Geeks, media, and the real world.

There was a fairly noticeable kickback against Apple’s new iPad a week or so after its release, when it was revealed that the cost of the hardware components was something on the order of US$300.

Geeks of the more hard-core techie variety are quite fond of pointing out how ‘crap’ it is, based on some of the numbers associated with the hardware – CPU clock speed, amount of ram. Of course, they do the same with the iPhone.

Of course, these are basically the same conversation, just about different sets of numbers (one dollars, one techie). They also both miss the point.

The media, picking apart the device and calculating what the individual hardware components are worth, is missing the point that the device as a whole is worth more than the sum of its parts. The geeks are looking at raw numbers, and comparing them to those associated with other devices (laptops, desktops, perhaps smartphones), and declaring that the hardware is inadequate.

The hardware can’t be considered in isolation, it has to be evaluated in conjunction with the operating system it runs. And this is where the pure numbers fall down.

By way of example: if I tell you about a car with an inline, 4 cylinder, 2.9 litre (177 cubic inch) engine, you’ll probably compare that to other vehicle engines that you happen to know some of the numbers of, and assume that it’s a moderately capable car, able to handle freeway and city driving quite adequately.

Unfortunately you’d be wrong – I’m talking about the engine of a Model T Ford. The numbers don’t tell the whole story.

Where Apple excel, is in making device operating systems better than they have been before. In particular, there’s a focus on making the operating system and hardware work together, as optimally as possible. In the real world, this is what matters – but there’s no real metric for this, no numbers to compare.

Years ago, when I first switched to Mac and OS X, I switched from a fairly powerful Linux desktop computer, with a pair of 17″ monitors, to a much smaller computer with a single 15″ screen. My Linux environment was configured for me, by me, to be as efficient as I could make it, so I could get the most done in as little time as possible. Yet, within a week, I was getting more done on the Mac than I ever had under Linux or Windows. The real world experience made a lie of the numbers.

I don’t yet have a iPad. I’m not enough of a fanboy to pay the premium to import one, but I’m probably enough of an enthusiast that I’ll be lined up to buy one the first day that they’re available over here. What I’ve read indicates that Apple has repeated its earlier successes. Negative comments seem to be based around false assumptions: that the numbers matter, or that the iPad is designed to replace a full computer (more on this later, once I can speak with some actual experience on the subject). Positive comments seem to be based on the hard-to-measure ‘User Experience’, the area in which Apple, traditionally, has been well ahead of their competitors.

In the real world, it’s the user experience that matters. Not the numbers attached to the components, not the cost of the hardware – simply, how good the product is to use.