The Philippine Online Chronicles

This is revolutionary.  Last January, Apple launched iPad.  And it will once more change the world.  At least that's what Y Combinator, venture capital firm for early stage startups, thinks.

Y Combinator recently came out with RFS 6: iPad Applications, which basically declared, "iPad is the Windows killer."

“Most people think the important thing about the iPad is its form factor: that it's fundamentally a tablet computer. We think Apple has bigger ambitions. We think the iPad is meant to be a Windows killer. Or more precisely, a Windows transcender. We think Apple foresees a future in which the iPad is the default way people do what they now do with computers (and some other new things).

"Programmers may never want a computer they don't control, but ordinary people just want something cheap that works. And that's how the iPad will seem to them. Many will never make a conscious decision to switch. They'll get an iPad as well, then find they use their Windows machine less and less. When it dies they won't replace it,” RFS 6 said, reading like a manifesto for the future of computing.

Is it that huge?

It is difficult to be on the cutting edge of technology.  To take it into the proper context, Y Combinator is a venture firm for tech startups. The company provides initial seed capital (no more than USD20,000 or P920,603 to get things going).  Y Combinator funds all sorts of computer startups.  They've recently focused more on web-based startups.  They also deal with investors and acquirers.  They do the introduction and arrange for the paperwork.

Y Combinator basically takes how to fund a startup and makes it easy.  So what they say can be thought of to be a big deal.

Is iPad going to be a runaway hit like the iPhone and iPod Touch before it?

As its simplest, iPad is like iPod Touch. Imagine sitting, having breakfast and instead of reading a paper newspaper, you turn on Marketwatch, or the latest Wallstreet Journal or The Straits Times applications.  You go read the news digitally, scrolling down, tweeting something interesting when you find one.  Tired of the news? Press home and slide your fingers to Mail.app and boom!  You're connected to your email and you can start working.

What makes iPod Touch and iPhone so different is that each and every application gets to define its user interface. Meaning, the application designers can be as creative as they can be and the application interface isn't constricted by keyboard or mouse controllers -- they rely on multi-touch technology instead, which is being embraced by Android and a host of other operating systems for mobile devices.

The difference between Apple and Android is that now, iPhone OS is breaking new ground. This is the computer of the future whre everything is abstract.  You don’t need to know about file systems.  You don’t need to know about “My Documents”.  You don’t need to know where the video file is.  The applications you run take care of this for you.

Open a word processing app and boom! Your documents are there.  Open your video player and boom! Your videos are all there for you to see.  Open your photo album app and boom! Your photos are arranged per album.

Many of the complexities we associate with computers are simplified. Suddenly, you don’t need to be a rocket scientist to use a computer.

It is the same as talking about a feed reader for the iPhone -- every website becomes an application.  If you want to go read the New York Times, you don’t have to go to Google Reader to do it. Simply fire up your New York Times app and boom!  The Times is there for you to enjoy.  Suddenly, the Web too is abstracted.  You don’t have to type www dot whatnut dot com anymore. The web becomes an App.

That’s the beauty of this form factor.  The beauty of iPad is that it is essentially a whole new way of thinking about a computer.   It is a whole new way of thinking about computing.  You don’t have to do things the old hard Windows way.

What is iPad?

Quite a few people are puzzled about how to categorize iPad.  It isn’t a netbook.  A netbook is essentially a cheap laptop.  It has the same user interface: keyboard, mouse, and Windows desktop.  What women I know like about it is that -- it is easy to carry.  But at the end of the day it is still the same old computer -- a mobile PC, a mobile Windows device.

The iPad is a whole different beast because essentially, the application determines what user interface you get.  If it is a word processor application, a keyboard pops up that you can type on.

On the iPad, for example, it isn’t impossible to imagine how word processing could extend.  It should be fairly easy to write books on it. It should be fairly easy to email people using it.  It should be fairly easy to blog on it.

It can take textbooks to the next level, making the whole device into a learning tool.  Lectures and instructions can then be tailor made, and learning apps can change depending on the student’s ability to learn and send feedback to the teacher. Healthcare may be revolutionized as well -- iPad is wide enough that patient records could be viewed. Engineers can likewise see structures and plans and make arrangements while in the field, and on-site disaster management can become easier via interactive maps.

Real Time Strategy games like command and conquer or Civilization may even be twice as awesome on this platform, given the unique multi-touch technology-based interface.

'Sort of magical'

Apple's marketing director Phil Schiller said: "It is going to change the way we do the things we do everyday."  Romanticizing it,  Jonathan Ive, senior designer was spot on when he said, “When something exceeds your ability to understand how it works, it sort of becomes magical.”

iPad and the genre of computing it is ushering makes it an exciting, magical time.  What we’re seeing here is the dawn of the age where the computer is an extension of our will. The product fits us.  The device fits you and me, in ways we cannot yet exactly imagine.  If the last twenty years has been about us structuring our lives around the computer, this is the age where the computer is structuring itself around us.

The iPad fits with Apple’s core philosophy: the simple not the complex. Apple is all about bringing liberal arts and science together to into one magical product.  Unifying art and science together to create something different. Jonathan Ive said about the iPad, "In many ways, this defines our vision, our sense of what's next."  That’s exactly what iPad is: what’s next.

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Image is from Apple, Inc. used with permission.

Image of Command and Conquer is a screenshot from an iPod Touch.