Hunting the Killer App for Apple's iPad

While the raison d'être for the tablet computer isn't yet clear, interactive media and personal data management both need transformative apps

By Christian Lindholm

After using the Apple iPad for few months, talking to users, and helping develop applications for it at Fjord—the London-based digital design agency where I am a managing partner—it is clear that we are still in search of killer apps. I don't think reading digital books and Web surfing on the couch will suffice to fill the bill and fire up the masses.

I was surprised during the launch that Apple (AAPL) didn't provide a stronger sense of what it sees as the iPad's potential killer apps. (Knowing Apple, this was a conscious, perhaps wily decision.) Nor does the advertising for the iPad offer firm clues. Rather than trumpeting that the iPad is bound to be the next great computing platform—which Apple surely knows—the company invokes the sense that its device permits a new kind of casual computing.

This reminds me of early Kodak (EK) advertising through which George Eastman educated the public to create "Kodak moments" by taking photos. Images of attractive people using iPads on the sofa serve the same purpose: These are "iPad moments."

Still, to become truly useful—even essential—the iPad needs more of a raison d'être. By my reckoning, every significant new technology platform has had a killer application, and each killer app embodies five characteristics:

• It does not exist when the new platform is launched

• It is always a surprise—and is usually introduced by a newcomer

• It solves basic needs in a fresh way, transforming usage

• It is cross-generational

• It shapes our language

one killer app is all that's needed

The personal computer had ample killer apps, mostly from startups: Visicalc, Lotus (IBM) 1-2-3, and Microsoft (MSFT) Word, Excel, and PowerPoint. The Mac had desktop publishing from Seattle startup Aldus, later bought by Adobe (ADBE). The Web had browsers from startup Netscape and later Microsoft—plus search, typified by Google (GOOG).

Historically, the mobile phone has had only one killer app, aside from talking—texting (also known as SMS). No matter: SMS was a world-transforming gold mine. Sometimes it takes but a single killer app to make a platform.

The last listed characteristic of killer apps fascinates me the most because one of the highest forms of design is the creation of language. I realized this when I read master chef Ferran Adrià's book, A Day at el Bulli, in which he describes the four levels of cuisine. The first is to cook a recipe; the second is to modify it; the third is to create new recipes; and the last is to create a new gastronomic language.

The most significant killer apps do this. We now speak of Googling as a verb. PowerPoints have alas, become synonymous with interminable meetings. And we all find ourselves Friending (or Unfriending) people on Facebook—or FB, as my kids call it.

So what will be the tablets' killer apps? I don't think we've seen them yet. To be sure, some providers are giving it an early go, especially the media. I believe that newspapers and magazines will be transformed on tablets. At Fjord, we've been involved in creating several media apps, including one released recently for Metro, a free newspaper in the U.K.

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