The iPad – will it change the game or is it just Star Wars monopoly?

A glass or two glasses of wine into a networking dinner recently, I found myself in a debate about whether the iPad would be game changing or not. I have some history of this subject as when we first started the company in 2001, we travelled the world testing Microsoft’s tablet PC to help understand how and where people would use it and what usability issues were apparent between device and software.

Of course in those days broadband for the masses didn’t exist (and of course the need for wireless was lessened as a result) and software that recognised handwriting and converted it for editing was embryonic. That is before we even consider how cumbersome the device was across size, weight and overall utility.

What was interesting was to see the cultural differences between East and West. Back then it was common practice in Japan to bring a laptop in to a meeting to take notes on and the interest in the tablet was greater than in the West as a result.

Of course there have been significant technological advances in the past few years not least with eBook readers and the iPhone and there is a great deal more still to come that will have a substantial influence on customer behaviour. The manufacturers of eBook readers have missed a substantial opportunity (in my humble opinion) to create multi-function tablet style devices that the iPad will now deliver upon. Just how many devices is one person going to be prepared to carry?

I can’t help but conclude when pulling this all together, that the game has already changed and that it is the iPhone (largely) that already changed it. The infrastructure in, for example, the app store and iTunes store (admittedly this argument could run to say the iPod changed the game) combined with simplicity of the interaction design in the iPhone has fundamentally changed the way people use hand held devices. I think the iPad is an iteration or evolution of this and it will use much of the same infrastructure and approach to user interaction to support it.

What do you think?