Why Boomers Might Not Think The iPad Is Groovy

The Boomers Behind Apple

Yesterday, Travis wrote about Baby Boomers getting hip to social networking. Obviously, the iPad would be perfect for that old hippie trying desperately to stay young and with it.  Or would it?

There are a lot of assumptions about Baby Boomers that need to be true in order for this to be such an obvious slam-dunk/home run with the Boomer demographic.  First, there is the old conceit that Baby Boomers are tech-averse and can’t find their way through the wilds of an OS.  This image is largely the product of misremembered memories.  I am a 35 year-old, which puts me at the tail-end of Generation X.  My parents were born in 1946, which makes them classic Boomers and both were hippies back in the day.

My father first brought a PC home around 1987.  It was a 286 running DOS.  It wasn’t long before he knew how to do stuff in DOS.  He used Windows going back to 3.0.  Not only that, his office staff all used Windows.  My mother was not a great fan of computers but she knew how to use them.  Yes, I’d clean her computer every Thanksgiving.  However, upon my description of the eeePC to her, she rushed out to buy one and was thrilled to use it.  She took to it like a duck to water.  My mother was a netbook early-adopter.

My aunt is a Mac zealot of disgusting proportions – she drives a Prius with an iPod for music, has a MacBook Pro and an iMac in her study, using an iPhone for her day planner.  Topping it all off, she lives in Cupertino.  She is not tech-averse at all and generally buys whatever Apple sells.  She was born in 1944 and is a Baby Boomer by virtue of being an old hippie liberal.  My uncle (born in 1949) despises Apple because he is a misanthrope.  He lives in San Francisco, hangs his latest target from the shooting range in his office, is miserably happy to run a network of XP machines and takes pride in his collection of typewriters.

Another uncle (born in 1950) is a BlackBerry junkie and finds his way around his laptop just find.  Yet another uncle (born 1952) has been with Lucent through thick and thin and has a couple of engineering degrees (no tech problems there).  My pre-Boomer stepfather who was born in 1938 upgraded from a 2G iMac to a Mac Pro.  He has a large collection of videocameras and also has two laptops.

And I know if I asked any of them if they wanted an iPad, each would say that if they want to send an email, they’ll use a computer and if they want to watch a movie or a TV show, they’ll turn on the TV.  It’s a solution in search of a problem.  As I see it, the technological hurdle just isn’t there.

There’s more to it than mindset.  There’s also the fiscal reality on the ground.  My stepfather is finally retiring and, even though he has a nice pension, he is starting to watch his discretionary spending.  Additionally, my aunt is getting ready for retirement.  Her 401k (like many others) took a big hit.  Whereas I have over 30 years to build my 401k back up, my aunt doesn’t.  She and her husband have paid off the note on the house but, nevertheless, she has more important things to spend money on like gas, electricity, and health-care.  My uncle has a daughter who just graduated Georgetown and who is eyeing graduate school.  His son is starting college.  And there is his daughter’s eventual wedding to pay for.  His paychecks are spoken for.

If the iPad is to be a hit with the Boomers, Apple is going to need to convince them that they need it for something.  Boomers do know computers.  Show me an aging hippie and I’ll show you a gray-haired liberal with a MacBook.  Boomers also have bills.  Medical bills – insurance, elder care for their parents, Viagra and Cialis and every other pill, and the financial help that goes to their kids who’ve justed started families.

As a Gen-Xer, I grew up with computers.  I got on Facebook when it opened up to everyone.  I was on MySpace and left MySpace and went back to MySpace.  I’ve been doing blogs for over half a decade.  I dugg things before Digg 2.0 and read Wired when it was a magazine.  Maybe the iPad isn’t targeted at me.  I doubt this – I am a 35 year-old male living in New York City with disposable income.  I’m what Don Draper fantasizes about when he’s having sex.  But the iPad doesn’t fill a need.

And looking at the Boomers who fill the branches above mine on the family tree – I don’t see why they would buy one either.