OpenRoad + Mod7
Two pioneering organizations, together at last.
OpenRoad is pleased to announce the acquisition of creative agency Mod7.
Read the letter from our PrincipalJobs is All About the "Post-PC" Lately
Posted on June 02, 2010 in Media Culture by Mod7
Apparently Steve jobs thinks that when you tear the mouse and keyboard off a computer, unicorns start flying, lambs lay with lions, and a new earth floats down from the heavens. He likes to call it, grandly enough, the "Post-PC Era".
Tablets have been with us for way longer than most of the regular folks realize. In fact, I've been loving the "tablet experience" since at least 2005 (currently, I'm on this rather un-sexy model ).
What's different with the iPad (and what few people seem to mention) isn't only the fact that you can smear your fingers on the screen and see things move, but rather a more mundane technical detail: you don't boot it up. It's always on. Instantly. That's the real key killer feature.
"Really?" you say, "That's what you think is so great about the iPad?"
Well, that, and it's ability to morph into any number of useful interfaces. But, yeah, mainly that.
To illustrate the innovation that's changing our behaviour, let me present you with this plebeian scenario:
Scenario: We're watching TV on the PVR. I think that chick from the show is the same chick from that other movie. My wife disagrees. How to resolve this relational conflict?
Pre-iPad Response: I could check Google or IMDB and prove her to be clearly in the wrong. But first I'd have to wait like two minutes to boot up my laptop. And then I'd need to undock it probably. And waste some battery juice. And all that would require me to get up from my sofa. Screw that! And so I live in ignorant bliss, smug in my self-satisfaction. It's not that I'm lazy. I'm perfectly OK with getting up off the sofa if need-be. It's just that these actions require me to deviate my currently engaged behaviour.
Post-iPad Response: Since I'm using my iPad to control my media center, it's already on my lap. So I just pull up the IMDB app and... oh dear. She's right. I'm wrong. Damn. I reap the benefits of instant knowledge and hard truth that would otherwise have been unused, pregnant with power but untapped. I still say nothing, and continue watching, hoping she didn't notice me looking it up. The iPad's always-on-ness makes this possible. Seamless integration with behaviour and context.
Is the form factor of the iPad its biggest innovation? Or is it really something less conspicuous, like its up-time and malleability?