It’s not that the iPad isn’t a cool looking device. It’s beautiful. It’s that I don’t see it as the savior of all things analog the media is making it out to be. Beyond that, it seems to me it has a very limited audience.

The iPad is targeted at people who care enough about technology to pony up a minimum of $499 for what is essentially a large iPod touch (others may disagree but that’s my opinion). Reports are out today from Engadget and others indicating the Wall Street Journal will be available on the iPad for $17.99/month and monthly issues of magazines will cost close to newsstand prices. That’s cute but the reality is few industries have found success by simply porting their existing business model to the digital arena. Changes are required. Companies must adapt and I don’t believe Apple is encouraging media companies to do so. They’re stuck in old school thinking.

Media companies aside, here are my issues with the iPad based on the specs I’ve seen:

• Pricing – Most people still don’t have an extra $499 to spend on an optional item. Pinning hopes on the device ignores the millions of people who still believe $1 / day for a newspaper they can leave on the bus is the ultimate in convenient. On top of that, this is a market where people still prefer buying on-contract phones because the price is subsidized. Even Apple has helped support that model with the iPhone.
• Multitasking – It’s been claimed as a weakness for the iPhone, the iPod Touch and now, the iPad. It hasn’t mattered for the first two because people don’t multitask that much on phone type devices. They can do without it. It will matter for the iPad because people are used to doing multiple things at once on their computers. They’re used to switching back and forth between multiple applications. Multitasking matters…
• Apple ecosystem – Don’t get me wrong. I think Apple’s ecosystem is brilliant. I immensely admire Apple’s ability to create new core competencies for the company around industries tangentially related to their true fundamental business model. It makes customers’ lives easier. But, the reality is, it only makes Apple’s customers’ lives easier. There are still millions of desktops, laptops, Kindles, Nooks, Android tablets, etc that have to be supported. By building their digital capabilities around the iPad, media companies will end up ignoring others. That seems like a good way to destroy a company rather than build it up.
• Size – I can’t believe no one else is saying this. This thing is too big. Yes, it’s light and thin. That’s great. Unfortunately, you’re going to be carrying this thing in your laptop bag along with your laptop, books, papers and that thing with hard edges you totally forgot about. That ill-forgotten thing will crack your iPad screen. A device this large in a bag will be broken within weeks (or so I think). Once you add a case, the device becomes a little bit heavier and a little bit thicker – taking up a little more space and adding a little more weight to your bag. Not so much fun…

“Even a broken clock is right twice a day” is an oft-heard refrain. The opposite of that must be something along the lines of even the perfect stumble sometimes. I think this is Apple’s time to stumble. Unfortunately, newspapers and magazines can’t afford the trip as well as Apple can. Let’s hope they’re hedging their bets.

For your kicks, Apple’s iPad video…

That ability to create devices that “just work” and to make them more user friendly, cooler and better looking than any other company in the world has earned Apple three years at the top of Fortune’s Most Admired Companies. Where other companies create products consumers tell them they want, Apple creates products consumers only know they want once Apple produces them. It’s an amazing business model and they do it excellently.

My problem with Apple is mobile. Without question, Apple redefined the way consumers saw phones. By offering a phenomenally usable operating system with a beautiful user experience, Apple made the cell phone as cool as an iPod. By further, creating an iPhone ecosystem via the iPhone App Store, Apple converted the device from a phone to a multi-function device that allows its users to lead a life where everything they need to do can be done from the palm of their hand.

What Apple did was not new. Palm phones had long supported color icons, touchscreen input and rather small form factors. Nokia phones pre-2006 (when the iPhone debuted) offered smartphone style functionality, Wi-Fi, downloadable applications (I know because I built an app), the ability to surf the web and view video (if you had the right software). Blackberrys from RIM have long offered an exceptional communications platform. All of this existed prior to the launch of the iPhone. Apple’s contribution was bringing it all together in a phenomenally tantalizing package that just worked.

Putting a beautiful wrapper, however, on old technology is not novel. It is exactly that lack of novelty that has me questioning Apple’s recent actions in suing HTC for patent infringement in a thinly veiled attack on Google’s Android. Engadget provides a detailed explanation of the patents involved here.

