It may be hard to believe, but the iPad is only just a little over one year old. During that brief time period, it has had a deep impact on the way many people compute, has spawned a number of competitors, and has been extensively covered by technology news outlets. It may be slightly wrong to call the iPad a computer, since it is not really designed for crunching numbers. Some call it a “media consumption platform,” since iPads are used so frequently to read/view news and information articles from the web. For that reason, the iPad has led to some interesting revelations for the news and magazine publishing industries—and libraries—in just one short year.
- iPad usability: Year One (Alertbox/Jakob Nielsen) “The most common uses reported by our participants were playing games, checking email and social networking sites, watching videos/movies, and reading news. People also browsed the Web and performed some shopping-related research. But most users felt that it was easier to shop on their desktop computers. Some also worried about the security of e-commerce purchases on the iPad. A common characteristic of all this iPad use is that it’s heavily dominated by media consumption, except for the small amount of production involved in responding to emails.”
- Readers are more likely to skim over articles on an iPad than in a newspaper (Miratech white paper) “The average time taken to read an article on each medium is very similar. A user takes an average of 1 minute 11 seconds to read an article on paper, compared with 1 minute 13 seconds on an iPad. Thus the length of time for reading an article on paper or iPad is very close. A more detailed analysis shows that the eyes linger longer on the paper version (275 ms on paper versus 231 ms on the iPad). This means that people concentrate more when reading an actual newspaper.”
- The surprising reason publishers are finally saying Yes to Apple (Mixed Media/Jeff Bercovici) “As things stand, if you buy a subscription to The New Yorker or Popular Science in the iTunes store, you will get a little dialogue box asking if it’s all right if Apple shares some of your personal information with the publisher. Initially, publishers were worried, reasonably enough, that users would overwhelmingly say no. But they don’t. In fact, about 50 percent opt in.”
- The boundless library: explore the New York Public Library collections on your iPad (ReadWriteWeb/Audrey Watters) “The app was designed in conjunction with Potion and it’s a joy to scroll through. While it does tout the ability to ‘explore the stacks,’ the app certainly recognizes the library mission here isn’t about ‘dead books.’ Rather the information is accessible and beautifully presented, taking full advantage of the touchscreen technology and the rotation of the tablet—the horizontal view lets you explore the collection visually, while the vertical view lets you read essays and thumb through imagery.”
Sales fact:
In the one year following its launch in April 2010, Apple sold over 19 million iPads.
