Future Shock
Friday, January 29, 2010 at 10:39AM I'll have more to say on the iPad later but one can't help being struck by the volume and vehemence of apparently technologically sophisticated people inveighing against the iPad.
Some are trying to dismiss these ravings by comparing them to certain comments made after the launch of the iPod in 2001: "No wireless. Les space than a Nomad. Lame.". I fear this January-26th thinking misses the point.
What you're seeing in the industry's reaction to the iPad is nothing less than future shock.
For years we've all held to the belief that computing had to be made simpler for the 'average person'. I find it difficult to come to any conclusion other than that we have totally failed in this effort.
Secretly, I suspect, we technologists quite liked the idea that Normals would be dependent on us for our technological shamanism. Those incantations that only we can perform to heal their computers, those oracular proclamations that we make over the future and the blessings we bestow on purchasing choices.
Ask yourself this: in what other walk of life do grown adults depend on other people to help them buy something? Women often turn to men to help them purchase a car but that's because of the obnoxious misogyny of car dealers, not because ladies worry that the car they buy won't work on their local roads. (Sorry computer/car analogy. My bad.)
I'm often saddened by the infantilising effect of high technology on adults. From being in control of their world, they're thrust back to a childish, mediaeval world in which gremlins appear to torment them and disappear at will and against which magic, spells, and the local witch doctor are their only refuges.
With the iPhone OS as incarnated in the iPad, Apple proposes to do something about this, and I mean really do something about it instead of just talking about doing something about it, and the world is going mental.
Not the entire world, though. The people whose backs have been broken under the weight of technological complexity and failure immediately understand what's happening here. Those of us who patiently, day after day, explain to a child or colleague that the reason there's no Print item in the File menu is because, although the Pages document is filling the screen, Finder is actually the frontmost application and it doesn't have any windows open, understand what's happening here.
The visigoths are at the gate of the city. They're demanding access to software. they're demanding to be in control of their own experience of information. They may not like our high art and culture, they may be really into OpenGL boob-jiggling apps and they may not always share our sense of aesthetics, but they are the people we have claimed to serve for 30 years whilst screwing them over in innumerable ways. There are also many, many more of them than us.
People talk about Steve Jobs' reality distortion field, and I don't disagree that the man has a quasi-hypnotic ability to convince. There's another reality distortion field at work, though, and everyone that makes a living from the tech industry is within its tractor-beam. That RDF tells us that computers are awesome, they work great and only those too stupid to live can't work them.
The tech industry will be in paroxysms of future shock for some time to come. Many will cling to their January-26th notions of what it takes to get "real work" done; cling to the idea that the computer-based part of it is the "real work".
It's not. The Real Work is not formatting the margins, installing the printer driver, uploading the document, finishing the PowerPoint slides, running the software update or reinstalling the OS.
The Real Work is teaching the child, healing the patient, selling the house, logging the road defects, fixing the car at the roadside, capturing the table's order, designing the house and organising the party.
Think of the millions of hours of human effort spent on preventing and recovering from the problems caused by completely open computer systems. Think of the lengths that people have gone to in order to acquire skills that are orthogonal to their core interests and their job, just so they can get their job done.
If the iPad and its successor devices free these people to focus on what they do best, it will dramatically change people's perceptions of computing from something to fear to something to engage enthusiastically with. I find it hard to believe that the loss of background processing isn't a price worth paying to have a computer that isn't frightening anymore.
In the meantime, Adobe and Microsoft will continue to stamp their feet and whine.
Reader Comments (286)
@Joe's GF: I don't buy it. Frequently my work in editing and revising both web pages and print documents demands that I have multiple documents, often documents that require two different applications, only an eyeflick away. Or alternately, flicking back and forth to look up or record information. Perhaps I am a bit dim and easily distracted, but when information leaves my screen, there is a fair chance it will be pushed out of my working memory. This wasn't a need invented by computers, even as a kid my homework involved books, worksheets, and scratch paper spread over every surface in reach.
In general, I really wish advocates for "new computing" (which reminds me of exactly what the Macintosh and similar systems tried to do) would remember that computer interfaces are not complex because the people designing them are terrible sadists who want their users to suffer. Computer interfaces became complex because the real-world tasks they tried to model are complex.
Darrell does a great deal of complaining, triggered by Apple's requiring Stanza to delete the option to transfer books via USB. He gives the impression that this somehow restricts what content a user can read in Stanza. In fact, Stanza has merely reverted to the original requirement that books be transferred via WiFi. Anyone can transfer any document wirelessly to Stanza. I've transferred dozens of books this way. This change does nothing to restrict my choice of content for this app.
Apple has made the iPhone stable and a joy to use, and this seems to have been done by restricting what the thousands of app developers can do with their apps. I'm willing to let Apple do it their way, because this has made the iPhone a useful tool instead of a frustrating job.
What I would like to know is, how closely related are software freedom and personal or civil freedom? The Richard Stallman perspective always strikes a chord with me, but I also really like Mac OS X, iWork, etc. I genuinely wonder: how much does it really matter how closed or open your computer and software are? Is there really a direct correlation with larger fundamental liberties? Is the correlation hypothetical? What is really at stake here? I hope that's not too off-topic.
