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TheiPad 3 - 08 Apr 2010 - Main.DavidGoldin
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< | | | | -- NonaFarahnik - 05 Apr 2010
My dad has never made the effort to be fluent in anything more than basic technology. When he wants music on his iPod he asks me or one of my siblings to do it for him. It is painful to watch him use his blackberry. He probably opens a web browser 4 or 5 times a year to google something (after calling and asking me how to get to google) and has no idea about what he is actually doing or what is actually happening when he interacts with the Internet. He also refuses to learn. At the same time, he is a compulsive tech-shopper who always wants the latest version of what he cannot use. | | | However, the entire notion of apps and the iPad seems limiting. On an aesthetic level, I wouldn't want a computer or TV desktop littered with thousands of little buttons. On a functional level, I don't see what I gain. Any website I use often can be immediately accessed in my bookmarks. And, of course, I can easily imagine the frustration of not having an approved app for a particular website I like to visit regularly. (I do realize that apps for games are a different proposition - what I'm focusing on here are apps as "portals" to internet functions).
My dislike/distrust of an app-based computing experience is particularly acute if the apps are used as an excuse to decrease the functionality and flexibility of the computing experience. This seems to be true of the iPad which, without the much of the flexibility of a laptop, isn't much more than a $500, 9 inch television (on which you can read books, of course). I think the iPads and its apps are mostly about control - Apple's control. In some ways, Apple has created a version of the "Fritz chip computer long desired by the major media companies. Of course, the big difference here is that Apple is the gatekeeper. The fact that this is being hailed as game-changing is, I think, mostly due to the incredible success of Apple's marketing machine. But that, as you say, is a discussion for another thread. | |
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Nona, great topic. I was planning on bringing this up, but looking at it from a slightly different angle. I don't know if you read this article in the New York Times from the day that the iPad came out. There was one quote that stuck with me:
"It's beyond technology. It's a culture. It's a community," said Rey Gutierrez, a die-hard loyalist with a tattoo of the Apple logo on his left hand, who had waited outside the San Francisco Apple store since 4 a.m. "No other company can drop a device and generate this much energy. Every big brand is envious of what Apple can do."
Mr. Gutierrez certainly has a point. Apple has gotten to the point where they can sell items and the brand has such a strong influence that people don't even question whether they need it. Personally, I agree with John and think that this new form of computing subjects us to yet another gatekeeper. And I agree with John that part of the success of it is because Apple has been able to capture people like Mr. Gutierrez and get them to tattoo its brand logo on themselves.
If Apple continues to succeed with its marketing techniques and no competitors are able to successfully sell competing technologies, there is a good way that these technologies will change the way we use the internet, just as Word has changed the way that we create documents and Excel has changed the way that we create spreadsheets. I think this is bad. But everything has costs and benefits - sacrificing control over our internet usage likely will make it easier for a segment of the population to use the internet, just like having one dominant word processing software enabled a similar segment of the population to use word processing in ways they wouldn't have been able to otherwise.
-- DavidGoldin - 07 Apr 2010 |
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