Inspiration wants to be free — news for iPad users

Back in 2011, just a few months after the iPad launched, I was asked to moderate a panel on the future impact of the iPad. What new behaviors will it generate? What impact will it have on existing industries? As a way to do some research, I created a Scoop.it page (that I kept updating since then) and started to dig deeper on studies that had been published, experiments that had been made, etc… What struck me from this – and the panel discussion thereafter – was how much everyone discounted the creation capabilities of the iPad. At the January 2010 keynote, Steve Jobs himself defined the iPad as a device that would be better than a smartphone or a computer for browsing the web, doing email, watching photos or videos, listening to music, playing games and reading eBooks. In short, a device specialized in consuming content. Not creating any.

For a company whose core fan base included designers, movie editors, photographers and more creative types, this seemed odd. All the more if you consider that smartphones (that pre-dated tablets) sparked a whole new creative trend through photo or video capture and sharing (and apps like Instagram, Social AM or Vine).

There’s no denying that consumption is always a bigger market than creation and Apple’s focus made total sense. But now that the iPad’s market is more mature, the question remains interesting: can the iPad be a creation device? Will the next iPad revolution be one where creation is enabled “on the go” with faster, better hardware and software?

There are interesting signs that this trend is happening:

1. Keyboards and styluses. Steve Jobs laughed at the need to get styluses on smartphones when he launched the iPhone and ridiculed netbooks during the iPad keynote for being cheap laptops. Yet, there isn’t a month that goes by when some hardware maker introduces another cool new Bluetooth keyboard or fancy smart styluses for the iPad. Would they if there wasn’t any demand from users who want to create stuff on their tablets?

2. Evernote, Paper, dJay and other creative apps. The response of the “crazy ones” — developers and entrepreneurs who built apps that enabled content creation.

In short: Inspiration wants to be free.

So which types of creation is this trend likely to affect?

One obvious answer is note-taking and drawing where the tablet replaces the notepad. Same form factor, same convenience and that’s why we start to see beautiful doodling or drawing apps on top of Evernote and other notepad apps that ensure you don’t lose track of these creative ideas.

But if we consider the iPad as a lighter form of computer then another answer is to look at the lighter forms of creation. This is where this trend is going to be amplified by another trend which is the rise of the remix culture. It started with music before computing, but it’s now pervasive on the web: videos are being sampled and edited to go viral, pictures get new meanings with simple, easy to add captions to become memes on Tumblr or Facebook and even ideas and serious professional content is getting the same treatment by being organized and shared with unique perspectives on Scoop.it. The remix culture is about making new stuff by giving different context to existing stuff. Interestingly, it starts by consumption: you can’t remix content you haven’t consumed first.

Another angle is to look at the iPad as a device to learn. It’s already had a huge impact on education with digital textbooks and connectivity to the Internet’s knowledge. But as educators know well, consuming knowledge passively is not as good as being active in the process: learning by doing works best and — like I did myself starting my iPad topic — knowledge sharing is also a great way to learn.

So because content curation is creative consumption, because digital learning now involves both receiving and sharing knowledge, we’re happy and proud today to introduce Scoop.it on the iPad.

We’ve been listening to our users. Many of them have made requests through our feedback forum, twitter, blog comments or email conversations for many features, but the most commonly-requested item was the iPad app. These conversations molded our app into what it is today, at its release.
The Scoop.it iPad App lets you discover fresh new content on your interests by leveraging the Scoop.it community or our content suggestion engine, but more importantly, you can do something creative with this discovered content: curate it. By curating it, enriching it with your own insight, and publishing it to your own topic page, you create a media that doesn’t just live on the iPad App, but is accessible and discoverable by anyone on the web — and just like on the web version of Scoop.it, you’ll find this is the perfect content hub to feed your social channels, enrich your blog or website and even create newsletters.

Upon launch, Scoop.it iPad displays pre-configured interests that you can browse in an aggregated format or by zooming in on any interest:

You can of course edit and enrich by using our search engine and saving any searches you’ve made as a new interest to personalize your experience:

Now the great part is that any content you see can be scooped to one of your topics in just a few clicks with the same easy, wysiwyg experience that made Scoop.it’s success so far:

You can easily create new topics on the go, adding a few keywords and getting great suggestions from our suggestion engine:

And because creation is meant to be shared, every scoop can be easily shared by either opening it or with a long touch that displays sharing options:

The App is available today in the AppStore here.

So iPad users and “crazy ones,” are you ready for some creative consumption?

Created on an iPad Mini.

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