A lot of quotes mixed with some thoughts on the iPad and ubiquitous computing. It's all very confusing.
15 February 2010
But while we have to get on the front foot about using such technology to help drive a change in culture, on their own they’re not enough – technology will not directly drive genuine change in attitude, nor should it.
I’m taking this quote by Dan Hill out of context, but it was the missing piece for my latest thoughts. It fits perfectly into his – yet another – magnificent post about urbanism and bottom-up planing, but it also works for my deliberations on the iPad, ubiquitous computing and calm technologies.
The introduction of the iPad was another milestone of Apple. Not technology wise, but they’ve introduced a product that seems to fit the zeitgeist. Apple’s marketing machine might be the main reason for most parts of the hype, but there is no denying that there is a market for a device that stands between a smartphone and a notebook. Netbooks are quite popular, Apple just did what they’re good at: create a specific solution for an already existing need that works, is very well designed and thus creates an aura of covetousness.
It might very well be not a solution for everybody, but an increasing number of people seems to favourite what Apple is doing. Up until now the amount of Apple critics didn’t make a substantial contribution to dialogue; Apple only recently experienced the necessity to start talking to various people about their application approval process – something that most consumers doesn’t concern themselves with and most developers just accepting as the way it is.
The situation changed with the introduction o the iPad. While receiving an unprecedented amount of positive communication, Apple also was faced with an also unprecedented amount of criticism and concerns. While the combination of iTunes + iPod/iPhone didn’t invoke as many critics before, the situation changed because the iPad is imposing the same tightly controlled environment for the computer.
The iPhone can, to some extent, be forgiven its closed nature. The mobile industry has not historically been comfortable with openness, and Apple didn’t rock that boat when it released the iPhone. The iPhone was no more or less open than devices that preceded it, devices like those from Danger that required jumping similar bureaucratic hurdles to develop for.
That the iPad is a closed system is harder to forgive. One of the foremost complaints about the iPhone has been Apple’s iron fist when it comes to applications and the development direction of the platform. The iPad demonstrates that if Apple is listening to these complaints, they simply don’t care. This is why I say that the iPad is a cynical thing: Apple can’t – or won’t – conceive of a future for personal computing that is both elegant and open, usable and free.
I couldn’t agree more with Alex Payne’s assertion. He later goes on in saying something that describes the fundamental problem of Apples approach:
The thing that bothers me most about the iPad is this: if I had an iPad rather than a real computer as a kid, I’d never be a programmer today. I’d never have had the ability to run whatever stupid, potentially harmful, hugely educational programs I could download or write. I wouldn’t have been able to fire up ResEdit and edit out the Mac startup sound so I could tinker on the computer at all hours without waking my parents. The iPad may be a boon to traditional eduction, insofar as it allows for multimedia textbooks and such, but in its current form, it’s a detriment to the sort of hacker culture that has propelled the digital economy.
That’s not a primary concern for the consumer, but one can’t deny the truth in Alex’s words. The world we are living in is partially working as it works because the computer is an open and accessible device. It enabled the hacking culture which ended up building the Internet, created a trillion (?) dollar business, while initiating the end of the classic media approach. Hackers are the most disruptive force in the last 20 years and that’s a good thing.
Bottom line: You can’t ignore the concern of those hackers about Apple, because those are the guys who built the environment in which we are able to post blog posts like that one. It’s as simple as that.
But nothing is ever simple and of course there are different way to tackle the iPad and there are more than enough discussions on that. My personal motivation to discuss the iPad from a different perspective did arouse with another blog post by Dan Hill. His truly unique perception of the device is the best blog post I’ve read on the iPad. Yes, it’s a long one, but it’s definitely worth your time. It’s hard to summarize the depth of Dan’s thoughts, but here are some quotes from his blog post that will give you the overall idea of his arguments:
It’s not that it couldn’t be used in rural environments of course; just that it wouldn’t be. The general lack of third spaces in such places means that a phone and a PC are sufficient. By living in cities, in other peoples’ places, a different kind of device becomes appropriate. Something light and small enough to fit in a handbag or satchel, yet powerful and productive nonetheless. In the old view of city living – say, the classic Parisian apartment – the small size of dwelling meant that the bistro downstairs at the street level of the block becomes the dining room, the bar/coffee shop becomes the living room, the shared courtyard becomes the garden, and so on. While this vision is hopelessly romantic, there are numerous urban variants on this kind of living, and these transient (yet personal) spaces are where the iPad will fit right in. (Again, exurban environments clearly have coffee shops too, but they are not part of a integrated system of living in the same way. And so different tools will suffice.)
