How our society can change in a year

[TheForce]

Yesterday I had to get some service work done on my Hybrid. So I walk into the auto dealership service center waiting room and there are 12 people waiting, including me. 9 of them were busy on their ipads, 2 were using their laptops ( both Dells) and one was reading a book. The service center has free wifi and 3 workstations available. Nobody was using them. A year ago the wait room was a get in line to use the work stations and 2-3 ( including myself) would be using laptops. The rest would be watching TV.

Today, I go to my doctor's office for my annual physical and he has this sign up in the waiting room- " As a new service to our patients, we have ipads available for your use while you wait.. There were three of us in the room and the other two were using ipads.

A year ago many were questioning the sanity of Apple introducing the ipad. My how life has changed!

 

[lakebum431]

Interesting indeed. I have had my iPad since release day of the 3G version. Would never go back.

 

[TNGTony]

I view it as an analogue of attack of the body snatchers. There is no sane reason why I-pads are popular other than it's the cool thing to have.

 

[TheForce]

There is no sane reason why I-pads are popular other than it's the cool thing to have.

You must think all ipad owners are kids who thrive on what's cool and what's not. Fact is the largest new demographic to discover the ipad are older users, who have no reason to "look cool" They just discovered all that stuff that was too hard on a laptop to do is easy and intuitive on an ipad. The oldest person I met so far with an ipad was an 87 year old lady who said she finally got the internet after years of her grandkids telling her she should get on it. Actually, I think younger kids are into cell phone texting and facebook more than any ipad and that is cool for them, but ipads are popular with older people only because they are easier to use.

Tony- you may be one of the slow ones, but eventually you will figure it out. May not be an ipad but you will someday learn how easy tablets are for some of what we do with this technology. I wonder how soon those two guys in the waiting room with their laptops will retire it to their desk and travel with just an ipad.

 

[Steve Mehs]

Since the iPad came out I’ve seen a grand total of two of them in the wild and both in the past 2-3 months. Neither of them here in the Buffalo area, both were people using them while eating lunch at the café in a Wegman’s Supermarkets in Rochester. Rochester is a traditionally more technically advanced market then we are 60 miles away in Buffalo. Personally I don’t see the appeal. Smaller screen, you lose even more screen real estate when you have the on screen keyboard open. No expandable memory, no removable storage, no optical drive, printing is a nightmare if even possible, and what about opening/editing/creating MS Word, Excel or PPT documents?

I have yet to own a laptop, but that is coming soon, laptops are finally powerful enough for me to consider, but don’t get the appeal of tablets for serious computing. Yes, I will eventually own an Android based tablet and use it as a cool toy but I don’t believe they will ever replace a real computer. For a brief moment in time I considered getting an iPad when I was considered for a different position at work that would have required me to spend a week a night living out of a hotel room. Good thing I didn’t get that gig.

For work I deal with two major colleges in the area. The big one being St. John Fisher in Rochester. I have not seen any college students with an iPad. In all the on campus cafes all the students are using laptops, mostly Dells and Sonys, I was pleasantly surprised to see very little Apple notebooks.

 

[dfergie]

Scott had his at CES and it really came in handy along with other gadgets he had to help us with our coverage...

 

[rockymtnhigh]

Walk into a dealer and 9 people are waiting using ipads? You must live in Apple-land; never seen anything like that here; and even on a "hip" college campus, I have only seen a handful of ipads.

The ipads in the DRs office thing is cool though.

I go to a popular coffeehouse just off campus every week; I see laptops every week, usually see macbooks and PCs, have never seen an ipad. No more representative than your anecdote, but I don't think we are all seeing them everywhere, and certainly not in large numbers.

And I have never seen ANYONE else with a Tab in the wild (I have seen people with ipads in the wild). I see Kindles all the time though.

 

[diogen]

No more representative than your anecdote...

...and anecdotal evidence, as told by the original poster is insignificant and useless rather than contradictory.

Terminology is debatable, of course, but using a car dealership as a sign of a societal shift in the way people use technology can be at best identified as product of imagination....

Diogen.

 

[TheForce]

I see Kindles, mostly on airplanes. ipads about 5% in airport during CES travel, mostly still laptops. I don't think college kids will switch to tablets as fast as seniors because college students are active in content creation as well as consumption. At least I hope so if your kind is doing their job as I expect you to! I don't see ipad use very good at creating complex reports yet. Mike, I'd think if you surveyed the campus you'd find more tablets in use by the professors than the students. Do your students do reports in pdf's? If so the ipad , and your Galaxy possibly would be a good tool for reading them. Having a student upload their pdf report to your ipad would be a cool way for them to turn in their work. You could mark it up with your notes and fire it right back. Also if you need send a copy with your notes to a printer for old fashion paper copy.

As usual diogen never thinks outside the box. The observation I had made had more to do with seniors adapting to ipads than anything else. That is very different than what I was seeing last year. During working hours, the younger workforce still brings their cars in but I have observed those occupying the waiting room are nearly all retirees and moms with kids over the past year. Work force come in, drop off and either have a friend offer a ride or use the shuttle service back to work. Same goes for the cardiologist. It is rare to see anyone younger than 60 in for their pacemaker checkup.

The only time I have seen a Galaxy Tab ( in the wild) is at CES where a attendee had one in his back pocket. That is as I predicted, Galaxy would be a great pocket tablet.