Apple has not attacked HTC because it is a cell phone manufacturer who might (or might not) infringe on their patents. In fact, Apple has attacked HTC because they are at this moment the only phone manufacturer who 1) is relatively small; 2) makes devices whose capabilities, on many levels, rival those of the iPhone; 3) creates great devices that use Google’s Android.

Android is the mobile operating system many see as the iPhone’s greatest competitor. Nokia’s Symbian and RIM’s Blackberry OSes both have greater market share than the either the iPhone OS or Android but Android has been developed much in the same way the iPhone OS was — with phenomenal speed, tremendous attention to detail and a focus on both ease of use and being easy on the eyes. Combining the Android operating system with HTC’s hardware was a shot across Apple’s bow. Their response, however, has the potential to stop the mobile business in its tracks – leaving Apple as the only company capable of creating modern smartphones.

Apple’s immediate goal is to neuter Android and HTC before they can truly challenge their leadership position. This is not about patent infringement. The broad nature of many of Apple’s patents and their questionable applicability (as well as the likelihood that prior art can be demonstrated for some) indicate that Apple is going for a shot gun approach to take out the weakest gazelle in the herd. You can be sure that if Apple is successful that they will soon go after Nokia, RIM, Samsung, Sony, Motorola and other OS and hardware manufacturers. Apple clearly wants to own the mobile business all to itself in spite of other companies having long history of mobile accomplishments long before Apple got on the field. Their goal is to decimate all competitors in a way that relies not on consumers’ demand for their products but on questionable intellectual property awards. To my mind, that borders anti-competitive and is not in the spirit of how the marketplace should operate.

Let’s be clear. Apple should absolutely have the ability to protect their intellectual property. For example, the slide to unlock a phone patent seems valid to me. I don’t know who owns the patent for the zoom in / zoom out gesture on the iPhone but if that’s Apple, then that is absolutely protectable. To want to enforce patents on multitasking or using parsed data, however, is a stretch. (Perhaps the stretch is the USPTO even awarding such a patent.)

What I’d like is for Apple to not try to hobble the mobile business buy pursuing enforcement of questionable patents. I’m sure Motorola, Nokia, RIM and other companies have similar patents that could just as simply be applied to Apple. Instead, I’d like to see the companies press each other to innovate. I like the pressure the success of the iPhone has had on the rest of the mobile business. If not for Apple, we’d still be on 20MB calling plans and Palm would have the most advanced phones. And if Apple was in the business by itself, what we’d find is that we’d be stuck using a phone that only allowed us to download applications Apple liked and doing only things Apple approved of. We’d find that even Apple would slow down innovation if no one was nipping at its tail and, most of all, we’d find that the mobile business was a whole lot more boring — except for Apple.

Let’s not let Apple ruin the mobile business…

Everyone, it seems, is creating the next iPhone. Google’s G1 is the most recent device to throw its hat into the ring, but they’re not at all alone. Blackberry is on its way with the (initially) Verizon Wireless marketed “Storm”, also called the Thunder. Nokia will soon be launching the Nokia 5800 Tube, the first phone that implements its S60 Touch UI. And, let’s not forget the Samsung Instinct, which actually sold well, and their beautiful but not yet available in the States, Samsung Innov8. Each of these phones are being released to provide competition to the iPhone – in some ways, to be the next, but better, iPhone. I’m sick of it.

The iPhone is a great phone. I do not have one, but often wish I did. My Nokia N95 is very nice, but there’s something excellent about a touch screen. I like the idea of being able to browse the web almost as I would on my desktop or notebook. I think the UI is amazing – especially for a company taking a first shot (technically, 2nd if you include the Newton) at a mobile OS. It’s size is almost perfect and now that it has 3G, it really is a killer phone. The thing is, for what they did, they nailed it. They got it right. They left little room for error and the marketplace acknowledges that with its demand. Given that, why is everyone stuck on creating the next iPhone? Apple created the next iPhone with the 3G iPhone.

