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Thursday, Apr. 01, 2010
The iPad Launch: Can Steve Jobs Do It Again?
By Stephen Fry

It is a gorgeous spring day when I arrive at the coolest address in the universe: 1 Infinite Loop, Cupertino, Calif., where Apple has been headquartered since 1993. The campus, for such they call it, is enormous yet not big enough to contain Apple's current rate of expansion. An additional site is being designed and built. After stocking up on "I visited the mothership" T-shirts at the company store (we fanboys are pathetic, I readily confess), I am shown around the canteen, lawns and public spaces. It is right to call this a campus, for everyone looks and dresses like a student. I should imagine the only people ever caught wearing suits here have been visiting politicians.

Phil Schiller and Eddy Cue are suitably bejeaned and relaxed as they welcome me for a talk about the iPad, Apple's new product, which will be launched in a week and a half. Schiller is senior VP of worldwide product marketing, responsible for delivering Apple's latest baby. Cue is VP of Internet services, overseeing the iTunes, App and iBook online stores. (See the unveiling of Apple's iPad.)

I am here at Apple's invitation to try out the iPad, and later in my visit I will spend an hour with the company's boss, Steve Jobs ！ the first time I've ever spent any real time with him. But as I meet with Schiller and Cue, I feel it only fair to reel off the list of negatives the iPad will meet on its release. It falls between two stools ！ neither small enough to be truly portable nor big enough to be called a proper computer. Everything, I point out, is under Apple's control, as usual. No Adobe Flash capability, no multitasking, no camera. It's just a scaled-up iPhone or iPod Touch. (See the best netbooks and netbook accessories.)

"There's a negative way of saying that," says Schiller, "and a positive. 'Oh, it's just a big iPhone ... boo!' or 'Hey, it's like a big iPhone ... cool!' Luckily, millions of people have those, so there is an instant ease and familiarity when they first encounter the iPad. As for everything else, it's not about the features ！ it's about the experience. You just have to try it to see what I mean." (See a hands-on with the iPad at Techland.com.)

I, of course, am itching to try it, but first Cue takes me through the iBook application and its online store. There has been much talk of the iPad's dealing a death blow to Amazon's Kindle reader; publishers, it seems, have long yearned to escape from Amazon's tough control over pricing. I asked John Makinson, chairman and chief executive of Penguin, why he's so keen on the iPad. He told me he likes the fact that "it gives control back to us and allows us to discover how the market is developing. Frankly, when I saw the iPad, it was like an epiphany ... This has to be the future of publishing. You'll know if you've spent any time with one." "Yes," I say. "I hope to try one out soon." Tracy Futhey, of Duke University, is similarly optimistic about the iPad's potential in education. "The iPad is going to herald a revolution in mashing up text, video, course materials, student input ... We are very excited," she says. "Have you tried it?" "Er ... Not yet." (See pictures of Steve Jobs' extraordinary career.)

Then there's games. Many will see the iPad chiefly as a gaming platform. Michel Guillemot ！ founder of Gameloft, one of the most successful developers for the iPhone ！ is even more passionate about the iPad than Makinson and Futhey are. "I see this as the fourth step of the games evolution," he told me. "First the microcomputer, then the dedicated console, next the smart phone and now the iPad. What do you think?" "I'll let you know," I say, "when I've actually played with one."

And soon, I would. I thought I knew what to expect. For I've been playing with Apple products for a long, long time.

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How Computing Became Fun
As the world prepares for the release of the iPad, the young ！ who may have seen the company only as the colossus behind the iMac, iPod and iPhone family of products and the iTunes and App stores that service them ！ might be surprised to know how hard the life of an Apple lover once was.

In 1984, Douglas Adams, author of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, was the first person in Britain to own a Macintosh computer, and I was the second. Goodbye, glowing green command line; hello, mouse, icons and graphical desktop with white screen, closable windows and menus that dropped down like roller blinds. Throughout the next decade I would regularly go round to Douglas' London house, floppy discs under my arm, and ring the doorbell. (See the 50 best websites of 2009.)

"Is he in?" I would pant excitedly. Douglas' wife Jane would point with resigned amusement to the stairs, and I would hurl myself up them to swap files and play. We were like children with toy train sets. And that was part of the problem. It was such fun. Computing was not supposed to be fun. Douglas and I once spent two weeks redesigning our desktop icons and then asked Jane to judge the winner. She tactfully awarded us each first prize. We would have sulked for weeks otherwise. But we both wrote books and scripts on our Macs too; it was the first machine that would make you bounce out of bed in the morning eager to boot up and work. (See the top 10 Apple moments.)

