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Apple's strategy: why the iPad did not live up to expectations

Excerpt from The Verge article:
10 years ago, Steve Jobs went on stage to introduce the iPad to the world. By his own admission, the tablet has become a device from the third category between a smartphone and a laptop. At that time, netbooks dominated the personal computer sector ... Apple had its own answer to netbooks: a 9.7-inch tablet that allowed the owner to access the Internet ... the iPad was designed to be more convenient for music, games, browsing, email, photos, videos and e-books. “If a third category of devices appears, it will have to surpass a laptop or smartphone in all these tasks - otherwise there is no point in its existence,” said Jobs.
After the release of the iPad in 2010, the author of the strategic blog Stratechery posted the following post:


Most users just want to go to Facebook, check their emails, watch YouTube, and maybe upload photos. The value of Apple’s offer for these customers is as follows: iPad offers more convenience than using a PC or netbook to consume content and even create it, which satisfies most users. That's why iWork was featured so often during the presentation - Apple made it clear that the tablet can completely replace the personal computer.
As time goes on, experts are trying to assess whether Jobs's expectations have been met. UX designer and creator of Markdown Markup Language John Gruber is disappointed with the current state of the iPad:
« , , iPad . Mac , : 1984 , 1994 . iPad , … — iPad. iPadOS , iPhone, - Apple , Mac. iPad , . ».
IPad has big problems with multitasking. She ruined the device interface. Now I absolutely don’t like working with the iPad [approx. Ed .: The article describes the opinion of the author of the original text]. I use it only for watching videos and sketching articles. What is striking and even tragic is how the iPad came to its current state. During the first demonstration of the device, Jobs sat with the tablet, leaning back in his chair - a great way to show that the device is designed to consume content. However, then it seemed that the iPad had more potential. Here is what I wrote ten years ago:
« — , iPad . , , . , Macintosh».

, , iWork, 57 . iPad . , . . , , . : , multitouch, . , , iPhone, .
I must say right away that now my twelve-year-old daughter does not really use a mouse. She has a laptop, but she prefers a touchpad.

However, a year later, when Steve Jobs showed the iPad 2 to the world in his penultimate presentation, the future I described seemed right. The most impressive moment of his performance was the GarageBand demonstration. Here's the full video of the presentation, but its most important part is Steve Jobs’s reaction to GarageBand. Rewind to 12:30 if there is no time or desire to watch completely. Jobs's goggle speaks more than his words:


I am shocked. Everyone can play their own or virtual instruments and create music on such a thin device that weighs only 601 grams. This is unbelievable ... This is not a toy. This is what you can use to do real work.
GarageBand was even more important than iWork, which was released a year earlier. Such an application could only be presented on the iPad. Although there was a program on the Mac with the same name, there was practically nothing in common between them. And then Jobs died, and since then I have not been able to get rid of the feeling that the special vision of the iPad went with him.

Missing iPad ecosystem


At the end of the GarageBand presentation, something happened that made it possible to predict future iPad problems back then:



It seems to me that the iPad is the product that Steve Jobs lacks the most. Nevertheless, third-party developers should have become a long-term and sustainable source of innovation for the tablet. Take a look at the example of Gruber with the popularity of Mac among graphic designers and illustrators. While Apple MacPaint demonstrated the capabilities of the device, Aldus (PageMaker), Quark (QuarkXPress) and Adobe (Illustrator, Photoshop, Acrobat) made a real revolution. By the time the Mac was ten years old, Apple was a $ 2 billion company, and Adobe was worth $ 1 billion.

Needless to say, there is not one equally large company that has succeeded thanks to the iPad - despite the fact that the general addressable market has expanded. One of the main reasons is the price of the application ($ 4.99). Apple set the standard according to which extremely sophisticated, innovative software, which could only appear on the iPad, brought in only $ 5 from each customer (updates, of course, were free).

This remains one of Apple's biggest mistakes. In 2015, when the company first launched the iPad Pro, in my article “From Products to Platforms,” I wrote:
« iPad, Apple . « , , ». — , . iPad , — , , . , — , iPad, Apple. « », .

, , iPad , . Apple — . SDK App Store. -, , « » .

iOS . , iPhone. ( , ), , — . iPad iPhone. , ( ).

, iPad — , Paper. . , , , . FiftyThree Pencil ( Apple). Apple Garageband iMovie , ».
Since then, the situation has improved a bit, primarily due to the addition of subscriptions to applications. However, for users, this system seems significantly less profitable compared to a model that has supported Mac developers for decades (pay for a new version of the program). Previously, we never had to pay extra to get access to all the functionality of a paid application.

Instead, as Apple usually does, it tried to solve the problem on its own by turning the iPad into a degraded Mac. Therefore, Gruber is disappointed in multitasking, which not only causes problems for users, but also increases the complexity of developing applications. All this makes the chances of making a profit from the application for the iPad even less. The most successful companies creating sophisticated iPad apps are Microsoft and Adobe, which have their own subscription models.

Frankly, no one would have abandoned such "failures" that the iPad has undergone. Last fiscal year, the tablet brought the company $ 21 billion - almost as much as the Mac ($ 26 billion). That's why I do not call it a failure: the tragedy of the iPad is not that it sold poorly, but that it did not and most likely never reaches its potential, which ten years ago seemed huge.

And what do you think: does the iPad concept justify its existence in 2020?

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