Before iPad came out, almost nobody thought it would be as successful as it became in the end. Even though iPhone back in 2010 was not as strong beasts as they are today, iPod Touch was a well established product for portable online communication and media technology. A lot of people did not see the value of a 500 dollars bigger iPod Touch, while Apple was not the company it is today, that they can make everything sell.
Therefore, the unexpected success for iPad was really surprising for a lot of people, since they believed that it was a technology which is neither portable due to its size and weight, nor powerful due to its nature. However, the actual result said otherwise, since it is a device that handles tasks which iPhone and iPod Touch are not powerful enough to handle, at the places that are not appropriate for laptops, or simply because the person does not want to carry a laptop.
After iPad was released, until the recent time when smartphones started to take over and laptops started to be lighter and cheaper, iPad was the dominating force in the portable communication and media device in the society: replying emails, watching videos, doing business, etc. This shifts people’s habits quite a lot, since they do not need to pull out their laptops whenever they need to work on something, and also do not need to try to make sense of things on the tiny phone screen. However, despite the convenience lifestyle and communicative power iPad provided, it is still on decline.
According to Business Insider, iPad holds most of the market share until the end of 2012, and still holds around 30% of the market by the end of 2014 (Smith, 2015), . And according to IDC, Apple’s shipments actually declined 13% over the year (Reisinger, 2017). This not only due to the increasing competition in the tablet market, but also due to the situation that there are more substitutions for the similar jobs iPad can do. With smartphones becoming better and better, while laptops becoming lighter and lighter, it seems like iPad and even the whole tablet industry is having nowhere to go anymore. The new laptops are just as portable as iPads, while smartphones can pretty much everything iPads can do if not doing them better.
Therefore, it is sad to conclude that iPad as a communicative device, is no longer revolutionary now. It was very revolutionary before since it filled the gap between smartphones and laptops, but that gap is getting more and more blurry as the technologies getting more and more developed. In fact, it filled the gap so nicely that most of us did not realize its existence until we do not need it anymore. Therefore, there is really not a social movement that was generated due to it. However, people’s life changed by it, and thus social problems elevated by it. For example, schools across the globe started to use iPad as a part of their education programs, which created a lot of controversies. The most namingly one is whether such digital device is beneficial towards learning or not. Even though high vividness may cause a lower rate of learning, iPad provides an unique way to communicate with the learning materials that traditional technologies cannot. After that, it was also a heating topic where parents let their children to play with the tablets while they do not have time to communicate with their children, which creates both social and health problems. In fact, desensitization, cultivation, and social learning were already problems argued at the television era, so the resurface of those social problems is because iPad as a communicative innovation, readdressed those theories and problems in a new way.
Even though iPad is no longer revolutionary, one of Apple’s recent innovation really caught my eyes as potentially the next “big thing.” Even though I really do not like current “Apple Watch,” I strongly believe smartwatch as a whole will have a very bright future, since one day it may completely take over the duties of smartphones. The most interesting aspect of the newly developed wearable networked devices is, they are all connected with the previous devices. Big companies such as Apple, Samsung, and Huawei are all making sure their new networked devices are connect with their prior products. This is such a great feature since each new innovation can add up all previous innovations’ features, to become a revolutionary product with less flaws and shortcomings. I believe one day in the future smartwatches will overcome the cultural norm of “grown men wear real watch” by its superior capabilities and become the next revolutionary communicative innovation.
In fact, it is frankly reasonable to identity eras with the communicative tools, because the communicative tools we are using are all connected together through “cloud” and chronologically related, the produce of one will ultimately lead to the produce of the next one. However, I believe it is important to point out that even though it is very reasonable to identify eras with communicative tools, the significant drawback is, that communicative tool can only identify specific eras, not generalized communication eras. For example, it is safe to say that the first 5 years of 2010s is the era of iPad and tablets in terms of personal portable computing and communication, however it is unfair to generalize this personal device as the era of mass communication.
There is no doubt that it is extremely hard for a networked innovation to serve its original or ideal purpose, just like Michael Hauben’s take on internet. Internet should have been a free and open area where people can let their opinions get heard and exchange messages. Despite current internet did meet some of Hauben’s initial idea, it is far from perfect. This is also the same situation for online-social-mobile media evolution. It is never a revolution, because it did not completely change the concept of everything, what people did was to follow the idea of Apparatgeist and improve the devices (Katz & Aakhus, 2002). However, this evolution is far from ideal. The improvements of new “revolutionary” innovations should connect people better together, but in order to utilize the new innovations, people either have to get a new device or upgrade their system, which their old devices may not support. This totally against the initial idea of get people better connected through new online-social-mobile devices. The advantage and disadvantage exist at the same time, which is exactly what should’ve happen with Hauberian’s sense, because Hauben was too idealized on new innovations. However, “hacker-geek” culture will be even more iconic than today if the internet actually end up in the shape of Michael Hauben’s idea. Since if everything is open to everyone, there will be no one to look over the ethical problems anymore, then personal security will be a joke. In the end, people will stop accessing this open network, because nothing on their is safe and secured, which will lead to the death of network.
To be honest, I believe the nascent “hacker-geek” culture is actually a beneficial thing for modern internet era, because the whole thing is a part of the broader picture of human-media movement, which this “hacker-geek” culture will lead to a better utilization of internet since people will make changes based on this culture, better online security, give-in and give off, etc.
Look back the past 50 years, it is honestly quite easy to see the chronological and step by step evolving relationship between the networked media and how we end up with what we have today. From television and telephone, which all networking is done at home; to later cell phones, which networked media first time got outside; to personal computers, which network media can go outside from indoors; to smart phones, iPad, and laptops, which network media can go wherever from wherever. Through this process, iPad and tablets in general is a very small figure, but it was the first attempt of combining mobility, networking, and computing together. Even though it is getting washed out by the advancement of technology, it pointed out the future of personal communicative innovations: combine mobility and capability together, which is the exact direction smartphones and laptops are all evolving towards.
Reference
Katz, James E., and Aakhus, Mark, eds. Perpetual Contact. Port Chester, NY, USA: Cambridge University Press, 2002. Dashboard BU. Web. 13 November 2017
https://learn.bu.edu/bbcswebdav/pid-5353048-dt-content-rid-18921238_1/courses/17fallcomem500_a1/Katz%20%26%20Aakhus%202002%20-%20Introduction%20%26%20Conclusion.pdf
Smith, D. (2015, February 25). Apple is losing the tablet market it created with the iPad. Retrieved November 13, 2017, from http://www.businessinsider.com/apple-tablet-market-share-2015-2
Reisinger, D. (2017, May 4). Apple’s iPad Is Still Leading the Crashing Tablet Market. Retrieved November 13, 2017, from http://fortune.com/2017/05/04/apple-ipad-tablet-market/