My Dad & His iPad

On Sunday, my 81-year old dad became one of the 3 million+ iPad users out there. My 12-year old described grandpa's zeal and excitement as "'like a child at Christmas."

Indeed, Dad has brought his new tablet everywhere, stopping people to show them his new gizmo. And while he professes that "the iPad is for people under 18 or geniuses -- and I am neither," he protests too much. He wasn't in the house 10 minutes before he was typing in our address in Google Maps to show the street view of the house. After I set up his email for him, he had a FaceBook message inviting him to join -- so he did. As I was pouring through my own email, I looked over and did a double take: he was busy creating his own profile. "How do I put my picture on here?" he asked. (Good Lord, I have a teen, a tween and a senior account that I now need to monitor. I logged on after he left to change his privacy settings.)

Deciding on this digital device was not too difficult. Dad had been wanting a laptop for some time, asking if he could repair the 6-year old MacBook that had been handed down from me to my kids -- and now sat inert under a chair, with missing keys and the plastic frame on the monitor pulling away. (What does one do with old computers? I have 20 years of obsolete carcasses under various pieces of furniture.) There was no repairing that Mac. I debated over new ones: a laptop seemed like such overkill -- perhaps the mini -- with a large monitor? Finally I settled on the iPad.

We went to the Apple store and I had him hold it -- and play with the on-screen keyboard. Frankly, it was that feature that had me most skeptical. Would he like this virtual keyboard? did he need a physical one in order to interact? The demo unit had the iBooks app installed, and after opening one of the books -- he instinctively used his finger to flip the page! There was no training - he just did it. He kept insisting that he was a dinosaur and this was too difficult -- but there he was opening and closing apps, browsing and turning pages.

Much has been said about what the iPad is not -- no ports, no cameras, no phone, and that is precisely why it is perfect for Dad -- and the millions of seniors like him out there. Who needs all those extras when all they want to do (in the words of my Dad) is "browse." Less in this case is much, much more -- more ease, more confidence and more fun. The large screen is perfect for failing eyes -- and while I worried that the "pinch" to zoom would be too difficult -- boy was I wrong. He was telling my son that he was changing the font to Palatino -- cause he liked it better! I thought my Dad would like it -- but I was so wrong, he loved it!

Because the iPad is anti-Flash (and won't support those types of streaming media) some sites won't work on the iPad without a specific app. According to a survey of 1147 organizations by StreamingMedia.com's Jan Ozer reveals that 28% of all respondents have or will have an iPad compatible app or site by year end, with another 10% planning for the end of 2011. This fairly fast rate of adoption underscores the importance of this new tablet. But the delta of those not adapting their sites reveals there could be a fair amount of frustration and confusion as well. The challenges for senior users are: One, they have to realize that not all sites will play and that their iPad is not "broken" -- and two, they need to know to look for the correct application. Searching and downloading an application is not an intuitive action for an octogenarian (or for those 10, 20 or 30 years younger, either). There is no metaphor from his time period that I can conjure up to help him understand it. (For the iPad vs. laptop, I compared it to driving a car with an automatic transmission versus cranking the engine and shifting gears. You'll lose some control, pay a little more, but all in all, life will be easier. That made sense to him.)

So while the tablet appears to be a terrific device for seniors -- Dad still needs a tad of technical support, which his grandsons are happy to provide. Which might be the nicest thing about the iPad -- it provides a common platform for interaction between three generations.