“For the sake of design integrity, a professional designer will put up with vast amounts of discomfort, and resent any consumer unwilling to make the same sacrifice.”
-Ralph Caplan
People don’t buy what you do, they buy why you do it
Apple just released their first iPad 2 commercial, called “We Believe”:
This is what we believe. Technology alone is not enough. Faster, thinner, lighter…those are all good things. But when technology gets out of the way, everything becomes more delightful…even magical. That’s when you leap forward. That’s when you end up with something like this.
It reminded me of the TED talk by Simon Sinek, “How great leaders inspire action.” Simon’s message, which he repeats constantly, is: “People don’t buy what you do, they buy why you do it.” He cites Apple as a master at this. None of Apple’s marketing dives into product specs. They say, “this is what we believe.” From the beginning, they believed in “thinking different.” Whenever they introduce new iPods, they bring a guest star musician onstage to play music. Steve Jobs introduces them by saying, “This is a reminder of why we make iPods: because we love music.” The new iPad ad is another textbook example.
Some great quotes from Simon’s talk:
What’s your purpose? What’s your cause? What’s your belief? Why does your organization exist? … Inspired leaders — and inspired organizations — all act and think from the inside out: why —> how —> what.
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The goal is not to do business with people who need what you have; the goal is to do business with people who believe what you believe.
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What you do simply proves what you believe.
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MLK gave the “I have a dream” speech, not the “I have a plan” speech.
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We follow those who lead not because we have to, but because we want to. We follow those who lead not for them, but for ourselves.
Advantages of automated tutors
I’ve previously written about the coming transition to software-based tutors. Salman Khan, the creator of Khan Academy, apparently gave a recent talk at TED at Bill Gate’s invitation. Khan goes further than my previous blog post in citing some of the real educational advantages of software-based tutors over human tutors. Khan began his website as a way to tutor his cousins from near and far, but he soon realized that the advantages went far beyond cost and scale. Excerpt from a Wired article about the talk:
“[The cousins] were saying something very profound,” Khan said. “They were saying that they preferred the automated version of their cousin to their cousin.”
What this meant, essentially, was that having a video lesson that they could pause and repeat at will, made it easier to learn without tiring their tutor.
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“In a traditional classroom you have homework, lecture, homework then you have a snapshot exam,” he said. “And whether you pass or not, the class moves on to the next lesson.”
Even the ones who get 95 percent of the lesson correct, still have 5 percent they didn’t grasp, and with each subsequent lesson, the percentage they don’t understand increases.
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“The traditional model penalizes the student for experimentation and failure but does not expect mastery,” he said. “We encourage you to experiment. We encourage you to failure. But we do expect mastery.”
All of this is possible because students can cost-effectively learn at their own pace. And of course, Khan has really only scratched the surface of what is possible. For example, it’s easy to imagine branching videos that let students delve deeper into certain topics if they didn’t fully understand the explanations given in previous videos.
I think that eventually, the idea of a mathematics “lecture class” will be considered hopelessly outdated.
Fighting for values
“Much energy has been wasted fighting for things, when we should have been fighting for values.”
-Rajni Bakshi
There is always enough time
“There is always enough time. Listen to your intuition to find out what doesn’t really matter.”
-Amber Tande
Technology alone is not enough
Steve Jobs, concluding the March 2, 2011 iPad 2 media event:
I’ve said this before, and I thought it was worth repeating. It’s in Apple’s DNA that technology alone is not enough. That it’s technology married with liberal arts — married with the humanities — that yields us a result that makes our hearts sing.
And nowhere is that more true than in these post-PC devices. A lot of folks in this tablet market are rushing in, and they’re looking at this as the next PC. The hardware and the software are done by different companies, and they’re talking about speeds and feeds, just like they did with PCs. Our experience, and every bone in our body, says that that is not the right approach to this; that these are post-PC devices that need to be even easier to use than a PC; that need to be even more intuitive than a PC; and where the software and the hardware and the applications need to intertwine in an even more seamless way than they do on a PC.
And we think we’re on the right track with this. We think we have the right architecture — not just in silicon, but in the organization — to build these kinds of products. And so I think we stand a pretty good chance of being pretty competitive in this market, and I hope that what you’ve seen today gives you a good feel for that.
Words for the wise.
Innovation everywhere
“In every area, no matter how archaic, there’s innovation to be had. That’s a surprise to me.”
-Vinod Khosla
Artificial intelligence birthday present
On February 16, 2011, a supercomputer called Watson won the Jeopardy! game show on national TV, playing against the top human champions.
It was a feat designed to draw comparisons to the famous 1997 defeat of chess champion Gary Kasparov by the IBM supercomputer Deep Blue.
And it got some journalists thinking about artificial intelligence. Richard Powers wrote in a NYTimes editorial:
This raises the question of whether Watson is really answering questions at all or is just noticing statistical correlations in vast amounts of data. But the mere act of building the machine has been a powerful exploration of just what we mean when we talk about knowing.