Nonetheless, back in those days the Mac was derided as a toy, a media poseur's plaything and a shallow triumph of style over substance by those with a belief that computers, as utilitarian tools performing serious functions for business, should be under the control not of the user but of IT technicians and systems engineers. Despite the PC's eventual adoption of a Mac-style graphical user interface with the release of Windows 95, the damage had been done to Apple. By 1997, the company was in deep crisis. Douglas and I got used to the gloating sympathy of exultant PC users. "You'll soon be getting your spare parts and upgrades from hobbyist outlets and mail order," they chuckled. The specialist and business magazines agreed. (Comment on this story.)

But not so fast; hold your horses: one of the most extraordinary pages in America's corporate history was about to be written. Apple's "mercurial" co-founder Steve Jobs (people like Jobs always find themselves tagged with words like that) was fired from his own company just a year after the Mac's release. In exile he created Pixar Animation Studios and the NeXT computer. His return to Apple in 1997, after it purchased NeXT, is now the stuff of legend. In the design department, Jobs saw the work of a young Briton called Jonathan Ive and asked for a meeting. Ive, underused and ignored for a year, turned up with a resignation letter tucked into the back pocket of his jeans. He left with instructions to unleash his talent. The result was the iMac, an all-in-one computer in a white-and-Bondi-blue transparent housing as far removed from the standard beige box of the day as could be imagined. Ive's next major designs would be the iPod and then the iPhone. Apple's transformation from underdog to the biggest beast in the jungle was under way. And look what's iPadding through the undergrowth toward us now.

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The Tools That Make You Smile
In case you've missed the hoopla, the iPad is a touchscreen slate or tablet computer, about yay big diagonally (where yay = 9.7 in., or about 25 cm), weighing in at just 1.5 lb. (680 g). For Apple, there's something novel about the circumstances of its launch. When the iPhone was released, Apple was a novice underdog entering a smart-phone market dominated by huge, established players like Nokia, Windows Mobile, Palm, Sony Ericsson and BlackBerry. But with the release of the iPad, Apple is an overdog for the first time. The smell of backlash is in the air. The blogosphere and tech magazines are ready to pounce. Apple has overreached itself. What is this device? Who needs it? (See TIME's tech buyer's guide of 2009.)

I put to designer Ive the matter of all the features that are missing from the iPad. "In many ways, it's the things that are not there that we are most proud of," he tells me. "For us, it is all about refining and refining until it seems like there's nothing between the user and the content they are interacting with."

That's not what he's supposed to say. Tech journalists are obsessed with spec lists and functions. Does it do this? Does it do that? They often look at devices as the sum of their features. But that kind of thinking isn't in Apple's DNA. The iPad does perform tasks ！ it runs apps and has the calendar, e-mail, Web browsing, office productivity, audio, video and gaming capabilities you would expect of any such device ！ yet when I eventually got my hands on one, I discovered that one doesn't relate to it as a "tool"; the experience is closer to one's relationship with a person or an animal. (See 10 tech trends for 2010.)

I know how weird that sounds. But consider for a moment. We are human beings; our first responses to anything are dominated not by calculations but by feelings. What Ive and his team understand is that if you have an object in your pocket or hand for hours every day, then your relationship with it is profound, human and emotional. Apple's success has been founded on consumer products that address this side of us: their products make users smile as they reach forward to manipulate, touch, fondle, slide, tweak, pinch, prod and stroke. (See a roundup of iPad reviews at Techland.com.)

If you are immune to that kind of thing, or you think it somehow weak, pretentious, artsy-fartsy or unbusinesslike, then there are enough functional objects in the market for you. But you might consider this: from the starting point of delight, detail, finish, polish and design come not, it seems, shallow high-end toys for the affluent but increasingly products that are ... well, awesomely functional. The iPhone App Store has certainly offered silly digital tchotchkes, but more and more serious professional tools are emerging for medical, military and industrial use too. The iPhone, like the Mac, was derided upon introduction as a plaything, but it transformed the smart-phone landscape, causing Apple's competitors to scramble out their own version of touchscreen phones and app stores with unseemly haste. If imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, then Google and Microsoft's flattery of Apple over the past two years has been nothing short of hero worship. Few doubt the iPad will be aped as well. (See the top iPhone applications.)