There are some analysts who are predicting we will have 60 million ipads in use by end of 2011. With that many out there you'd have to be blind not to see them. I watch CNBC and notice everyone on the panel except for a rare few have ipads. Of course the CNBC ap is extremely popular, in fact taking #1 position late last year.

 

[diogen]

So BS inside the box is something completely different from the outside?

Hmmm...
You should add a shrink to your annual chekup.

Diogen.

 

[rockymtnhigh]

My mother actually bought a tablet just before Christmas, an el-cheapo e-book reader running Nook software (but not a nook) and Android 2.1; she wanted to be able to read books (but of course does not want to buy them. Go figure) and to use the web. She has never used the web before. She was not willing to spend the dough for an ipad, and got the tablet she bought for under $200. But there may be something to the seniors thing; still I don't know.

My guess is the 60 Million by the end of 2011 is wishful thinking by Apple execs. That would almost 20% of the American population. Hard to believe that.

 

[rockymtnhigh]

But I agree our society is changing; social networking, the large scale adoption of smartphones, and the development of tablets is creating a population that is incredibly mobile and information driven. And the pace of change is VERY FAST.

 

[TheForce]

Mike- the change is indeed real but the real question is how big will it be? Some are saying it will make the dot com era look like chump change. First we had the www and search but now the new way is to make the www a transparent part of human existence. The 60 million is 20% of the US population but that is not coming from Apple as they do not give guidance. It is coming from analysts who are keenly studying the numbers. In recent history, their estimates have been low so maybe they are knee jerking to the other extreme for 2011.

Aside from the seniors picking up on the ipad, I am constantly amazed at how accurate my 2 year old grandson is with the ipad. He knows how to find his favorite movies on it and how to find his favorite simple games and even the picture storybooks. Of course he gets lots of exposure as both his grandmothers have ipads and I have one. My daughter loves to practice with him learning the numbers and simple reading lessons. She doesn't have an ipad but has many of the same children's aps on her iphone so he gets a same environment, just smaller in screen size. He has no interest in the laptop.

 

[rockymtnhigh]

I had three PDF articles to read for the grad class I am teaching tomorrow night. I did not want to print them at home, so I loaded the PDFs up on my Tablet, and easily read them with it. I'll admit an ipad would have been nicer, as the extra 3" would have enabled me to read the documents in horizontal and not landscape mode, but regardless, the technology is just very nice.

The ipad is easy to use, so I am not surprised by the ability of your grandson being able to find stuff. IT was exactly Apple's goal. Usability.

I guess time will tell the magnitude of the change. But it is sure exciting times. My wife, on the other hand, keeps complaining about how much this "revolution" in communication is costing us; broadband access, cell phone/data plan bills around $160/month, new equipment, etc...

 

[Frank Jr.]

In the spirit of Don's thread and looking back I would have loved an iPad when my wife was in the hospital. During those many hours while she was sleeping it would have been a great way to spend the time sitting next to her. In certain environments the iPad or other tablets definitely do have their place. In the past I was never kind to Apple anything. To be honest and reflecting back I probably would have never bought one. As a Christmas gift I was forced to at least try it before I took it back. (lol) It does take some time and patients getting used to a totally different way of doing things. The iPad in my opinion does have it's short comings, but not enough of them to get rid of it though. If there was a tablet forum I would discuss these short comings at length. I am very impressed with it's physical build, aluminum and glass. I wish my expensive high definition tv's were built like my iPad..........

 

[TheForce]

If there was a tablet forum I would discuss these short comings at length.

I started an iPAD Owner's thread at: http://www.satelliteguys.us/computer-electronic-gadgetszone/208253-apple-ipad-owners-thread.html The purpose of that thread is for the exact purpose you stated. What I discovered, personally, over the years is when I believe there is a shortcoming, often I discover I just didn't know there was a way to achieve what I wanted. The thread is for ipad owners or prospective ipad owners. People who troll there just to start trouble or discuss how bad it is are not welcome. The thread is to solve problems and help each other find better ways to do things on the ipad. Of course, the obvious can't be helped, like if you complain because the iPAD has a shortcoming in that it doesn't fit in your shirt pocket or the ipad lacks a built in blu ray player etc. But on the other hand if you are bothered that the ipad doesn't have a USB port, well... there is a solution for that.

 

[rockymtnhigh]

Not about tablets, but the theme of how our society has changed...

Engadget has a story about the NEW iphone "Confession" app, approved by the Roman Catholic Church.

iTunes salvation: Roman Catholic Church approves Confession app -- Engadget

 

[Scott Greczkowski]

Our town is conisdering iPads for all kids in High School in the next 1 or 2 years. It will save them greatly on textbooks.

Interesting idea.

 

[rockymtnhigh]

Our town is conisdering iPads for all kids in High School in the next 1 or 2 years. It will save them greatly on textbooks.

Interesting idea.

They best research the ebook concept something serious, since most publishers sell the books for limited periods of time. Given how schools keep books for years, and recycle them many times, it could end up costing them a helluva lot more. Plus, the distractions of students ALL having ipads in class could be quite problematic from the stand point of managing a classroom. (Don't get me wrong, I see many potentially positive uses for education; but am just not sold on the idea that the good would outweigh the bad -- and it doesn't matter what the OS is; iOS or Android or W7). I know the college students who have used the ebooks that are out now seem pretty much unimpressed so far.

 

[Frank Jr.]

Our town is conisdering iPads for all kids in High School in the next 1 or 2 years. It will save them greatly on textbooks.

Interesting idea.

Ya think. I don't know. I can drop my books, what happens when i drop a pad.