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Photo: Illustration: Robert Goyer

There's been a lot of hubbub about the Apple iPad. For a lot of folks, it's hard to see what the fuss is about. The iPad is, Apple says, a revolutionary new device. If that's true, it's apparently a revolutionary new device that does things that a number of other devices have been doing for years.

But that misses the point. If we've learned anything from Apple over the years, it's not necessarily what something does but how it does it. 

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Photo: Illustration: Robert Goyer

One of the mantras of Modern Marketing 101 is this: “Don’t charge once for a product when you can charge for it over and over again.” This recurring-cost model is the business vision for companies that sell everything from cell phones to gym memberships. It’s also the attractive default model for handheld and portable GPS manufacturers. Whereas DirectTV and Verizon essentially give away (or close to it) their equipment, Garmin and Bendix/King can get full retail prices for their products and still charge recurring fees for their data packages.

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It takes a long time to get past.
 
Heading to the Sebring U.S. Sport Aviation Expo, I was on the one way path south out of the New York City area yesterday at the only altitude normally available—6,000 feet. A Cirrus 22 pilot ahead of me was on the same route and somehow convinced the controllers over New Jersey to let him try 4,000 feet. He reported a whopping decrease of nearly 30 knots in headwind. Amazingly the Atlantic City controller asked me if I wanted to try 4,000 in my Baron for the lower winds. Of course I did.
 

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Photo: Robert Goyer

I was sitting in my PlaneSmart Cirrus, engine idling, strobe light flashing, on the ramp at Oklahoma City’s Wiley Post Airport, and I was puzzled. I was staring down at my chicken scratch clearance as though it were written in some ancient lost language and wondering just what I was going to do with such a thing.

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