop. I have complete control over my data. I can transfer anything anywhere, watch any movie, play any song, read any book, and I don’t even need to be connected to a network to do it. I can even plug in an external hard drive, back everything up, and put the external drive into my fireproof safe. Or I can transfer it all to cloud storage without any fuss, and read it back into a desktop machine. Try keeping your locked-out data safe on an iPad.
I’ve used an iPad for a few weeks, but I just don’t see the point of it.
You know what a SSD is, so you’re not the target of the iPad. Data control is important to you so you need something that is more flexible then a tablet, however most non-technical people I know are just fine with an iPad. It works for them and gives them what they want. You may not see the point of it, but there are a lot of people out there who have been looking for something like the iPad.
David your response summarizes everything I despise about the tablet market, particularly iPad users. Whenever someone points out the obvious functional, performance, and ergonomic deficiencies of tablets the response is “you’re not the target of the iPad” or “you just don’t get it.” I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with owning/using a tablet, but don’t feed us your unsupported subjective allusions about your non-technical friends and their feelings towards the iPad.
You act as if laptops are difficult to use and are non-portable. Does OSX simplify some features? Yes. Does it complicate others? You better believe it. Computers used to be intimidating; however, the technological progression we’ve seen in the past decade (Microsoft contributing more than Apple) is the simplification of the computer. Yes even the elderly can buy a new computer and start it up without a problem. Yes there are still complicated tasks on ALL O/S. Why are iPads and all tablets immune to complications? Because it trades functionality and features for simplicity. You download an app and you run it.
Android tablets versus iPads have a core philosophy difference. While both are media devices, Android offers customization and increased functionality; whereas Apple just keeps it simple an offers a one-size fits all approach.
The iPad’s virtues are:
1) Seamless touchscreen interface;
2) Thickness;
3) Weight; and
4) Portability.
Deficiencies, however are easily found:
The iPad is uncomfortable to hold for long periods of time, heck even 10 minutes and you’ll be tired. It is awkward to watch a movie in your lap due to neck strain or contorting your body to achieve the proper viewing angle. The speakers feel awful against your hands.
It has an incredibly cumbersome keyboard which greatly reduces it’s productivity value. You actually have to type slower and still check for spelling errors caused by the word-recognition software improperly identifying.
Its virtues as a device for artistic endeavours are severely crippled when you consider: The screen smears quite easily, its screen is not large enough to act as a proper canvas for many photoshop/painting projects, and the accuracy of touch is in no way comparable to pixel-perfect accuracy delivered via a mouse.
The display causes weary eyes compared to e-book readers like the Kindle and fades out in direct sunlight (not to mention turning off due to over-heating).
It is fun to play touch games, but controllers or motion-based gestures are much easier to use and can convey many more commands than touch gestures. Touch games will never go away because they are a different category that cannot be replicated otherwise.
The iPad is just a fun gadget and that’s all it will ever be. I was never anti-Apple until their supporters became illogical fanatics. They are selling a gadget and claiming it has “revolutionized computing”. It only supports apps and that is all it is good for. It is an app-player.
In conclusion I do understand why some people like tablets, but do not patronize me by claiming otherwise.
TL;DR iPad is a fun toy, but it is ONLY a toy.
I instantly thought that you were going to compare the radiation levels that we get from the microwaves and iPad…. would you like to ..pls
“My laptop with SSD boots in 5 seconds, and does everything the iPad does, but better.”
I’ll call bulls&@t on this. Your laptop doesn’t do everything and iPad does. It might do everything you feel is important, but that’s a different story.
The rest of your talk about “total control” (lol) and doing backups and all the rest indicates to me that you really don’t know what you’re talking about. I regularly back up my iPad and send whatever I want on it to whatever machine I want.
You missed the point of this article. Anyone who thinks a laptop can replace an iPad (or vice verse) is missing something important.
yes, best analogy i’ve read yet. kuddos!
you left out one crucial thing: after consumers discovered the convenience and utility of the microwave oven, then new products began to be specifically developed/modified for it that were really great. and so it became indispensable.
Popcorn! need i say more?
the same thing is happening with the iPad now so fast it makes your head spin.
meanwhile, Android is coming up with (slowly) … the convection microwave oven. nice product variation, but niche market.
The Ipad is not a computer. You cannot write or run programs on it.
What you can do is consume “apps”, along with more traditional media such as music and television shows. The Ipad is really just a fancy television. It allows the user to gulp products and crap cash, wirelessly.
