I picked up my iPhone this morning and thought “it’s just about perfect, except it could be bigger…”
I guess I’m not alone – it seems the good folks over at Cupertino have been on the same thought. And, as regulars on this blog will know, I’ve been a consumer of ebooks on my iphone for a long time.
There’s been a lot of discussion in the media about how the iPad may help publishers embrace the digital era – especially this excellent post over at Gizmodo, which identifies that Apple are trying to do what they did with the iPod: not haggle about the early adopter audience who’ve already bought a Creative JukeBox (or Kindle in this case) but rather reach the rest of the world. Those regular consumers who just like great kit that works.
The impact on marketing is huge. The transition of apps from the iPhone to the iPad will be an enormous opportunity for marketers who’ve succeeded in engaging their customers to the extent of committing to a download. This might be content driven – or commerce driven – or other ‘marketing as a service’ approaches. And yes, I’m look at you, fashion retailers, banks and other service providers.
My colleagues at my new employer, Lyris, are working on an app for a fashion retailer that already looks great on the iPhone. If the high net worth customers of this brand do, as I suspect they will, end up with iPads to do their surfing, they are almost certain to use it to do their online fashion shopping.
Are you ready for that?
I assume you mean you need both.. can’t see you keeping an ipad in your pocket
ok snark aside – agree with the basic use case but I am left wanting so much more from the ipad.. think it might be something I wait for till the third generation.. or maybe google will release it with their device due at the end of the year.. here is hoping!
As for the marketing side – it is going to be interesting to see if more people interact with the standard types of ads that are on these devices vs the poorly used mobile ads. I think they’ll definitely be more in line with web ad interaction than the ads via the mobile but I am just not convinced that is a good thing.
What we need is a new type of advertising – both inside the iphone and possibly inside these ads. The publishing industry at least is in desperate need
albeit the ipad will allow them to charge for the content freely available on the web (at least today anyhow).