I should probably apologize for the content here being so heavily skewed towards the iPad. It’s now been a week with me owning one, and so the honeymoon phase of having this device should be just out over – which also means that I’m ready to put this device, and its competitors, through the ringer.
Like this idea of a killer application for the iPad. I get it. There’s some application, that when everyone uses it, will totally convince you that this device and platform are just unbelievable. For the iPod, it was iTunes. For Blackberries, it is email (and now BlackBerry Messenger). For the Palm Pilot (and its many iterations), it was the calendar and other PIM apps. Nearly every successful platform has one, and of course, the iPad is supposed to as well.
Well, it doesn’t and it does. iTunes is the key to most of Apple’s engine and that serves, just as it does for the iPod and iPhone devices, as that killer application. The key for the iPad is that it is just another content delivery device. It is a simple-to-use one. And that’s key for this kind of size and focus of device.
But, if there were a killer application, something that was perfect for this platform and this platform only, what would it be? Depends on the day of the week and who you ask really.
Since its introduction, the iPad’s killer apps have been games, books, iTunes, periodicals, anything that can be coded in HTML5 and use the browser to stream video, etc. In other words, there’s nothing killer. The platform has so many possible uses, that depending on your context, all of them can be deemed killer – in respect to similar devices doing the same thing – and perfect – for you.
And yet when I read Seth Goodin’s post about the iPad meeting application, I smiled (and pulled out my keyboard for this post. That application would be classified as perfect and killer because it will accomplish the point in changing behaviors, driving people to a specific hardware platform, and catering to thought leaders specifically in an enterprise context.
Anything to get people to have fewer meetings, and kill fewer hours of the day doing so has to be perfect. And this is good.
Except for the team meetings that it will take to design this application. Yea, the app will be needed to drive the project so that it doesn’t fall out of scope. Another kill, but to someone’s patience, before the killer dollars are made.
blog.arjw 