Photo: Reuters

OK, I have had some time to think about how the iPad might be more important than the iPhone as some people at Apple have mentioned.  I am in Mumbai India at a conference where educators from around the world have gathered to discuss best practices for utilizing laptops in the classroom.  Yesterday, we started talking about the fact that the iPad is the perfect replacement for a laptop in that setting.  It is lighter, smaller, and less expensive, so easier to purchase for kids, and easier for them to carry. Because they have a fast start time, you don’t have to worry about slow booting issues and because the operating system is simpler, you won’t have to worry about the support issues that would come with lots of kids using Windows machines in various states of setup.

Then start thinking about how many problems we could fix with replacing textbooks!  No more 30lb book bag filled with five-year-old beaten up textbooks to carry.  Actually, no more five-year-old text books because no you can update the textbooks daily on a subscription service.  And the textbooks would not look like anything from my youth because they can have links to extended information built right in.  They can have video and pictures integrated so that one could just click on an icon and see a math problem worked out in front of your eyes with an animation, or an animal run across the Serengeti.   Test could be incorporated as webforms so the teacher does not have to print out documents to be handed in separately, because the test would be filled out on the iPad within the “textbook” and graded on the fly by a grading software program already connected to the electronic textbook so the teacher simply receives grades sent through email or posted online.  You think that will win favor with teachers?

I actually get kind of excited when I think about what the iPad could do for students and learning.  But, I am a businessman, and this is a business blog so let’s get down to why this is important from a business standpoint.  If I owned Apple, I would figure out a way to price the iPad on a monthly fee so it can be sold through school book stores for $15 a month or so.  I would get millions of kids to use this as their standardized tool in school – of course this is a longtime Apple strategy – and then you know what happens next…  All of these kids come out of school dependent on this piece of hardware to get their work done.  Bingo, you have millions of evangelists carrying it into the workplace and convincing the older people around them to give it a try.  Well, at least the people that did not jump on the bandwagon before that.

Although I like this strategy, it still does not answer why some people at Apple say the iPad is bigger than the iPhone.  I can only surmise that they see the iPad as replacing the laptop for a large chunk of the population and this is not as crazy as it might sound.  You really have to see how Apple has rebuilt some of the applications like mail and calendaring for the iPad, then you will understand why some people that are light users might just chuck their laptop or desktop for the ease of use of a simple iPad.  Add to that an easy ability to watch TV, or handle music in improved ways and you might have a device that really could become a must have for many people.  Long and short, I am starting to understand why it might make sense to bet heavy on the iPad winning…

Scott Klososky
Scott@klososky.com