Is it simple and does it solve are two questions I ask myself when forecasting the success, or lack there of, for a new product. Complex products that are complex to use rarely succeed. And products that don’t solve a consumer need or problem often fail. When a product has both it’s destined for greatness. The iPhone is a shining example of a product that was very simple to use and solved the consumers’ problem.  Before the iPhone, even the smartest of smart-phones, were dumb.  They were heavy.  They were clunky.  They were slow.  They lacked personalization.  The iPhone eschewed us into the future and made us wonder how it was we got by with Palm Treos and Blackberries.  And  by making the entire face touch screen based, the entire interface was simple, palatable and natural.

A product can find success if it’s difficult, but clearly solving for a problem. For example, think about early VCRs. The certainly solved for the consumer need, but they were insanely complex. People tolerated the complexity because the need was so great. However, you’ll your head trying to find a successful product that which simple to use, didn’t solve for a problem.

It’s in this land of simplicity without solving a problem that the iPad lives. I’ve been using the iPad every day since its launch and though I try to find the problem it’s solving, I’m unable to.

Don’t get me wrong. There are several niche problems the iPad solves. For example the battery life is amazing. You could watch movies on it cross country and back without recharging. That’s impressive and a major step up from the iPhone and MacBook (even the air).  It solves the weight problem of laptops, but it also creates a weight problem for iPhone users  The iPad offers up some great drawing tools that make sketching, concepting and sharing ideas simpler.  But, again, these are niche solutions.  The iPad doesn’t solve for anything at “scale.”

The sad fact is that the iPad, as “hardware” has the ability to be successful.  I genuinely believe that.  It’s lightweight, the perfect size, has a gorgeous screen, and the touch screen is extremely responsive.  The problem of course is that the iPad is crippled by the Apple/iTunes ecosystem.  The draconian approach Apple has taken renders the iPad a big giant iPod Touch, instead of a super powerful, scalable, “magical” and game-changing device.

Apple would tell you that this approach makes the iPad simple.  It sure does, but in making it simple they’ve created more problems than they’ve solved.  And, that is why the iPad won’t succeed.

UPDATED: I just came across this great article from FastCompany that does a great job of examining how the current “software” or as I called it, ecosystem, is holding back the iPad.  Give it a read here.

I was trading tweets the other day with David Griner about the iPad.  He thinks it’ll be successful.  I don’t.  Time will only tell if that’s the case.  As we were conversing the subject of AppleTV got brought into the conversation.  I purchased an AppleTV in 2008 and like it for what it is.  It’s not a game changer.  It’s not revolutionary.  It is, however, a very cool way to bring photos, videos, and music to your primary screen…the TV.  Despite how cool it is to me, even the great Steve Jobs openly admits it’s a failure.

In my 5 Reasons Why The iPad Will Fail post a few days ago, I compared the iPad to the Newton.  In raw sales the iPad has already surpassed the Newton.  However, I wasn’t thinking of total sales when I was talking about success.  I was thinking more about sales relative to expectations and hype.  For example Piper Jaffray thought the iPad would sell 700K units on opening day.  Guess what?  It didn’t.  It sold less than half of that.  Of course, that alone doesn’t make the iPad successful or a failure.

As I was reading old articles about the AppleTV, I was strick by this great quote from a 2008 CNET Article:

The problem is, once again, that Apple refuses to accept the world doesn’t begin and end with QuickTime and the iTunes Store. Whether or not his proprietaryness Lord Jobs likes to admit it or not, there’s oodles of video online, most of it encoded in DivX, XviD or H.264/x264

This is eerily similar to the situation with the iPad.  Except with the iPad, we’re not only limited with video content, we’re limited with photo content, document/business content, and more.  The chief problem here of course is that Apple believes your life should be managed through iTunes.  And the reality is, we shouldn’t have to, nor do we want to.

But, I digress…let’s get back to the topic at hand.  The AppleTv was a failure.  That’s not a topic for debate.  Jobs specifically said,

Here’s how I look at it. Everybody’s tried to make a great product for the living room. Microsoft’s tried, we’ve tried — everybody’s tried. And everybody’s failed. We failed, so far.

