Photofocus

In a series of short posts, I will start to lay out the case for how and why I think the iPad will change photography. Now before you get too excited, I’m not talking about major change, but IMPORTANT change.

Part 1: You’ll stop thinking about files and start thinking about pictures.

Looking at the feedback I received from the previous two iPad posts I wrote, (Post 1 and Post 2) I began to understand what some people are missing about the iPad. They are trying to push a round peg into a square hole. Some want the iPad to be an iPhone. Some want it to be camera. Most want it to work like a laptop. It’s none of those things nor should it be. As I’ve said in the previous posts, if you want a laptop buy a laptop. We already have things like a laptop available to us. This is a NEW thing – a new category. And it’s designed to get you focused on CONTENT not FILES.

One photographer wrote me a very, very, very long email (3000 words or so) explaining how the iPad was a failure, etc.

He kept saying things like – “It won’t handle RAW files.” “How will I move files from the iPad to the computer?” His constant use of the word FILES got me thinking. This guy doesn’t understand Steve Jobs. Steve Jobs doesn’t talk about files. He talks about pictures and music, etc. After all, these FILES (in the context of this post) are pictures. It’s the pictures that matter not the files. Apple makes products you can DO stuff with. And in this case, you can use the iPad to look at and share pictures, not files.

Interacting with PICTURES on the iPad is going to be very different from the way it’s done on a computer. There’s no mouse. There’s no trackpad or trackball. There’s no programming involved. There’s no learning curve. Three year old kids will start using an iPad successfully within three minutes because the iPad is about the content – and the interface that lets you access that content. More on the interface in my next iPad post.