Suites In Downtown New Orleans - The One Thing The iPad Needs More Than Anything Else

Source      - http://www.forbes.com/
By             - Tony Bradley
Category   - Suites In Downtown New Orleans
Posted By - Homewood Suites New Orleans

Suites In Downtown New Orleans

We’re mere weeks away now from the media event where Apple AAPL +0.16% is expected to unveil the next iteration of its iPhone smartphone and iPad tablet. Unfortunately, I can already predict with a fair amount of certainty that the iPad will still be missing the one thing it needs more than anything else: user profiles.

The reason I’m confident we won’t see user profiles introduced for the iPad is that the Apple event will only be about revealing the new hardware. Apple users will ostensibly have access to the new software—iOS 7—very soon as well, but it was already trotted out on stage at Apple’s WWDC event in early summer and there was no mention of user profiles.

Apple promises a wide variety of features and benefits with iOS 7. Just as Windows 8 was the most dramatic overhaul of the Windows OS, iOS 7 represents a significant departure from the look and feel of previous iOS releases. It has a more simplistic, flat design for the icons, while adding in frivolous graphic elements and animations that don’t add anything to the user experience.

One thing it doesn’t have, though—unless Apple has slyly added it during beta testing of iOS 7—is separate user profiles. Do you know what platform has separate logins for different user profiles? Android.

On a smartphone, it doesn’t matter. A smartphone is a much more personal device. However, the tablet is at a stage similar to the early days of PCs. It’s a popular device that families and businesses want, but it’s too expensive or impractical to buy one for each individual. For many families and businesses, that would be an exorbitant, wasteful expense when one tablet can just be shared among users.

I have no qualms letting my kids use my iPad in and of itself. They know how to navigate and use the device (it’s iOS—who doesn’t?), and I trust them not to damage it physically. The problem is that I don’t want my kids to have access to my email. I don’t want them to see potentially inappropriate messages from iMessage or social networks.

With the iPad and iOS, I have to choose between making it functional and valuable for me—with my email, calendar, social networks, etc., or configuring it to be shared by not setting those things up. I choose the former, because having the entire device tailored to me is what makes it awesome.

Someone, somewhere may feel it’s a good strategy to not include user profiles as a feature because it will force users to buy additional iPads and increase sales. That may be true in very limited circumstances, but for the most part that logic fails. What it means is that families and businesses that need multiple users to share a tablet will consider getting something like a Google GOOG +0.82% Nexus 10, which includes the ability to configure multiple user profiles for $100 less than its iPad-equivalent.

The flip-side to the failed logic that a lack of user profiles may increase iPad sales, is that adding user profiles would likely result in increased sales of higher-end iPads. An individual can get by just fine with a 16GB or 32GB model, but if the tablet is going to be shared, it makes sense to invest the additional money to purchase a 64GB or 128GB model.

Oh well. There’s always next year. Maybe iOS 8 will include user profiles.