OPINION1 June 2010

How will iPad affect MR?

Technology

IPad has launched in the UK. Don’t believe the nay-Sayers, this is a gadget with a future and one that could have a positive impact on MR in more ways than one.

iPad displaying a website

iPad displays content-rich websites like research live with astonishing clarity, given its modest screen size.

Apple’s new IPad launched in the UK on Friday and one has happened to find it’s way into my hands pretty early in the day – in the interests of research, of course. It is a truly impressive device every bit as iconoclastic as the iPhone and possibly more so. iPhone could always be seen as a next generation smartphone delivered with Apple’s customary flair for designing what everyone else was trying to design – but didn’t.

With iPad they have come up with something no-one was even thinking about. It isn’t really like anything else and this explains some of the criticism and nay-saying there has been about it. E.g “Kindle does a better job at being a e-book reader”, “If you want to do any serious work, you’re better off with a tablet PC”, “do we really need another device alongside the desktop, the laptop  rand the smartphone?”

If I were to sum up what it is, it is a personal device for using the Internet, free from the overhead and constraints of using a personal computer. It is a content consumption tool with some exceedingly convenient capabilities for interacting and responding too.

iPad is superb at displaying web pages – not in any way restricted for size, as many assume due to it’s paperback book-sized dimensions. In fact, full-size 1024 pixel wide pages are crystal clear and readable.  I was relieved to see all the text on our own website and on others, like the Research Live site are legible without any zooming in required. The sound is good and rich without resorting to earphones and video is astonishing: is on a par with HDTV.

It’s do-it-nowability is its strength

The on-screen keyboard has come in for criticism, but it really isn’t a bad way of entering text. Maybe not for writing a report but for email, entering searches, filling in forms for online shopping and the like it is entirely up to the job. It helps if you are used to the soft keyboard on iPhone as it is simply a bigger version of that. This blog entry, to prove the point, comes to you from an iPad. Did it take longer to write? Yes and no. If I had used my laptop it would have been written faster. But probably not until Monday. It is the convenience, the do-it-nowability of iPad which is it’s strength.

iPad standing up on a desk

Apple’s carrying case for the iPad also acts as a handy desk stand, when flipped open.

It is heavier than some might like but the metal case and glass screen actually give it resilience and a quality feel. It would make an extremely convenient tool for face-to-face interviewing. Much more portable then a tablet and not pinched for size like a PDA.  A whole day’s interviewing on a single battery charge. Where a wireless network is available or cellular G3 coverage, surveys could be set up and run using any unmodified web survey tool, provided it did not use flash. I am sure we will see some extensions to existing CAPI products to provide specific support for iPad which would then allow interviewing to be done off-line too. The quality of the multimedia support means there would be no reservations or technical hangups to showing TV quality stimulus materials for ad testing, for example.

iPad will be the must-have device for 2010 I have no doubt. According to some new research from Intersperience, online consumers do see a need for getting one, and there could be 7 million of them in the UK in 5 years time. That means it is inevitable that people will be taking surveys on iPads.

Researchers need to start thinking of how their surveys might be ‘consumed’

All the more important then that researchers consider where and how their surveys are going to be “consumed”, and shed a few assumptions of the past. Prime among these must be to ensure the survey experience delivered to the participant does not jolt them back a couple of decades from the rich, colourful and conversational world of the Internet today to one more like an exam paper on screen. What iPad does is raise the stakes in survey design.

3 Comments

15 years ago

Our survey tool, iSURVEY, was designed for iPhones and iPod Touch - it ports seamlessly to the iPad but we are currently updating it so you can create surveys to run specifically on the iPad - there are many researchers in the US and Canada who are already loving this new device... and I'm having trouble getting it back from my developers!!

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15 years ago

The iPad's causing me a technical conundrum, I agree with Tim that there could be 10% or more penetration in the UK but the conundrum's coming from the gulf between it and everything else. It's a case of triple standards, should a rich internet app target the iPad/iPhone (develop ADC complient apps) or everything but iPhone/iPad (develop Flash or similar) or everything (develop HTML). This is a painful technical conundrum for MR companies, HTML 5 isn't a reality yet (the development tools don't exist), how much can you back a platform like iPad. For CAPI there will be alternative devices that are easier to target (based on Android/Linux variants/Windows). I'm looking at the mobile landscape for the coming year and seeing plenty of interesting devices both in the Slate space and in the Phone space. Because of this (and because of Apple's bullish approach to tech standards) HTML 5 might be the most accellerated new internet standard ever. Will apple obsolete its own appstore with its success...?

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14 years ago

I think Tim hit it on the head: it's the "do-it-nowability" that makes this device so special. I have a nifty little netbook, but I find that can I take the iPad easily with me and be on the Internet in about 10 seconds. It fits in my purse, has a long battery life, etc. just as Tim mentions. I showed the iPad to my 91-year-old grandmother recently who easily figured out how to use touch and make it work, even though she's very arthritic and has never used a computer in her life. So it can make a non-traditional audience comfortable in a tech environment. Amazing. I've used the iPad with the case like in Tim's photo to show slideshows too -- with no effort at all (and played to music, how fun!). Not to say there aren't issues that could be better (e.g., not having flash is an annoyance at times). As a researcher, I can't wait to take this into the field -- using it for CAPI but also to show stimuli in ethnos and other in-person qualitative. I think this is a great tool for the researcher's toolbox, and I look forward to more applications that let me use my iPad for research.

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