What will it take for the rumored Apple Tablet to be successful? After working on the IBM engineering team for the failed PC Jr., I realized there must be a better way to guarantee a product or service’s success at launch. What I have found during the past 20 years of study and research is that most companies do not have a disciplined, predictable business process for listening to consumer needs and turning that into true innovation.
Yes, Apple has had some huge successes. The iPod, iPhone and Mac, just to name a few. But with those successes came a number of failures including the Cyberdog, ROKR, Macintosh Portable and the Newton. What’s curious is that Apple has had a product fail miserably in almost every category they have ever entered. If the Apple Tablet is to become a success, it must:
Help people get important “jobs” done that they cannot get done effectively on today’s laptops or iPhones. If Apple wants to convince folks to ditch their laptops altogether, the new device must help people do all the things that a laptop does. PLUS it must offer some cool new features – such as managing the book reading or photo sharing experience as well as it currently manages the overall music experience.
Change the entire way people consume media. iPods changed the way we buy, search for and listen to music. How much of a “game changer” will the Apple Tablet be? For example, will there be an app for the new Tablet that allows us to change the way we create and give presentations? Will it let the presenter see what is on the screen behind him? Capture questions from the audience to assist in improving the presentation? Translate questions into the presenter’s native language in real time? It must help people get an important job done really well and in its entirety.
Offer and perfect a new interface. People draw on tablets. If Apple can perfect this interface and create apps that make it easy to translate hand-drawn diagrams into powerful presentations, then buyers will have a new tool to get an important job done.
Simply said, the Apple Tablet must fill an important void and help consumers get important jobs done. If it’s just a pretty product that features the “same old, same old,” we could see another Apple flop.