Spot on!
The whole “Oh my God, it’s closed and that’s terrible because it creates a monopoly!” argument is a reflection of the unique, indeed anomalous, history of software development and ignores wider reality. More than that, it glosses over the real problems with monopolies where they do exist.
The existence of Apple’s “closed ecosystem” does not of itself create a monopoly, much less cause monopolist problems. Any other company is free to construct its own “ecosystem” to compete with Apple’s, and Apple is not exerting undue pressure on the market to prevent such competition—the definition of monopolist behavior that triggers anti-trust measures.
Instead, Apple’s products and services thrive because Apple pays close attention to what the market wants, especially the unwashed non-techie masses, and meets those wants with panache and flair. That other companies have proven tone-deaf when attempting to match Apple’s success reflects on them, not on Apple.
“Build a better mousetrap and the world will beat a path to your door.” That old proverb could be Apple’s company slogan.
Oh, and just to throw in the obligatory automotive analogy: the App Store is the source of after-market customization parts. Of course those parts only fit one model.
Nice try but no cigar. Despite all the self-congratulatory high-fiving.
Here are some reality bites for you:
iPad was designed for media consumption, not for getting any actual work done. This defeats the whole purpose of your entire post.
The only one suffering from a 'Future Shock' are the ones starting to realize, as the rest of the world already does, that this machine has too many strings attached to it and simply does not live up to its promises.
I won't even go into the details as you can read it all over the internet. Hate to be the one to bust your bubble, but you deserve it for someone telling you the truth flat out.
Don't judge an eBook by its cover.
It's not revolutionary. The ipad is 10 year old hardware running ten year old software that now has shiny edges.
Maybe if you people weren't so busy sucking job's cock you would notice the fact that people besides apple are acutally innovating with their products, not just selling a backwards product that forces you try to make up new ways to use it.
The most telling thing is how far off the deep end you mac zealots are needing to go to attempt to prove to yourselves that this is actually good. The problem with the ipad isn't futureshock, its just plain disappointment with an over-priced sub-par device. 99% of you people have most likely never used a computer system that doesn't allow multitasking for anything more then a calculator or making a phone call, just wait till you first try and listen to music while reading a website or a book. Add ultra-draconian DRM system lockdown that would make microsoft blush in front of the EU, and you have a piece of shit.
After reading myself many reviews against and pro-iPad I still do not understand: the iPhone/iTouch and future iPad eco-systems are open to enter, as long as some fee (which I will be happy to pay, and still give apps for free, as 99$ are a small fee to pay) and like many other ecosystems (SAP, MSDN, Oracle) you have rules of entry and of behaviour once inside, plus costs...
And to avid confusion I am a agnostic ICT user and producer (at various levels), use Windows if and when needed, but ends up on lots of Unix hosts, and enjoy Apple products rest of the time...).
Coming back to the 99$, not sure about US market, but normally, serious ICT professionals tend to buy tools to write software, yes, buy them! So 99$ is not a big investment, in respect to the time you are going to spend (you value time as part of the cost of your application?).
On multitasking: on my Mac I listen to radio (via an old RadioShark) and watch TV while browsing, but I notice that unless I close everything else, I am not able to focus on my task, whatever it will be...
So, will I be of an old generation (born in the middle 60s) but I welcome a monotask machine, as at least will allow me to concentrate on the task, finish it, and move ahead (productivity old way....).
I know the future is a twitter/facebook/linkedin always connected networked ICT person, but I do not think that will have to apply to everyone of 7 billion inhabitants of the Planet...
The thing doesn't help us do things that we couldn't have already done. You can't read a paper without the Ipad? You can't buy a book? An e-book? Huh?????
It is not going to free people to do the things that matter. It is simply going to make one company a lot of money.
Stop the romaticizing!
As fun as it is to fellate Apple and Steve Jobs every time they come out with a product, there are two problems here:
1) The iPad is not new technology. It isn't even original technology. It is an iPhone with a larger screen. It has changed nothing.
2) What was that old saying? Better to die on your feet than live on your knees? I don't think it's a sound argument to say that Joe Average bowing at the altar of Apple and their magic devices is an acceptable alternative to open computing. You haven't replaced the shamanistic tech specialist, you've just changed who's wearing the robe and feathered wig. Now instead of going to their local tech guy for help with their computing, they go to the almighty Apple. They still don't know anything about computing, they still have no clue how the technology they use works, and it's still 100% arcane magic to them.
But now the Wizard has a nifty white plastic cult uniform, so it's okay.
Crippling their computing capability to put training wheels on their computers does not help them accomplish anything. Like a real bike with training wheels, you take away all of the benefits of using the machine in the first place just to make incapable children feel better about themselves.
This is one of the most important postings I have read in a while – Thanks for that!
“The Real Work is not formatting [...]
The Real Work is teaching the child, [...]”
These two paragraphs are just perfect.