Why Tablets Will Change Everything

I won a free iPad at Ad-Tech San Francisco. Since then, I have been playing with it and trying to figure out where it fits into my digital toolbox. I already have an iPhone and a MacBook, so do I really need this thing? The answer is a resounding yes.

iPad Pro

Fanboys rejoice, the iPad Pro is here

First and foremost, there is the look and feel. Yes, technically it’s just like a big iPod Touch, but in practice it is far different. You know how in Avatar they have those fully touch-controlled, transparent-monitored computers? It’s like that, only not transparent. But the sheer sensation of technological wonder you feel when surfing the web on an iPad is amazing.

The whole experience is so tactile. The web isn’t just a flat image on a screen anymore. You can touch it, drag it, zoom it, select it, copy it, and paste it, all with a couple flicks of your fingers. At first I wondered why there wasn’t a Facebook app for iPad, then I realized you can actually just use the real Facebook, not a watered-down version. And when you tap the Comment button instead of click it with a mouse, it is so much more satisfying…

The small issue of Flash support notwithstanding, the iPad can and will replace my MacBook as my travel companion. For marketers, you can easily check your stats, pause campaigns, respond to emails, and write blog posts from it (like I’m doing now, the WordPress app is killer!). The instant-on readiness and the battery life will blow away any laptop out there, bar none.

The only thing it’s not good for is doing intensive work such as creating campaigns and graphic design. As tablets become more powerful in the future, I could see them taking over that role as well. The iPhone is slated to get multitasking with the OS 4.0 update, will we see it on the iPad as well?

The bottom line is, when you are on an iPad, you don’t just surf the web, you integrate with it on a much different level. It is so natural to read a book, stream videos and movies, read comics, play games, and network in social media sites that it makes me look for excuses to get away from the computer and use it. As someone who uses the web every single day, the iPad is an amazing new way to experience it, and I can’t wait to see what the future holds for tablet computing.

Apple’s iAd (Not iPad) Is The Future

There have been rumblings for quite a while now about how Apple is making moves to be a competitor in the mobile ad space. And why wouldn’t they? It only makes sense, seeing as how they created the device that really launched the mobile ad space in the first place… But outside of blog posts and news reports, I hadn’t seen or heard what their ad platform was going to look like. That is until now.

Feast your eyes and ears on this video. Yes it is 10 minutes long, but it is a must-watch if you have any interest in the future of mobile advertising.

Frankly, I am completely blown away by what Apple is about to do here. They are taking a truly forward-looking and fully interactive approach to mobile advertising. This is going to be a completely new form of ad. The current mobile ads in the space are primarily served by Google, and they consist of text or image ads from the Content network that randomly get shifted into Apps with very little targeting at all. And, as Steve Jobs points out in this video, if you click on them you get rudely yanked out of your app and to the advertiser’s website. Also, a lot of times, this website hasn’t even been created or optimized for mobile browsers!

Apple is going to have a winner on their hands here, no doubt about it. The only question is, how easy are they going to make it for people to create these ads? Obviously the Toy Story 3 example that they gave was a very intensive and professionally created ordeal. Your average local business owner or affiliate is not going to have the ability and the resources to create something on that level. If they make some type of tool with templates, animations, audio, etc. that people can throw together in an ad, that could work. Who knows? Maybe a whole new niche will be born in advertising as design houses learn the iAd system and how to create for it.

The only thing for certain at this point is that iAd is going to be huge. And with the smashing success of the iPad and the huge outlook for mobile internet usage, the sky is going to be the limit.