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)
I wonder how different people's reaction would be if the iPad had been released before the iPhone. The incredible implementation of multi-touch has become so commonplace in only three years that people are already unimpressed.
The one thing that does worry me is that the iPad turns people into consumers rather than creators -- which has always been one of the strengths of the Mac. Having said that, I'm sure (I hope) that Apple will introduce iLife for the iPad in the same way that they created iWork.
Finally, those complaining about what the iPad can't do seem to forget that new amazing software will be written for this thing. OS X _is_ at the core of this thing and what has limited application on the iPhone is screen size, not the underlying OS. See Joe Hewitt's comments: http://joehewitt.com/post/ipad/
@Keith: They play flash games. Watch flash video. Farmville. Hulu. CNN. Disney. They all use flash. And the iPad won't show them properly.
Disney works just fine browsing on an iPhone today. Go visit and see. And the lack of flash games is hardly a problem with you have a bunch of native games to chose from, many free (yes they are ad supported but so are most Flash games). Hulu is nice being free but people don't seem to mind buying some content, and I think in the end it's a healthier model to just let me pay for content I like rather than having some place like Hulu do the "will you someday pay or not" dance and still have to sit through ads just like on TV, which I detest. It's worth $2 to me just to skip the ads.
Most of the sites that show flash video also know to give the iPhone h.264 to play, and that will only accelerate with the iPad. Farmville is really the only holdout here of any size, and do you honestly think they are not working on an iPhone/iPad app yet?
@Samuel:
I do have to disagree with you on whether or not Apple has done this It's great that the iPad can edit documents easily and on the go, but how do I print it if I need to? There's no way to connect my printer; I still need a PC for that. Let's say I took some amazing pictures I want to put on my iPad and send to my mom. No USB for file transfer.
You can print from the iPhone today: http://www.eurosmartz.com/
Sending pictures to your mom - why not just email them? You can load them in from another camera via an SD adaptor.
As for file transfer, you can use something like ReaddleDocs to send and receive files on the phone for storage.
These are all applications that work on the iPhone, today. And all applications will run on the iPad even if developers do nothing... but how many developers are not also going to enhance apps in ways that work even better on the iPad?
I've rarely seen so many people screaming sour grapes repeating the same weak arguments again and again. Its like the republicans with the health care debate, here people aren't listening to logic, they're glancing at a specifications sheet and declaring the product a failure because it doesn't work for them in the way they think it should. Without ever having seen it, or touched it, or even read reviews. It's amazing how much noise is being drummed up, and I suspect no matter what Apple released the same thing would have happened.
Never underestimate the stupidity of humanity.
Excellent post. Indeed, I consider the number of "tech savvy" naysayers and their tired arguments as very good signs that the iPad is on the right track.
"The video recorder will never replace the home cine-camera: the quality's not there, the format is locked, you can't watch your old movies, etc."
This is about making the "computer" go away as a discrete object for people who don't really want a computer but would like to do certain things that computers currently do. This has always been the trajectory; it's just difficult to see the vanishing act as and when it happens. Anyway, I looked wryly at my decade-old 3Com Audrey this week.
It's not that I don't get it. I just don't want it. The concept of hidden complexity isn't a bad thing, but at least give us the features that make it worth the money. I really, really, really wanted one. Ever since the Apple Knowledge Navigator video (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3WdS4TscWH8), I held high hopes for a tablet based technology from Apple. Obviously not an working AI, but but at least the video portions, coupled with multitasking. Even back then they "got that". Why not now?
Brilliant writing. You've crystallized what I've been trying to explain to my Windows-bound, Apple-hating friends. They're so heavily invested in the old tired complexity that the new simplicity scares them. And they're bitter that Apple has once again led everyone to the next wave of computing. But really, no other company in the world could have done it.
It's hard to believe, but the creaky old desktop metaphor for computer GUIs is more than a quarter century old. And hasn't improved much at all. Despite Apple's and everyone else's efforts.
Extremely well said. I've been trying to put what the iPad is and means into words for days now and I could not have done better than you have here Fraser.
