RazorianFly

On January 27th 2010, Apple CEO Steve Jobs unveiled the long-awaited and long-rumored Apple Tablet. The iPad. But today, I sat down and asked myself the burning question; Just why does the Apple iPad actually exist? – and then it hit me ..

You’re probably looking at the title of this post now thinking, “What the hell is he on about?” .. Well, if we weren’t to think about the answer, it would probably just fall to “because Apple wants us to hand over a wad load of money again”. But thinking a little deeper and you’ll see this is a tactical move. I’ve been studying an effect called “The Halo Effect” for some time now, and one company which it applies to more than most, is Apple.

The Wikipedia definition of The Halo Effect” is:

reference to a cognitive bias whereby the perception of a particular trait is influenced by the perception of the former traits in a sequence of interpretations.

In others words, previous experiences influence future choices. Lets take a look at Apples current product line up. The wildly successfully iPod music player (iPod Shuffle, iPod nano, iPod Classic and iPod touch), a “revolutionary” mobile phone with the iPhone, iPhone 3G and 3GS and of course the Macintosh computer (Mini, Macbook, Macbook Pro, Macbook Air, iMac, Mac Pro). Now for my entire history of Apple products. In 2004 I bought the iPod Mini (first generation), and in 2006 upgraded to the iPod nano (first generation). In 2007 I bought a Mac Mini and then updated to an iPod touch (generation first). In 2008 I started the year by upgrading from my Mac Mini to a fully-fledged iMac, updated my LG phone to an iPhone 3G, and in 2009 finally updated from the iPhone 3G to the new iPhone 3GS.

The Halo Effect states that the reason I and others upgraded these products so often, and to higher and more featured models at each update increment, is solely due to previous experiences we’ve had with past Apple products – and I highly believe it is the case, even today. Now lets come back to the iPad. Here we have the first ever multi-touch slate-like tablet from Apple. Priced at $499, the product allows you to do a bunch of things your Mac can already do, but it doesn’t replace your Mac. Why? Most people want it to, and if Apple added a mutli-touch version of iLife and threw in an iSight camera, it probably could. Lets first look at what market Apple are targeting here. The iPad is for the general public. Yes they’ve built iWork for the business sector, and who can blame them? If they capture business market, more revenue for them. But make no mistake, the iPad is for grandparents, parents, guardians, students and school kids. It’s for you. It’s for your family.

So, I sat there this afternoon and thought to myself, if the iPad doesn’t replace your Mac, wasn’t designed to be a functioning phone, and you probably wouldn’t use it as your everyday iPod; Why does the iPad exist? And then it hit me. Just like the iPod Classic exists to sell the iPod touch and the Macbook exists to sell the Macbook Pro, the iPad exists to sell the “Mac” experience to the general public .. and I don’t just mean so that they’ll go out and buy Macintosh computers .. as soon as a non-iPhone owner starts playing with an iPad as their “Tablet Computer” for lack of better words, it’s likely they’ll also research into the iPhone as their next replacement phone. The bonus? It has multi-touch.

Apple is positioning this product to become the “convincer”. This will be the device which sways people to buy a Mac, or an iPhone .. and who knows, maybe in the not too distant future, a touch-capable full-featured Macintosh computer.