The Era of Works

http://webheresies.com/?p=137

I’m considering the possibility of getting an iPad.

Do not panic - I have not become an Apple fanboy. Yet.

However, the idea of getting something that just works — something that turns on right out of the box
without any particular need for customization or much of any setup — appeals to me. Perhaps
something with a truly intuitive interface, a simple way to download programs, and just the right
number of software choices. Something elegant and simple, dependable, durable and resilient,
something I can reasonably expect not to crash more than once in a blue moon.

Something that works.

Flashback

Back in the day, tech writers used the toaster metaphor, namely that — ideally — technology shouldn’t
be any harder to figure out than your toaster, and it should occupy the same niche in your life: a device
that turns on when you want it to, and does exactly what you want it to do, every time.

That’s pretty much been the Turing Test of home computing, i.e. a lofty standard that functions as a
useful rhetorical construct, but which is never really going to be attained in the near future.

Except, we’re getting awfully close now, and Apple is leading the charge.

The new iToaster 4G

Toasters Ahoy!

I used to consider it essential to have a PC with a decent engine under the hood. I told myself I needed
the horsepower to run all those expensive programs required to get my job done.

Except that now those programs are going to the Cloud. And since I’m less code-monkey and more
manager, I need those programs less and less. That means bye-bye big-ass desktop, maybe even ’see ya’
to my laptop, and hey - iPad: you’re lookin’ awful good….

But the main reason for the change in thinking is that I’m sick of giving a damn about all the stuff under
the hood. I don’t want to have to give a crap about all the pop-ups that Windows Vista throws at me. I
don’t want to have to care about the registry, cleaning it, defragging the hard drive, setting endless
preferences, restoring data, figuring out how to sync devices, conflicts, blah, blah, blah, blah. I just want
something that works. I don’t need infinite customizability and extensability, not nearly as much as I
once thought. I don’t need 1,000 horsepower (computationally speaking). I just need a device that gets
the job done.

Ceci n’est pas un computer

Apple got religion (Church of Jobs) and figured something out years ago that probably won’t sink in at
Microsoft for another four or five: computers aren’t computers anymore. They have finally become
appliances. The experience finally matters more than the hardware. Ceci n’est pas une pipe.

Not a pipe. Not a computer, either.

So, if I no longer need a computer in the 80s/90s/00s sense of the word, why buy one? Why go through
the hassle (and no Mac, you’re not immune to this criticism either) of set-up and installation and
maintenance and all the other crap that goes along with that? Why not just get a simple, stripped-down
easy-to-use appliance that does what you need it to do?

I think I just might.