Apple Tablet: It's The Ecosystem, Stupid

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Unlike the "ill-fated" Newton PDA of the early 1990s, the time is right for a new tablet device from Apple, argue Alex Bartfeld and Michael Oh of Codex Development in a new white paper from the developer of mobile applications for Apple operating systems.

Codex, headquartered in London, is also affiliated with Oh's Boston-based Tech Superpowers, a long-standing Apple reseller partner. The white paper seeks to debunk "Apple Tablet Myths" while acknowledging the market challenges faced by the highly anticipated multi-touch tablet device that Cupertino, Calif.-based Apple is expected to announce at a press event in San Francisco this Wednesday.

"The predominant belief is that Apple's Tablet will succeed simply due to the popularity of the iPhone and the incredible buzz around the product. Conversely, a significant minority of analysts believe the tablet is merely a product of overhyped PR and, with a lack of useful applications, will soon fail," Bartfeld and Oh write.

But both of those "myths" are inaccurate, the Codex Development co-founders conclude.

The paper starts with a brief history lesson on the Newton, the PDA that was "ultimately killed by Steve Jobs upon his return to Apple." The Newton, the authors conclude, was a product line that bit off more than the technology of the time was able to chew, with the handwriting recognition in particular being "widely ridiculed in the popular press."

"[W]ith no suitable application which clearly benefited from freehand notation, there was simply no clear reason why people should have bought a Newton," write Bartfeld and Oh. In the years that followed the Newton, assorted companies built tablet PCs with limited success and today's market share for tablets in the overall market for computing devices hovers at just 1 percent.

Not exactly an encouraging sign for any new tablet, even one by mighty Apple, the company with the golden touch. Which is why Apple won't be selling an iTablet or iSlate or whatever the new device is called, Bartfeld and Oh conclude, so much as it will be selling a new ecosystem of distributors and developers that happens to use a tablet device as "the last few feet of a pipeline of digital content delivery."

Confused? Bartfeld and Oh contend that there is fundamental misperception about Apple's great successes of the early 21st century -- the iPod and iPhone. On the surface, it seemed like the company simply developed, delivered and sold a pair of wildly successful devices. But it was so much more than that, they argue.

"In both cases, Apple realized that the device wasn't the end product," the paper states. And in fact, Bartfeld and Oh write, when they were first released, the iPod and iPhone presented an actual step back in certain areas of utility when compared to the respective MP3 players and smart phones those two Apple products were stacked up against. For example, the iPhone removed the smart phone's traditional keypad while both it and the iPod "allow[ed] for little customization, especially compared to what 'knobs and dials' are available on most desktop systems."

"It's not that Apple is philosophically opposed to customization or open platforms," they write. "... Rather, Apple recognizes that when a device like the iPod or iPhone is part of a consumer ecosystem, it must serve that primary purpose to a level of perfection, even to the detriment of flexibility."

In other words, the usefulness of the iPod as a delivery system for iTunes and the iPhone for the App Store is at least as important to those products' success as their attractiveness as stand-alone devices. Perhaps they are just the public-facing cogs in a massive content delivery apparatus -- where the medium ends and the message begins, nobody can say for sure.

Next: Netbook 2.0?

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