Looking through the comments I see a number of people who presumably have read your post, but still don't get it. The iPad isn't meant for them, but they haven't figured that part out yet. My 76 year old mother on the other hand, who until now was afraid to touch the computer I gave her & my dad, told me that she wanted an iPad so that she could view videos and photos of her grandkids. Just from watching Steve Jobs demo the iPad on a clip during the nightly news.
Wow.
Listen. Computer aren't political, they're products. You can choose to make them political, look at music. Products become political when people become attached to them. Many of us spend entire days attached to a keyboard diddling away at the keys, and we depend on our expertise to anchor us in the world. The iPad isn't the end of the IT department, no more than Linux was the end of corporate OS's. To be honest developers will always need full fledged computers, as will IT users, and likely so will every home. The iPad is a digital consumption device, but its about pulling the Internet and the appliance portion of your computer away from your actual computer. There is no mandate here that you use this, Apple for all their warts essentially creates user experiences. The control of the App store is about keeping off the 10 o'clock news and not bringing the spyware mess of computers to cell phones. I find most of you shouting about freedoms to be the same people yelling about Rock Band not being the same as playing in a band, which is right, but you're missing the point. (Sorry, Wilw I totally fucked up your much more eloquent take on that) The iPad isn't going to replace your triple monitor set up running your Apache server, VMing Windows to play Wow, and running Vi in terminal. Hell it isn't going to replace my iMac nor my Macbook Pro. It is going to replace my Dell Mini, which doesn't do anything more than my iPhone but run full Mail and feature a somewhat normal keyboard. I was an early adopter of Netboks, and though I liked the form factor, its always been a novelty, as is the iPad. These are devices for people who feel a need to be set to ON all the time.
The SLR/Powershot comparison earlier was interesting, but feels too recent - for a photography comparison, the iPad feels something like the original Kodak Polaroid, which came out at a time when most cameras were still manual focus etc etc and required you to either know how to develop photographs or pay a fortune to have film developed. The Polaroid had all sorts of drawbacks compared to the mainstream cameras BUT it allowed you to just take a photo (no fiddling) and see it (more or less) immediately. No mess, no chemicals, no waiting. Magic. Eventually we got Powershots ... on this analogy, the iPad version of a Powershot is going to be stunning.
I've been saying for years that the Tablet PC will be a success when people stop thinking of it as a computer replacement and instead focus on how it will be used. The iPad is being pitched in the right direction but the lack of stylus and handwriting recognition mean it misses the mark quite significantly. Meanwhile the latest OS revision from Redmond is finally polishing up the small details that make a tablet very compelling to everyone.
In a few years, we'll look back at all of this and wonder what the fuss was all about.
Of course it'll be on the 4th iteration of the iPad.
This post seems to reflect an ideology where-by a reverence for ease replaces an appeal to quality. By the logic laid out here, the best dining experience is McDonald's, because it's easy. The best art is of the type that is easiest to digest. The best books are the ones that are easiest to read. The best music is that which is easiest to perform/consume. I'm all for making technology "work better", but equating ease of consumption with quality of experience is just completely wrong in my opinion. When a device is launched that claims to provide the best web experience, but yet doesn't include support for a standard that is nearly ubiquitous across said web, that's tantamount to lying. Further, claiming that particular portions of the population "just don't get it" is fine, but what you're really doing is engaging in a normative loop. People have opinions about this device, the most vocal of whom tend to be the technologically savvy. Who cares? Refuting subjectivity with subjectivity is almost necessarily more insidious and counterproductive. And to the gentleman above who looks forward to the day when he can just compile the necessary information and have a program "just make it look nice", I hope that day never comes. A world where design is dictated by one company's idea of quality would be a terrible world to live in. People who are willing to take on the sometimes ornery edges of technology, and on a broader level, the ornery edges of any tool of expression, are the one's who are actually pushing our culture forward. Not, I would argue, those that use a series of templates to mimic and streamline. I'm not one to claim that difficulty is required for quality, but I certainly don't think ease of use is, or should be, the pinnacle that defines the direction of development. It should merely be one of many branches. This post seems to reflect a belief by its author that ease is the once and future king.
