Will iPad users really be The Modern Family?

Full exposure to the Apple iPad began for me last week during ABC’s hit show “Modern Family,” which created an entire episode around the device that went on the market Saturday.

In the product placement ad/episode, viewers also got a glimpse of a new application for the device when hapless dad Phil Dunphy blew out his “candles” on a virtual birthday cake depicted on the iPad.

And so began the iPad app “gold rush,” as Scott Forstall, senior vice president for iPhone software, dubbed the app onslaught in a video promoting the iPad and its release.

The iPad app store went live Thursday, two days before the product did. Almost immediately, tech Web sites listed favourite iPad apps, and there were already more than 2,000 iPad apps and counting, priced on average slightly higher than the iPhone ones.

There are already eight applications awaiting updates for iPad use. They included Pandora Radio, a free app that selects music to play based on your tastes, and Evernote, another free, handy list-making app. The free Internet Movie Database (IMDb Movies & TV) updated an app now “optimised” for the iPad. Epicurious Recipes & Shopping List, also free, promises to give you “an experience customised to whatever device you’re currently using.”

“We built the iPad to run virtually every one of the more than 140,000 apps available in the app store as well as the ones you’ve already downloaded onto your iPhone,” Forstall said in the video.

Apple is touting the iPad as a new way to consume media.

If Market Share is an objective for Apple, they need to do something. Although their products have cult-like status in certain consumer groups, consuming media via an Apple operating system is still a tiny percentage of its' rival. Naturally, Apple devotees believe it’s higher and it might well be – it depends on how ‘market share’ is measured.

The analytics company ‘NetApplications’ monitors 40,000-plus websites and millions of page impressions, measuring what equipment was used. In February 2010 for example, the Microsoft operating system Windows was responsible for 92.1 per cent of these website ‘visits'.

Of course, reviewers such as David Pogue with The New York Times, who got an early peek, calls it a “gigantic iPod Touch” and “a brilliant machine” that will change the whole experience for the average user. And those words are probably really important here – “average user”.

When I see the likes of Claire & Phil get out of their family hatchback in a suburban supermarket carpark, nervously clutching their iPhone, it’s clear that portable Apple products have hit mass-market. However, if David Pogue agrees with 20th Century Fox TV and the “average user” is actually The Modern Family, two questions spring to mind.

(1) Will they feel the iPad is small enough to be ‘portable’.

(2) Will they feel the iPad is large enough to compete with their current way of consuming media – the Windows pc?

Although techies are no doubt looking forward to their favourite apps getting ready for the new iPad experience, it remains to be seen if The Modern Family will follow. Even the most basic basic iPad you can buy starts at $499, with the ones powerful enough to play all those apps even more.

From anecdotal evidence among early adopters, the Modern Family might also conclude that rather than a replacement, the iPad needs to be an additional device to their current stable of electronics. Would Phil stomach the cost?

______________________________
Sources

Newspapers:

The Oklahoman | 6 Apr 2010 | ‘Gold rush’ under way for iPad programs’ | Page: 1D LIFE | Lillie-Beth Brinkman
The Inquirer |2 Mar | ‘Windows is gaining market share as Apple falls’ | Nick Farrell

Websites:
Apple http://www.apple.com/ and ABC Television http://abc.go.com/shows/modern-family