Apple has struck again with its new much awaited gadget in stores, the iPad. It is amazing to see fans queuing up in Apple and Best Buy stores around the country to have a glimpse and/or to own an iPad. One of the fans had Apple logo tattooed on his arm and some of the fans wore costumes that created somewhat circus type ambience as per latest reports. It almost feels like release of a Star Wars movie, wherein people rush to the theaters wearing costumes of their favorite characters.
I have been reading about this wonder gadget form past many weeks in articles ranging from describing iPad as a “Holy Grail” of gadgets to as one of the gadgets out there having many limitations. I particularly liked the articles in Saturday’s Star Tribute news paper, Minneapolis local news paper titled “It’s a split decision for polarizing iPad”. This article describes iPad from perspective of gadget freaks, who may not appreciate iPad as a “revolutionary leap” in gadget industry to others, not so gadget savvy and would like to add iPad in their gadget tool box.
I think the time will tell whether iPad will be a massive hit as it is projected to be. I believe one thing is certain; it will bring good revenue for Apple and as projected Apple should have sold more than 300,000 iPad in this weekend itself.
What is it about Apple that it hits consumers so hard that people are dying to buy its new inventions, iPhone, iPad etc? As far as I have read iPad lacks some of the basic functionalities such as ability to run more than one application at a time or lack of support for Adobe’s flash application, which will limit access to many websites. But still, this Apple madness has flooded Apple store and people waiting for hours on Saturday, which is a day before Easter Sunday.
Is it for real or is it a placebo effect? I would like to give two examples to explain this placebo effect. First one is related to Pharmaceutical Company, I think from where this term originated. During clinical trails of drugs, an arm of the study has placebo arm (like a sugar pill) to gauge that the drug is actually effective or patient is just mentally relieved. In many instances placebo drugs are as effective as the drug itself, which negates the effect of the actual drug in the respective study.
Second example I would like to quote from a recent Indian movie “Three idiots”, where in the lead actor Amir describes his mantra of “all is well”. He describes the incident of security person who use to roam around all night saying “aal izz well” and residents use to sleep in peace that a person there watching their back. Once there was theft in that neighborhood and watchman could not do any thing because he was actually blind. The moral of the story was that the “placebo effect” of the security person being there was good enough to put residents at a peaceful sleep.
My question to you is, does iPad has a placebo effect on consumers? Are they really satisfied after buying a high tech device for their daily use that too manufactured by Apple? I am not at all denying the fact that iPad has advancements over many existing gadgets like e-book readers, but is it as superior as hyped by the gadget industry? What is it about Apple that it can resonate with the minds of gadgets lovers and not to gadget savvy consumers to arouse enough interest as to, at the very least, think that they want to buy it sometime in near future, if not immediately.
I would be more than interested to know your thoughts about the placebo effect of Apple’s iPad. Some once said Apple is going to take over the gadget world, so better be a fan. Do you believe the same?