Thanks for a very thoughtful and well-written analysis, Mr. Speirs.
I've gotten to the stage in my career where everything I'm required to create is a document: an image, a snippet of video, a presentation, a detailed spec, a drawing, a note suggesting that some subcontractor should be returned to Tallahassee on a collect-on-delivery basis.
Occasionally, I am required to turn these skills to the improvement of something executed in Flash, but my employer provides the necessary boxes.
I define and explain, critique, reorder and cajole. And I can do all the supporting docs on an iPad, and make a decent wage while doing so (especially now that the good folks at OmniGroup have vowed to create iPad versions of their power tools.)
Yes, I'll need a laptop or a desktop for the rare times when I need to do heavy lifting for my own purposes, but by the time I need to buy another, Apple will probably have fulfilled my pre-iPad dream and shipped an iPad Pro.
I am committed: when the 3G iPads ship, I will be in line with credit card in hand. My 1st, 2nd, and 3rd purchases will be the iWorks apps for iPad, and I then I will be ready to cause more trouble.
Spot-on. I spend a ridiculous amount of time in my classroom sorting out quite unnecessary technical issues, like the one about the student being in the Finder rather than Pages. Or like the completely unnecessary difference between a Windows Control-C and an Apple Command-C.
Before I became a teacher, I worked in a very successful Apple dealership, and we had a saying: "Computers are rubbish." I love Apple and I love what my Mac can do, but I never forget that "computers are rubbish." Here's hoping that the iPad and its successors changes all that.
The fact that the App Store is a closed platform is irrelevant, because it's going to be outpaced by web apps in the fields where it hasn't already been. Just give it a few years.
The iPad is an elegant closed-source wrapper around an open-source, standards compliant web browser. Only thing that's restrictive long-term is its dependence on iTunes for syncing. It's not too hard to get a machine that can run iTunes, though.
Spot on.
I bought a powerbook for my 93 years old grand-mother a month ago - she asked for it! A month later it's still in the box. Partially because of me - I am fearing the confrontation while teaching, and also because of her - she can't see very well and have to get new glasses.
As soon as I saw the Ipad, I realized it was the device she needed.
Not only it's will be easier for her - but so much easier for me to teach. No track pad, no mouse, no click, no right-click, no this or that. Just touch the icon et voilà!
Sure, the Ipad lacks a lot, but boy it's so much easier.
@Nicholas, your analogies are all flawed, because with each, you assume there are two different end results (e.g., fast food vs. fine dining). Whether you use an iPad or a PC, you end up with the same result -- for instance, an e-mail with a photo attachment. The iPad doesn't create "fast-food" e-mails; the recipient wouldn't know whether the e-mail was done the easy way or the hard way.
There will always exist tasks which are difficult -- tasks which cannot be accomplished on a simplified device such as the iPad. I'm a power-user; an iPad for me would be like a Barbie Corvette for Mario Andretti, and I'm guessing it would be similar for you. But the fact is, most people are not like you and me. Most people use their computers exclusively for the sorts of things that the iPad does very well.
I'm sure you've heard the analogy used of older cars vs. newer cars. The reason most of us have a car is to get somewhere, not to learn to be a mechanic. With older cars, you had to shift manually, adjust the choke, check all the fluids and tires and battery every week, etc. With newer cars, you just drive them and go where you want to go. From your post, it almost sounds like you would claim that getting there without a few breakdowns along the way, and without us knowing how to replace a head gasket, our character development is in jeopardy. Me? I say I'm glad there are professional mechanics and lots of people who are really passionate about all that automotive technology under the hood. But I'm not one of 'em.
Bottom line: the iPad aims to make easy what should be easy. Apple may not have hit the nail on the head just yet. But I think they've taken a big step in the right direction. Not for you, of course. For most people.
A great articulation of these ideas Fraser, there's a lot of short term thinking around the iPad, obviously, and a lot of wider implications being missed in the ranting about short-term difficulties, like Flash support.
I haven't read many reviews, but have yet to see anyone really delve into the 'ubiquitous computing' and home automation implications.
