Call me a skeptic.
Now that I've seen the iPad; grilled the sales rep at Best Buy; and nearly alienated by best friends, I'm convinced I can't yet buy this innovative device. The problem is this: the iPhone and the iPad use the Internet differently than I've learned to use the Net.
Hardware, price, and hype aside for a moment, the iSiblings' innovation boils down to those little apps. The recent commercials for the iPhone summarize it perfectly: push this, push that, now push this... and I just bought tickets to a concert I didn't even know was happening! "And it wouldn't have been possible..."
Credit Jobs with realizing that the Web is too difficult to use. Surfing the web, and extracting anything productive out of it has been a grind. Along comes some nifty little apps that we can string together in innumerable ways, and pow! a whole new way to extract value from the Net. The whole concept of stringing together apps to arrive at a result reminds me of the day I realized PERL was both a language that required original coding and also a language that had pre-fab parts waiting to be tied together - an object oriented programming language filled with existing libraries of code just waiting to be strung together by a novice. Until that point, I was falling way behind my peers in the real work of coding PERL. But taking those little snippets of useful code and sticking them into a broader purpose made the whole effort at creation easier.
And so it is with those iApps... String together three or four of them, the commercials promise, and you'll somehow create something of value that you would have spent too much time (accomplishing on your own if you did it with a keyboard and browser) the old way. Or, my way.
Except for this: The iPad remains a platform, as far as I can tell, for consumption - but not so much production or creation. Yeah, sure, I can share video or buy tickets easier. But, am I really accomplishing anything? The iPad is a platform for consumption. A notebook... or even a netbook... remains a platform for production. A netbook is the equivalent of writing out those strings of code. An iPad is the equivalent of using an object oriented approach. Strangely, I'm not comfortable with this. I want the old way - checking every site. Making sure I'm on top of things. The iPad just doesn't inspire confidence. I'm not ordering pizza, I'm trying to be a part of the Internet when I browse. I'm a producer - not a consumer.
Am I wrong? Because the hardware is really pretty. And I'd love to be wrong about this.
Now that I've seen the iPad; grilled the sales rep at Best Buy; and nearly alienated by best friends, I'm convinced I can't yet buy this innovative device. The problem is this: the iPhone and the iPad use the Internet differently than I've learned to use the Net.
Hardware, price, and hype aside for a moment, the iSiblings' innovation boils down to those little apps. The recent commercials for the iPhone summarize it perfectly: push this, push that, now push this... and I just bought tickets to a concert I didn't even know was happening! "And it wouldn't have been possible..."
Credit Jobs with realizing that the Web is too difficult to use. Surfing the web, and extracting anything productive out of it has been a grind. Along comes some nifty little apps that we can string together in innumerable ways, and pow! a whole new way to extract value from the Net. The whole concept of stringing together apps to arrive at a result reminds me of the day I realized PERL was both a language that required original coding and also a language that had pre-fab parts waiting to be tied together - an object oriented programming language filled with existing libraries of code just waiting to be strung together by a novice. Until that point, I was falling way behind my peers in the real work of coding PERL. But taking those little snippets of useful code and sticking them into a broader purpose made the whole effort at creation easier.
And so it is with those iApps... String together three or four of them, the commercials promise, and you'll somehow create something of value that you would have spent too much time (accomplishing on your own if you did it with a keyboard and browser) the old way. Or, my way.
Except for this: The iPad remains a platform, as far as I can tell, for consumption - but not so much production or creation. Yeah, sure, I can share video or buy tickets easier. But, am I really accomplishing anything? The iPad is a platform for consumption. A notebook... or even a netbook... remains a platform for production. A netbook is the equivalent of writing out those strings of code. An iPad is the equivalent of using an object oriented approach. Strangely, I'm not comfortable with this. I want the old way - checking every site. Making sure I'm on top of things. The iPad just doesn't inspire confidence. I'm not ordering pizza, I'm trying to be a part of the Internet when I browse. I'm a producer - not a consumer.
Am I wrong? Because the hardware is really pretty. And I'd love to be wrong about this.
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