As software becomes a service, data resides in the cloud, various forms of wireless connectivity coalesce over the city, and yet face-to-face physical connection becomes more important than ever, a device like the iPad becomes obvious. The cloud is the connective tissue between these spaces, the software provides the platform for interaction with information, the tablet is the tool, and the forum is the city.
The particular device is not the core aspect, necessarily, though brings things together at a certain place and time. The overall service model – noting how iTunes made the difference to the iPod – is key. There’s a symbiotic link between software, hardware and context. The link I’m now interested in is this last link to space, as well as system. As in, how do we design environments for this activity, and how does this activity work in, and affect, particular environments?
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Some, thinking of third products rather than third spaces, have queried the idea of a third computer anyway. The thinking here is stuck in pre-‘New World computing’ mode, to quote from this excellent review of the iPad.
In particular, that Old World thinking centres on a techno-centric view of computing as the ‘universal machine’, or Swiss army knife, capable of doing anything and so highly flexible – and so rarely used to its capacity and for most of its existence using a minute proportion of its processing power. You might almost say this is a resource-abundant view; another anachronism.
But the idea of ‘a primary computer’ is increasingly ridiculous, particularly as we move towards an ‘internet of things’, with data, including media, increasingly fluid, stored anywhere and accessd everywhere.
How many computers do you think you have, or use, already? Just the one? How about in the car, in your phone, in the fridge, in your camera, in the set-top box etc. Think on. It’s already almost impossible to calculate the number of computers most people use in their daily life, just as it is with the data traces contemporary life produces.
We’ll ultimately think of data floating across numerous computers and contexts, some of which are personal and some of which are shared.
(Yes, those are some ridiculously long quotes, but I couldn’t figure out how to quote less without disrupting the impact of his argument.)
While I’m a firm believer in the idea of the personal computer with all the liberties it brings along, there is no denying that indeed everything moves into the cloud. Mark Weiser, who is died almost 11 years ago, described the development like that:
Ubiquitous computing names the third wave in computing, just now beginning. First were mainframes, each shared by lots of people. Now we are in the personal computing era, person and machine staring uneasily at each other across the desktop. Next comes ubiquitous computing, or the age of calm technology, when technology recedes into the background of our lives.
One could – of course – call bullshit on that and promote the idea of the computer as the Swiss Army Knife, but how would that be any different from a publisher who is insisting that only printed information is of substantial value?
We can’t deny the fact that in a way or another everything is moving into the cloud. That will, as with the first and second wave of the Internet, bring along many disruptive changes to our society. The legitimate fear that it will decreased our right on privacy and freedom is there and it will soon grow even louder, but insisting on the current approach as the only one viable isn’t going to solve it. We will need to adopt and we will need to think of ways to ensure that all the new possibilities that will arise with ubiquitous computing and calm technology will not diminish, but actually increase our freedom.
Do not mistake this as an argument for the iPad. I’ll not argue that the iPad/iTunes combination is the solution for the future, because it doesn’t increase our freedom and it does come along with various unnecessary restrictions that don’t have anything to do with Weiser’s vision for calm technology. But, and that’s undeniable, the iPad/iTunes is a real outlook for a possible future.
We will see more of those possible futures emerge this year. Google’s Chrome OS will be an interesting experiment, which might bring along similar restrictions to freedom of choice as does Apple with the iPad/iTunes combination. But that only brings me back to the argument, that we need to stay on our toes and never take does developments for granted or finished. Some solutions are imposed by design, some aren’t. DRM isn’t part a necessary part of ubiquitous computing and while iTunes – to some extent – might be a viable distribution system, the approval system for content and application certainly isn’t.
In a way, the iPad is very important for the overall discussion. It’s showing us a future for computing that doesn’t include physical restrictions; it’s a lean back and consume future in which we will never have to reinstall Windows again. While that might be indeed something that we would want to accomplish on a mainstream level, Apple is also showing us the issues with one company that is controlling the sphere in which we are operating. But that’s not only an argument against Apple, but certainly is very viable for Google, Microsoft and some others too. To quote another very wise man:
So, if we’re going to talk about the value of the open Internet, we have to ask what the opposite of “open” is. No one is proposing a closed Internet. When it comes to the Internet, the opposite of “open” is “theirs.”