There’s nothing wrong with failing.  I truly believe that Apple failing at the AppleTV lead to product and feature innovations in the iPhone and now the iPad.  So let’s focus on the iPad for a second.  Here’s what we know so far:

• Analysts predications were 600,000 iPads would be sold on day 1
• 300,000 iPads were sold on day 1
• 74% of buyers were mac users
• 66% of buyers were iPhone users
• 39% of buyers opted for the cheapest option, the $499 16GB iPad

The full survey and all the data is as follows:

So what does the data tell us?  Well a few things, from my perspective:

1. Are we really surprised that the majority of iPad buyers were existing mac and/or iPhone users?  They are the baked in audience.  They are the Apple fans.  That’s not a slight nor is it an insult.  It’s simply a fact that Apple fans are more likely to purchase Apple products than non-Apple fans.
2. If only 26% of iPad purchasers were non-mac users, that means Apple grew their market by 78,000 people.  That’s small.  That’s crazy small.  Why do I say that?  Well, of those 78,000 you’d need to subtract out corporate purchases (my agency purchases at least 3), developer purchases, bleeding edge/technology buffs, schools, etc.  If you take those out of the equation, the 78,000 looks pretty damn tiny.

I feel like the data above is a great indicator that the iPad market is small.  The pricing information shows us that it’s simply too expensive of a price point for a device that doesn’t solve a specific need.

Piper Jaffray is forecasting 5.6 million iPad purchases by the end of the year.  I just don’t see it.  What do you think?

While everyone else is falling in love with a product that’s not even released yet, I’m opting to take a more realistic view on the iPad.  I think it’s going to fail.  I don’t see it being 1/10 as successful as the iPhone.  Here’s 5 reasons why it will fail to connect with consumers.

1. Price: Simply put, it’s too expensive.  Considering you can get nearly ALL of the functionality the iPad has to offer in an iPod Touch, which starts at $199.99, I don’t see many folks opting to upgrade.  Also consider the number of people who already have laptops.  You get infinitely more options on a laptop than you do with an iPad.  This essentially makes the iPad a “treat” or “splurge” item.  Considering the sorry state of the economy, can you see the average family of four spending a minimum of $499.99 for a “nice to have” product?  Me neither.  Lastly, consider all the people with Kindle’s or other eBook readers.  Buying an iPad makes no sense for these folks either.
2. The Network: The smartest thing Apple could have done was choosing any other cellular provider over AT&T.  Despite all of the uproar over AT&T’s shoddy network, it makes zero sense that they’d choose AT&T.  Can you imagine downloading a 500mb TV show from the iTunes Store over the AT&T Edge network?  Ouch, it would be painful.  But, ok…what’s done is done.  They chose AT&T.  Fine. The next smartest thing they could have done was use a normal SIM card to access the network.  This would have let people who have iPhones simply swap their SIM card from their iPhone, place it into their iPad, and then connect away.  I think this wasn’t done for only one reason.  By choosing an alternative SIM card design you are forced to pay AT&T even more money to access their horrible network.  Bad move.
3. No Camera: How they missed the boat on this is mind blowing.  The iPad with a built in camera would have been a killer device for people who are frequent travelers (business or personal).  The ability to video chat from such a lightweight and compact device would have made this a must have product for travelers.
4. No Flash: Say what you want about HTML 5, but not having Flash essentially eliminates the ability to watch over 50% of the meaningful video content on the web.  Hulu is no dice.  Network television sites like ABC.com are no dice.  Entertainment sites like Funny or Die, MetaCafe, and Break.com are no dice.  People want things to work as anticipated.  So when they visit Hulu.com and essentially get a giant fail whale, there will be huge disappointment.  That disappointment will manifest itself into negative peer to peer recommendations.  So much for buzz driving sales.
5. Walled Garden: I still can’t install apps like Office.  I still can’t install programs like Photoshop.  The ability to create and edit files is limited to the iWork software bundle.  Sure, that would be great…except no one really uses it.  Like it or not Microsoft Office is still king.  When pundits described the iPad as a large iPhone, they weren’t kidding.

The iPad could have been killer.  Instead, it’s about as exciting and will be as successful as the Newton.

UPDATE 4/3/10

This morning I headed over the Mall of America to visit the Easter Bunny.  But, seeing as I had some extra time on my hands, I decided to swing over and check out the “scene” at the Apple Store.  Well, there wasn’t much of a scene.  The Apple Store clearly was anticipating one.  There were two sets of gated lines; one for pre-orders and one for new purchases.  The gates stretched about 200 feet.  I think they were over-prepared.  When I walked by, there were 4 people in the pre-order line and 6 people in the new purchase line.  It took me all of 15 minutes to go from being the 7th person in line to purchasing the iPad for my daughter as an early birthday present.  That kind of “scene” isn’t exactly reminiscent of the iPhone release scene.  It was more like the scene at a 7-11 at 3 in the morning.  Newton, here we come!