You have a gross misunderstanding of the terms “computer” and “program”
A digital watch is a computer, so an iPad surely is.
And I write iPhone apps, in the objective-c PROGRAMMING language.
Afed, your ignorance is showing…
In short; you’ve not used an iPad.
Off the top of my head… I can design and build websites on my iPad, I can create illustrations, edit and create movies, write documents, manage productivity, and money, create music and lots more.
There’s lots you can do on an iPad that’s beyond TV style consumption, and it’s only been out about a year.
My only fear is that I might get an iPad and realize it makes my food soggy and not that great. I prefer toaster ovens.
Toaster ovens? Try a stone oven! Toaster oven users don’t know how much better is to eat food cooked in a stone oven.
Sure, it might be a little more expensive than a toaster oven and yes, is not for everyone. If your only concern is to not get soggy food then a stone oven may be overkill; but if you learn how to use a SO you’ll be amazed at the freedom and creativity you can achieve with it!
Great article
I just wanted to point out that there actually is a (albeit limited) version of photoshop for iOS
http://itunes.apple.com/ca/app/adobe-photoshop-express/id331975235?mt=8
Yes, it’s definitely helpful for small touchups and crops, but a far cry from the real deal
That said, Brushes isn’t so far off…
I love this analogy.
I also love some of the comments. It just re-inforces the strength of the analogy (and provides a good laugh at the same time).
Ha, great point David! I was thinking the same about the comments myself!
I microwave doesn’t need to be setup and managed via your over.
typo [oven]
True, but you’ll seldom see someone who owns a microwave and not an oven. It supplements your oven, in the same way that tablets (at least in their current form) supplement your computer.
I remember when I experienced my first microwave. My grandparents put something in a box, pressed some buttons. 2 minutes later BING a hot meal was served (or maybe reheated). Very impressive. I’ve played with an IPAD. The touch screen is not accurate and typing is a chore. The screen is sharp but to small for everyday browsing. It is so restrictive when compared to what can be done on a laptop or desktop at a similar price. It’s also not that small and can’t be carried in a pcoket. I can’t see it ever reaching the popularity of a microwave or even a desktop computer.
That’s very subjective (in fact, what opinion comment on an internet article isn’t subjective??!!) … anyway I’ve been using an iPad in place of my personal computer for over 3 months now, no complaints. Typing short emails and responses on the internet is not a chore, the touch screen is highly accurate, and I use it for browsing day in day out with nary a squint. I can’t put it in my pocket (except the pocket in my Scotte which is made for holding magazines) but I can carry it around more easily and more nimbly than a laptop.
Conversely, I was VERY disappointed with my first microwave experience. I have since learned it’s great for steaming vegetables and doing jacket potatoes, also for heating up beans. For reheating leftovers? Not so much.
Great to hear you’re getting so much use out of your iPad, Mike! It’s definitely helped me get away from my desktop more.
There are much better tablets than the iPad but this article could apply to any (after all, Apple didn’t INVENT the form factor!) Very interesting analogy.
You’re definitely right. I think this applies to tablets as a category; for now, the iPad is the leader, but that surely won’t last forever.
I understand the attraction to the tablets, but I don’t agree with the analogy – the tablet does nothing really but add bulk to my gadget belt.
I can do the things i need on my smartphone and netbook. I think there are some specialized uses for the tablet – such as for couriers, doctors reviewing lab results, warehouses for picking, business executives for reviewing reports, construction plans, pilot flight schedules, and the like – but as a consumer device, it’s the epitome of superfluousness.
The (self-serving) adage that it’s great for people who have never picked up a computer – that’s a shrinking market at best.
It’s commercial hype – and I’m surprised such hype can still gather so many sheep…
I love gadgets, but lets call it what it is!
Now, I personally see tablets as leading the future of computing, for everything from pros to new computer users. We’re already seeing gestures and design style from iOS being brought to OS X with the upcoming OS X Lion, and even Microsoft is expected to include elements of the Metro UI design from Windows Phone 7 in Windows Phone 8. To me, tablets are all about simplifying computing, and this is something that can be improved for everyone, pro users or newbies.
I see tablets as the device most people could use instead of a laptop or netbook. With a bluetooth keyboard or dock similar to the new Asus Android tablet, they can nearly be turned into full computers. And on the iPad, the iWork apps include all the features most users would need from Microsoft Office, and are easier to use at that.
It’s hard to describe without using one regularly, but it really does seem like a paradigm shift. That said, we’ll have to wait and see how the market shifts (or not) over time