Much like the iPhone's dock connector access promises a seachange in device and personal instrumentation UIs (recall the blood glucose demo), an iPad on it's dock becomes a touch UI to monitor and control a great deal of environmental factors.
I absolutely agree with your assesment, and expect you likewise see huge potential in education and general collaboration; enabling us to 'de-computerise' many aspects of our work and study.
I have to admit that I've worried about the ergonomics of 'head-down' use of a tablet on a desk, but it's the same posture we adopt for writing and drawing, or clipboard style when standing, with perhaps the key benefit that we can more easily face each other, move about a space, and not be so tethered to a solitary desk.
IMHO a simple (simplistic?!) explanation for a lot of the criticism of Apple (and users!) is that in their eyes Apple has always promised a revolution that never came, apparently missing Apple's role in the rise of the GUI, the seed planted by the Newton etc., so clearly these are hollow promises as well, right.. right?! ;)
I would like to add that the "answer" where I linked my take was publihed before the introduction of the iPAd (and of course is not a real answer to this article).
http://www.micmac.com/2010/01/27/the-rest-of-them/
I consider that the iPad is the computer for the rest of them.
The rest of us was already served in 1984.
Totally agree. This is definitely machine for my mother and father (82) who both love their iPod touches. It is also the machine for me (40 years in the Industry) when I am sitting on my sofa or as now in bed (using my iPhone).
Someone mentioned the Newton mockingly. They clearly never had one. The Newton 2k was superb.
Oh, and someone said that apple had called attention to themselves about this. When? Apple said nothing and ran their show as normal. It was everyone else doing the shouting.
@nicholas:
You say:
"By the logic laid out here, the best dining experience is McDonald's, because it's easy."
...which is a bit of a strawman because I never said anything about "best". Regardless, I'll agree with you that "mass market" doesn't always equate with "best". However, you then go on to say:
"When a device is launched that claims to provide the best web experience, but yet doesn't include support for a standard that is nearly ubiquitous across said web, that's tantamount to lying."
...in which you assert that that any definition of "best" must include that which is ubiquitous (you're referring to Flash, I assume).
Well, good to know somebody gets it.
Not to say that the iPad is THE future of computing, but it's a significant step toward t the future. It might not impress many, it might even be a failure, but the inescapable reality is that it's a step toward where things, by the very nature of technology, were bound to go eventually.
Not to beat the old car analogy even farther into the grave, but if you look at the history of the automobile, you start with crank-started jalopies that didn't work right with the roads, no one but hobbyists and experts would get anywhere near, and were barely holding together. You now have glass-smooth things that nearly every adult in the world can handle with a modicum of training, in some cases literally park themselves, and generally will run for 50-100K miles without needing more than occasional routine maintenance--and said maintenance can be handed off to any of dozens of cookie-cutter lube/tire places without a second thought or any real understanding of what they're doing to the car.
Technologists like to think that computers are now at the Toyota Prius stage. They're not. They may be ubiquitous, but if you look at the way the technology behaves, not how far it's come, we're just starting to hit the first flakey automatic transmissions.
The iPad is a computer with auto-everything for the masses. Technologists are welcome to hate it, just like car enthusiasts don't want to drive a bland compact with an automatic transmission. That doesn't stop it from being an evolutionary step.
Also, for those spouting off about its closed ecosystem, you apparently aren't getting the fact that to this device--as with every other Android- or other OS-based similar product to follow--may have its own hidden OS and apps, but as far as the web is concerned its an equal citizen. Gmail works just as well regardless of what tablet, smartphone, game console, or simple desktop you use. It's the promise of the web realized.
I agree completely with what you are saying. People often have the idea that their computer is the hardware and software that they carry with them. The paradigm becomes to put in more things in a smaller physical volume. But what we most people actually want is access to their friends and their information. They want function. From this view point all we need is an interface, an interface to storage, to processing functions, to communcation channels.
The iPad is such an interface! John Gage said: "The network is the computer". I say: "The interface is the computer."
For a more detailed comment see my blogg (in Swedish, but translated buy Google here).