It’s no surprise that none of those media players are around today.

Apple at that time had already proven the successful marriage of device (iPod) and application (iTunes). It was truly simplicity. I remember when I installed my iPod for the first time, I was blown away at the simplicity. It just found all my MP3s and sucked it into the device without any difficulty. It was the best consumer product experience I had ever had. Many competing products claimed, “Oh, you can just bring all your music into our device,” but it was far from simple.

Hey tablet PC makers, don’t let software be an afterthought

Lenovo Ideapad U1 Hybrid

While I’m still suspect of whether the iPad will be successful given how we’ve become so accustomed to inputting information through keyboards (see Will the iPad Follow the Failure of Voice Dictation Software?), I am buoyed by the fact that they’re continuing on their tradition of simply acquiring and managing media. Their online bookstore is just an extension of the iTunes experience. While Amazon has successfully simplified the content gathering experience with the Kindle, I’m not seeing the same with other tablet computers.

If everyone knows what it takes to be successful against Apple, why do manufacturers of media consumption devices continue to ignore the content input experience? We saw it with MP3 devices, then video devices, and now we’re going to see it again with iPad competitive tablet devices. Take a look at PC World’s round up of Tablet PCs from this year’s CES. The obsession over the mechanics under the hood and not the actual experience using the device just points to the impending failure of all these competitors.

Yes, the current version of the iPad is hamstringed severely and I’m not going to jump out and get version 1.0. But they’re definitely creating a new type of media consumption (to a lesser extent media creation) experience. And while I was down on it in my Technologizer article, I want to be proven wrong. I want to see people adapt to a new experience of consumption and computing in somewhat the same way they’ve done with the iPhone.

MSI Tablet PC

Except for the Kindle, the competitors are just trying to slam technology into a device. They’re not focused on creating an experience. Yes, these tablet PC manufacturers will sell a few units, but they won’t capture grand mind share like Apple can.

Prior to the release of the iPhone, I received a competitive handheld computing device from Nokia, the Nokia 810. It was a painful computing experience. After toying around with it for a few hours, I gave up and it sits in my drawer. If I could recognize how annoying it was to use, why did they release the device? Don’t you sometimes think the manufacturers don’t use their products first?

If you don’t love the experience, guess what? We won’t either.

Creative Commons photo attribution: ndevilTV / CC BY 2.0