The phone manufacturers should be looking at creating some above and beyond the iPhone. RIM should be looking at creating the next Blackberry, Nokia, the next Nokia and Samsung, the next Samsung. What does that mean? These companies need to focus on their strengths. RIM should be looking to revolutionize what business users can do on their touch-screen Crackberries. People should feel almost as if they don’t even need their laptop because they can do 75% of what they need to do on the Blackberry. Nokia, on the other hand, should focus on reliability, functionality and its ability to stay slightly ahead of the curve. Nokia doesn’t create the greatest looking phones. They create the most reliable phones and, with its S60 platform, highly functional phones with lots of capabilities. Honestly, I don’t know what the hell Samsung does well, but people are beginning to like their phones judging by the reaction to the Sprint Instinct and the Innov8.

To my mind, each of these companies will only succeed if they stick to their core strengths and stop worrying about the iPhone so much. If Blackberry users wanted an iPhone, they’d buy one (and may have already), but they’d likely still keep their Blackberry. If, as an N95 owner, I wanted an iPhone, I’d go out and get one, but I trust Nokia’s reliability and like the options I have with the N95. When competing with the iPhone, other manufacturers will only be also-rans and the more time they spend competing solely against the iPhone, the more time they will spend as also-rans. It’s a sad truth. However, if they focus on their core strategies, do what they do well and bring devices to market that exceed expectations, they easily stand more than a fighting chance of giving the iPhone true competition.

I don’t like my Verizon phone – a three month old HTC Touch (referred to by Verizon as the VX6900). I thought it was cool when I bought it, but its flaws have worn on me. I don’t care about it not having a keyboard, but at least the on-screen keyboard could be usable. Beyond that, I’m finding right now that it selectively rings. In other words, if it is in standby mode, it won’t ring when a call comes in, but will briefly ring once you turn the screen on to use the phone. Apparently, this might as well be a feature given the number of people for whom this is an issue. I say this to say that I’d like to change my phone and guess what, I can’t. It’s not because Verizon doesn’t have other phones for which I could pay full price. Instead, it’s because the only phones one can use on Verizon’s network, thanks to their closed-mindedness, are old ones. Go ahead. Go check out Verizon’s site and find a Windows Mobile (Professional, my preference) based phone that wasn’t announced at least a year ago. For those who are counting, that’s even pre-iPhone.

Here’s where this hits home for Verizon. Check out the Samsung Instinct. It’s an iPhone-like touch screen phone Sprint recently released and it’s selling so fast Sprint can hardly keep it in stock. Verizon has put out two phones, the LG Voyager and the Samsung Glyde, that they thought might be, if not iPhone killers, iPhone competitors. The public hasn’t thought so. What did Verizon do wrong? A couple of things…

For one, check out the different ways Sprint and Verizon market their phones. You can go to the Verizon website for the Glyde. Exciting, huh? That’s the first SERP listing on Google when you query “Verizon Glyde”. To their credit, they did hoodwink Samsung into building a Flash driven site. Not great, but better than what Verizon did themselves. Now, let’s head back to Sprint land. The Instinct’s site? Check it out. Sprint created a campaign around the launch of the Instinct. Talk about Marketnology^SM at work! Not only did they create a campaign, but they’re even offering to pay consumers for doing Instinct product placement in home videos on YouTube. Amazing, stuff…

But, I said Verizon did a couple of things wrong… The second thing? It’s something they’ve been doing wrong. They’ve not been thinking about their audience. Every non smart phone you buy from Verizon has the same outdated, ugly and difficult to use interface. They changed it a bit for the Glyde’s outer screen, but by and large they insisted on putting their ugly mark on the phone. Understand that the Glyde and the Instinct, when they leave Samsung, are just about the same phone with the exception of the Glyde having hardware keyboard. What happened on the way to market was Verizon’s unwillingness to think about what they can do to make things easier for the audience rather than using a lowest-common-denominator interface that makes thing consistent for their tech support. I would posit that if the interface is easy to use, customers won’t have to call that much – which explains why Sprint went for easy since they’re tech support is rumored to suck.

Enough of my rant, my point is that Verizon has their heads up their behinds. In this market, being lazy won’t sell phones. There they are stuck in the middle of AT&T, who had the vision to take on Apple’s crazy iPhone deal, and Sprint who seems to have found the key to getting people interested in their products (though, they seem to be faster to market than Verizon anyway). To my mind, Verizon has to get over middle child syndrome look towards innovation as way out of their obvious doldrums.