Do we need a bit of a reality check?

I was in a client meeting a few days ago where we collaborating on their 2010 social strategy. The social strategy ultimately is tied to the overall marketing strategy and thus the well defined business objectives. As we were plotting out a fairly robust and comprehensive plan, our client paused and asked a great question, “We don’t know if what we have behind the door is a drip or a flood; how will we scale to meet their real time expectations?”

Think about that question. It’s profound really. When we mailed in comments to companies we might have accepted a 30 day turn around for feedback. When we email customer support, it’s reasonable to expect anywhere from 24 to 48 hours for a response. When we call the 1-800 number, we’ll tolerate 15 minutes to hours (depending on call volume and your need) to connect with a real person.

But, in the social space (twitter, Facebook, etc.) we demand, not expect, INSTANT feedback. So, again, I ask, do we need a bit of a reality check? I even find myself expecting immediate feedback when I tweet a company, comment on a post, or make a request via a forum/message board. Is that right?

Let’s consider a few things:

1. Customer service is important and consumers expect great customer service
2. Providing great customer service is expensive – technology while an enabler, still requires REAL humans to deliver on that great customer service experience
3. Customers want value…and by value I mean they don’t want to spend a lot
4. Quality customer service is derived from both what is said/done and how quickly service is provided

There seems to be a gap here, no? Let’s assume you’re a company that offers a service. If you have 10 customers and 1 customer service person, you’re probably ok. But, if you have 1,000 customers and still that 1 customer service person, you’re going to be stretched. Ok, so what happens if you have 1,000,000 customers and still only 1 customer service person? Well, you aren’t going to be able to provide great customer service. Hmmm…ok, so we’ll just hire 99,999 more customer service people to bring us back to our ratio of 1 customer service person per 10 customers. Cool, but we’ve got to pay these people. For the purposes of round numbers let’s assume each person costs the company $100,000 in salary, benefits, and operations. Well we just went from $100,000 of customer service overhead costs to $9,999,900,000. That’s a big jump, no?

Is the company going to eat those costs? Of course not. They’re going to pass those costs on to you. If amortized equally, each customer will now be paying at a minimum $9,999.90 more. Guess what’s going to happen? Yeap, we’re going to have some pretty ticked off customers.

Look, that’s an extreme situation, but the round numbers show us that customers like you and me need to be willing to do 1 of 2 things:

1. Pay more for better service
2. Have more realistic and lower expectations

Surely, there’s a middle ground. Companies like Zappos, Comcast, Southwest and others are showing us the way. But, you can’t simply copy someone else’s model. If you’re a company you need to find your own model; one that works for your culture and customers. And as companies are developing these models what are we to do as customers? Should we change our expectations? I think we should. If we don’t, companies will be reluctant to enter the social space. After all it’s easier to keep us using older and more familiar tools for customer service, like email, letters and the phone.

There’s a reason Apple isn’t in the social space. Part of it is arrogance. But, the other part is they don’t have a model for how to make it work. Think I’m wrong? Consider the Genius Bar. Have you ever tried to walk up and get help at a Genius Bar? If you’re like the majority of Apple customers, it’s a rare occasion when they’ll simply help you on the spot. A more likely situation is the Apple employee will ask you to schedule an appointment at the Genius Bar. Granted, that appointment could be for a time 15 minutes in the future. The point is, they schedule, slot and meter your ability to get customer service. And, while they’re doing that, they’re also getting major kudos for offering amazing customer service. Not too shabby, huh? Imagine if Apple was on twitter and using the platform for customer service…an extension of the Genius Bar, if you will. Do you really think customers would accept an exchange like this:

Customer: “Hey, having a problem with 15″ MacBook Pro. The screen keeps shutting off randomly. Any thoughts? Thanks.”

Apple: “Thanks for your tweet, unfortunately all of today’s, tomorrow’s, and the rest of the week’s slots are filled up. I can tweet you back in about next Thursday. Thanks.”

No customer would dare accept that. After all, if you have time to tweet me that, you should have time help me out. If Apple, instead ignored the customer’s tweet until next Thursday, the customer would still be irritated because of the time lag in getting a response. See, it’s the expectations of the medium. Almost feels like a no win situation.

So, what do we do?