It was also a reminder that spectacle matters when it comes to teaching the public about computer science and encouraging students to study it. One CS professor reported that several new students showed up to a departmental party to watch the Jeopardy! showdown.
As for the technology itself, I think Powers puts his finger on it: “Information is growing many times faster than anyone’s ability to manage it, and Watson may prove crucial in helping to turn all that noise into knowledge.”
iPad 2 will cost $399
I decided I would make some predictions about the upcoming iPad 2, since it’s hard to remember in retrospect what I (and the rumors) got right. Predicted iPad 2 specs:
- Updated design that is slightly thinner and slightly lighter.
- Same screen dimensions and resolution, but display is slightly brighter and fused to the front glass.
- Slightly longer battery life.
- Low resolution front-facing camera for video chat.
- Low resolution rear-facing camera for augmented reality applications.
- Dual-core A4 processor (“A5”?) clocked at about 1 GHz.
- 512 Mb of memory.
- SSD storage options of 16, 64, and 128 Gb.
- Ships with iOS 4.4 (iOS 5 waiting until iPhone 5).
- Supports to-be-announced iMovie for iPad ($9.99).
But I’m also going to go out on a limb and predict that Apple will cut the entry-level price of iPad 2 to $399.
Why is this possible?
From a component perspective, the iPad really is essentially a big iPod Touch. iPod Touches currently cost $299 for 32GB of storage. I can find component estimates for the latest iPhone 4 and the original iPad. The main differences are (iPhone vs. iPad):
- display ($38 vs. $95)
- case ($20 vs. $35)
- battery ($6 vs. $18)
The most expensive part by far in the original iPad was the touchscreen display, estimated last April to cost $95. This cost was largely due to the 9.7-inch capacitive touch sensor having only entered mass production just for the iPad. A year later, with tens of millions of these larger touch sensors manufactured, the cost has presumably come down dramatically, even when offset by new technology that fuses the display to the front glass panel. Let’s estimate that the touchscreen part now costs roughly $65 ($27 more than the iPhone retina display).
Assuming the other component prices are comparable to the iPod Touch (which seems reasonable to me, since they are essentially the same chips), the total price differential is just $48. So even with a large margin of error, it seems that Apple can afford to price the iPad at a retail price premium of just $100.
Steve Jobs has repeatedly said that Apple wants to price the iPad very competitively. The product’s tagline is still: “A magical and revolutionary product at an unbelievable price.” If they can afford to cut the price further, I think they will.
There is also some recent believable speculation that Apple will release another line of iPads in September. This will likely be a premium line with a higher entry price point (perhaps $599) that includes a retina display and correspondingly upgraded processor, graphics chips and memory. In other words, selling a cheaper iPad does not limit Apple’s ability to sell expensive iPads in the future, just as selling cheaper iPods and Macs has not limited Apple’s ability to sell more expensive lines of iPods and Macs.
Apple’s primary advantage in the tablet market is software, not hardware. By carefully optimizing iOS software for the specific chips built into iOS devices and by nurturing their platform of media, apps, and services, Apple has managed to squeeze an incredible amount of customer value out of relatively cheap and underpowered hardware (made even less expensive by Apple’s strategic use of cash reserves). I believe we have only scratched the surface of what is possible on the software side, even when relying on just the basic hardware of the original entry-level iPad.
Apple has stated that they do not currently know how to make a quality laptop for less than $999, but if they did, they would. It looks like they do know how to make a quality iPad for $399, and if they can, they will. The iPad does not need better hardware specs to be high-quality. Unless Apple has dreamed up truly amazing new functionality (which they occasionally do), I think consumers will prefer a lower price for an already high-quality product. A $399 iPad will really be hard for competitors to beat.
Update: Most of my co-workers think Apple will release a new iPad at $499 and lower the price of the original iPad to $399, as they have been doing with iPhones and have done in the past with some Macs. They don’t think there is much incentive for Apple to cut prices on the latest, greatest iPad. I wouldn’t be surprised if my co-workers are right. However, I still think my scenario above is not out of the question.
Update 2: My co-workers got it mostly right; the iPad 2 was launched with the same prices as the original. Original iPads are available starting at $399, but only while supplies last.
Just a big iPod Touch
The funny thing about the critics who derided the iPad as “just a big iPod Touch” is that they were exactly right. They just came to the wrong conclusion. The amazing thing about the iPad is that it has the same simple and intuitive touch-optimized functionality as the iPod Touch. But it’s bigger, so it’s that much more useful and that much more fun.
This was pretty clear to us at Omni from the beginning, since we had never been very satisfied with most (conceptual) versions of our apps that fit on an iPhone-sized display. By contrast, we loved our iPad-sized translations almost immediately.