Wednesday, June 08, 2011
The iPad is one step closer to be a personal device
What seems a very long time ago (a year in mobile is 10 years in desktop life ;-) I wrote a post about the iPad as a personal device vs. a family device.
You know, as soon as you took it home, it was stolen by your spouse or kids. It became a family device, not a personal device.
I fight daily with my daughter over it, even more than over the TV remote (she does not like the Giants as much as I do, apparently).
Still, I was convinced Apple planned for it to be a personal device, eventually expecting everyone in the family to have its own. The lack of multi-account support was a strong hint...
I concluded:
Do I really think the iPad is a family device? Nope.After the WWDC keynote, I am even more convinced about it.
Do I believe Apple will add multi-account support to it? Nope.
The iPad is and will remain a personal device, as your iPod or your iPhone. I already know people that bought two, three or four. One for each member of the family.
Everyone in the family will get an iPad, eventually. Apple is more than happy to have you not fight on the remote. So nice of them.
What they are doing is tying everything to one Apple ID. They are piling stuff on it. First it was just apps, now it is calendar, contacts, pictures and your entire life. It is all about personalization (for one person, there is nothing to split it). They are even adding sharing to calendar, something you would not need for a shared device (you could just pass it around...).
It is not just to sell more iPads. It is also to sell you more apps, music, books and movies. If they manage to tie the Apple ID to only one individual in the family, you will not be able to share apps across devices. You will be forced to buy them separately.
Obviously, for now it fits only the adults in the family, because each Apple ID comes with a separate credit card. Unfortunately, I see a lot of fights with my daughter in my future. Unless, of course, I decide to buy her an iPad and make Steve Jobs even richer. Thankfully, my wife will prevent me from doing it.
Posted by Fabrizio Capobianco at 17:01
2 Comments:
Hmmmmm.... I see your point but, in my family we have 4 iPads (only one member is missing one) and we all use the same Apple ID. We created it specifically for the iPad actually, because I didn't want my mom and dad to have to setup and manage their own, and my sister the same. I haven't seen a reason why we would need separate accounts actually, it hasn't caused any trouble yet, can you think of any?
Comment Posted at 17:29
The world according to Ken said...
+1 We have 3 ipads because some of us in the family 'don't share well'. We quickly personalize the apps, layout and content on the ipads and without a 'profile' feature, we all have to use our own. I am amazed at how quickly I have abandoned my laptop for daily tasks now that i have the 'pad.
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