Apple introduced the iPad in April and sold over three millions within the first quarter. Rumours also said that Apple has ramped up its production of the revolutionary tablet to three millions per month.
Few days ago, the NPD group released the results of a survey saying that early users of the iPad are more satisfied with it than newer buyers.
The article doesn’t try to speculate why this difference between early and later adopters in satisfaction levels, but somehow implies that early adopters love it more because of their nature as early adopters.
I have a slightly different take.
The iPad is a new device. Before the iPad nobody really had anything like it. The iPod Touch comes close; but it’s not exactly the same.
This situation reminded me of something that I came across long time ago, around 1994.
In 1994, I connected to the internet for the first time. My first reaction after I successfully configured my Mac and established a connection to the internet was “Now what?”. I had read about the internet but I didn’t know what to do with it. It took a while to find websites and start using the internet and at the time, it was the early days of the internet. It was full of possibilities, but it wasn’t anything like today. There was no Google, no Amazon, no eBay. Merely a handful of sites for early adopters by early adopters.
The situation with the iPad is very similar today. It’s an exciting piece of technology that is opening a whole new field of possibilities in usage.
Early adopters have already spent more time finding uses for the new gadget. When newer buyers spend the same time with the iPad, their usage will also increase as they find more apps that solve more problems for them. As the iPad solves more problems for users, their satisfaction will go up.
It all started with the iPhone. It was the first mainstream handheld computer that showed the way to a new class of computing. The iPad is the next step.
It’s all so exciting!