"It's not for us to predict what others will do," Ive says. "We have to concentrate on what we think is right and offer it up." Ive's focus and perfectionism are legendary. Any conversation with him is about hours of work, about refusing to be satisfied until the tiniest things are absolutely right. He's most pleased with what consumers will never notice. He wants them to use the iPad without considering the thousands of decisions and innovations that have gone into what seems a natural and unmediated interaction. "If it works beautifully, it should also work robustly," he says. "It's made for people to chuck onto the car seat and thrust into luggage without thinking. It's not to be delicate with. Have you tried it yet?" "No," I reply. "There's still someone I have to see ... "

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See more about the iPad at Techland.com.

Stephen, Meet Steve
I have met five British Prime Ministers, two American Presidents, Nelson Mandela, Michael Jackson and the Queen. My hour with Steve Jobs certainly made me more nervous than any of those encounters. I know what you are thinking, but it's the truth. I do believe Jobs to be a truly great figure, one of the small group of innovators who have changed the world. He exists somewhere between showman, perfectionist overseer, visionary, enthusiast and opportunist, and his insistence upon design, detail, finish, quality, ease of use and reliability are a huge part of Apple's success. Where Ive is quiet, modest and self-effacing, Jobs is confident, assured and open. For some, his personal magnetism is almost of a dangerous, Elmer Gantry kind. They call the charisma emanating from his keynote addresses "Steve's reality-distortion field."

When I get to see Jobs, he is wearing the famous black turtleneck sweater and blue Levi's 501 jeans without which I would have cried, "Impostor!" Recent weight loss from his liver transplant has imparted a delicacy that reminds me, I can't think why, of the actor William Hurt. We meet in a conference room. On every spare shelf and ledge, at least a dozen iMacs are placed, each one playing a family slide show. Jobs leans back on his chair, feet up on the table, a welcoming grin on his face. My first question is a nervous babble that lasts five minutes. He listens with patient amusement and answers, "Yes." Or possibly, "No." I cannot remember what the question was. I had forgotten to turn on the recorder. I do so now, abashed. (See pictures of vintage computers.)

A little calmer, I remind Jobs that at the product launch of the iPad in January, he had stood in front of two street signs, one reading "Liberal Arts," the other "Technology." "This is where I have always seen Apple," he told the audience, "at the intersection of the Liberal Arts and Technology."

I suggest there's a bit more to it than that; surely Apple stands at the intersection of liberal arts, technology and commerce? "Sure, what we do has to make commercial sense," Jobs concedes, "but it's never the starting point. We start with the product and the user experience. You seen an iBook yet?" His pleasure in showing me the Winnie the Pooh iBook bundled with every iPad is unaffected and engaging. He demonstrates how the case can be used as a lectern and as a stand. "I think the experience of using an iPad is going to be profound for many people," he says. "I really do. Genuinely profound." That rings a bell. "I've heard it said that this is the device for you," I reply. "The one that will change everything." "When people see how immersive the experience is," Jobs says, "how directly you engage with it ... the only word is magical." (See a roundup of iPad content prices at Techland.com.)

In five years, Jobs has emerged from two serious health scares. His obituaries had been written, much as Apple's had been back in 1997. "Is this then the curtain dropping on your third act?" I ask. "Will you perhaps leave Apple on this high, a fitting end to your career here?" "I don't think of my life as a career," he says. "I do stuff. I respond to stuff. That's not a career ！ it's a life!"

After he leaves, I am finally left alone with an iPad. Finally I get some finger time. I peep under the slip holder, and there it is. When I switch it on, a little sigh escapes me as the screen lights up. Ten minutes later I am rolling on the floor, snarling and biting, trying to wrestle it from the hands of an Apple press representative. (See the best travel gadgets of 2009.)

That is not strictly true, but giving up the iPad felt a little like that. I had been prepared for a smooth feel, for a bright screen and the "immersive" experience everyone had promised. I was not prepared, though, for how instant the relationship I formed with the device would be. I left Cupertino without an iPad, but I have since gotten my own, and it goes with me everywhere.

It is possible that the public will not fall on the iPad, as I did, like lions on an antelope. Perhaps they will find the apps and the iBooks too expensive. Maybe they will wait for more fully featured later models. But for me, my iPad is like a gun lobbyist's rifle: the only way you will take it from me is to prise it from my cold, dead hands. One melancholy thought occurs as my fingers glide and flow over the surface of this astonishing object: Douglas Adams is not alive to see the closest thing to his Hitchhiker's Guide that humankind has yet devised.

Fry is a writer, actor and broadcaster. His films include Wilde, Gosford Park, V for Vendetta and, most recently, Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland, in which he plays the Cheshire Cat. He has written four novels and two volumes of autobiography as well as plays, screenplays and TV series.



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