Jan Linden and I had the privilege of hosting a group of students looking to learn about entrepreneurship at the GIPS office last Friday. One of the key lessons I hoped they would take away was that you should always be trying to design products which meet a real customer need. It sounds simple, but it is so easy for a company, especially one lead by super smart engineers, to launch products which sound great in theory, but which have little practical value.

I was reminded of my lesson the following night when I witnessed the most ridiculous infomercial since the Snuggie was unleashed upon an unsuspecting public. The ShoeDini- it’s a shoehorn…on a stick!

Not only did this commercial completely mesmerize all the patrons of bar I was in at the time, but it made me reconsider my statement from the day before. Sometimes products fit into a second category in which limitations are overcome when good (or just outrageous) marketing creates a need where none exists. I had no idea I was endangering my back every time I put on or removed my shoes! For my whole life I have been bending over like a sucker. But no longer!

Sunday night, the lesson was taken one step further. Since I refuse to support any endeavor which recognizes the acting accomplishments of Sandra Bullock, I did not have the privilege of seeing the new iPad commercial during the Academy Awards ceremony.

As I see it, the iPad fits into a third or fourth possible category. Category 3, as I have discussed before, is when a product doesn’t pretend to solve a problem, nor create one that never existed. Sometimes it can get by just because it is “cool”. When I ask people what I would do with the iPad, and they tell me I would be doing things I already do, just on a neater device, I start to believe the iPad fits in this “ain’t it cool” category. However, it is possible the iPad will attain a status rarely achieved by a consumer product. Once in a while, a product totally transcends market boundaries and definitions by making us reconsider our very habits and assumptions. Like prisoners emerging from the Platonic cave, we are confronted with a new reality in which the old way of doing things is completely obsolete, and we are presented with seemingly endless possibilities. I am willing to admit there is a small chance the iPad will fit into this fourth category. There is a chance that I am incredibly shortsighted, and Apple is not just trying to ram an oversized iPod Touch down consumers’ throats. For now, though, I am willing to stick to my belief that we are expected to buy it just because it is cool.

I think the larger lesson here is that reaching for the fourth category takes guts, and is what every business or entrepreneur should strive for. However, it is probably a wise bet to focus on the first option. Category 2 might work, but you run the risk of being a late night infomercial joke. And only once you have built up enough cache with the right kind of audience (café sitting, fixed-gear bike owners, I am looking at you) can you even hope to be included in Category 3.

For the last 2 hours, I have been asking people to sell me on the iPad, the tablet computer Apple launched this morning a couple blocks away from the GIPS office. No one has succeeded. I had to ask people to do this because Steve Jobs sure as heck didn’t. When I first heard about the iPad, I didn’t really know what it did, and I am still not entirely sure why someone would want it. According to Jobs, the iPad “is so much more intimate than a laptop, and it’s so much more capable than a smartphone with its gorgeous screen”. More “intimate”? What does that even mean? The only thing that quote tells me is that Jobs wants to make out with the iPad. I know what it isn’t (a smartphone or laptop) but don’t know what it is. Put simply, what problem that I currently have does the iPad solve? I asked my dad what he thought, and he put it very nicely; “My sense is it’s a solution looking for a problem.”  

Let’s back up and try to figure this out. I asked my coworker, Larry, to sell me. He started with the same approach as Jobs. “It’s more than a smartphone,” he said.  “All right,” I said, “so you can make calls from it? Is it supposed to replace my phone?” “No, it’s too big. It would be silly to make calls with it. It wouldn’t replace your phone” he said.

Ok, stop right there. If the iPad will not replace my smartphone, and the only features it shares with a phone are ones a smartphone also shares with a PC, stop comparing it to a smartphone. I am sure the iPad is also more capable than a USB memory stick, but since the iPad does not compete directly, or even indirectly, with a USB stick, a comparison between the two is irrelevant. Comparing the iPad to a smartphone confuses things.

So, now that we know we can ignore any comparison to a smartphone, and I still don’t know what unique need it fills, let’s focus on why the iPad is a better alternative to a laptop. This is the only approach that will convince me the iPad is worth its $500-$800 price tag. Since no one else has done this yet, let me try to convince myself. Here we go.

The iPad makes a great alternative to a laptop. First, it is smaller and more portable than a laptop. Yes, that is nice. Second, has a larger screen than a netbook, which means it is great for watching movies and browsing the web. Good, I like that. Third, just like your laptop, it runs word processing, spreadsheet and presentation programs with Apple’s iWork suite. Excellent! I need those. Wow, I am really selling myself on this. So, since the iPad is great for multimedia entertainment, it must have a pretty large hard drive to hold all those movies I will watch, and all the music I want to listen to. Well, kind of. The cheapest model has 16GB of Flash memory, but the $699 model has 64GB. Ok. That’s a little pricey, but I am sure I can store all those files on an external drive and just take what I need with me. Maybe, but you would probably need a PC to do that, since the iPad doesn’t have a USB port. Oh. I thought I was trying to replace my PC. All right. I guess I can figure out how to get by with that much storage. Well, I bet the iPad is great at all the basic productivity tasks if I need to take work home or on the road with me. I can easily work on all those spreadsheets and presentations when I am on the go. Maybe. But the touch screen and lack of a keyboard and mouse might make that difficult. Oh, yeah. It might be hard to get work done without those things. You can get a separate keyboard and mouse. Right, though that kind of kills the idea of portability. Ok, well I bet it will be great for sharing photos. Yeah, except you need a PC for that. Oh, right. No USB port. Or memory card reader. Oh. Hmmm. So, what would I use this for? It is great for surfing the web! Right. Tell me again how it is better than a smartphone.