Touch It

This is not another Blog post about Apple‘s launch of the iPad.

There’s something a little deeper happening here, and it’s not about whether or not the iPad (or any other pending touch tablet) is a success or not (but let’s be honest, 300,000 iPads out the door in one day is still pretty impressive, especially when you consider that Apple sold more iPads on its first day than when it launched the iPhone). There’s a-change that is happening (or has happened).

Most of the hardware we use to create media now seems old.

That’s a big deal. Keyboard, mouse and even the laptop just looks so tired and old when compared to a touchscreen iPad. Touching a full screen and manipulating everything (including typing on the screen) with your fingers/hand is the present (and future). "I just can’t seem to type on glass… it doesn’t feel right." People said the same thing when the typewriter came out (it felt very foreign when compared to writing cursive), then the computer keyboard came out and people felt it didn’t give the same feedback as a typewriter. What about mobile devices? For years people complained that they could never type with their thumbs… and then they did.

Touch changes everything.

It’s much more human and yes, you’ll get used to typing on glass… but look even further into the future (the not-so-distant future) when you won’t be typing on glass, but you’ll probably be typing in the air (hello, Minority Report!). Pause to reflect a little on this entire Blog post: most babies will grow up learning to type on something like an iPad (glass or a flat surface)… or on air. Keyboards are going bye bye. The mouse is going bye bye… in fact, everything except your personal touch is going bye bye.

That’s going to change everything (once again)… and that’s one major reason why we all need to pay more attention to the iPad (and all of the hype surrounding it).