David Pogue’s NYT review of the iPad seems to have captured perfectly the polarization it’s causing. Techno-geeks tend to hate it, while the masses love it. Laura Miller’s Salon piece spells out what I intuited about why I’d love to have an iPad: it makes reading text on a computer pleasurable. Excerpt:
So, while even before it went on sale Saturday the iPad was disparaged as a mere “media consumption” device, that description is exactly what piqued my interest. I know that my laptop can do just about everything the iPad can, but it’s not designed to be curled up with at the end of long day; it’s the long day’s main battleground. I find it hard to entirely relax with it, to enter a more receptive state of mind. Your desk at work can hold up a plate as effectively as the sidewalk table at your neighborhood cafe, but that doesn’t mean that you’ll feel as happy eating lunch there.
The iPad may not be ideal for what the tech industry calls “productivity,” but it’s well-suited for the purpose I had in mind: absorption. Even the most creative individuals will tell you that they have to spend some time simply soaking up the world around them, including the work of other creators, or ultimately the well runs dry. Much techno-utopian rhetoric implies that devoting your whole attention to someone else’s creation, sans interactivity, is necessarily a sad, incomplete, merely passive experience. Not only is that incorrect, it reflects certain troubling psychosexual attitudes about surrender and control that I don’t even want to get into here. When people complain nowadays about not being able to think or read as deeply as they used to, they’re not just acting like a bunch of old fuddy-duddies: They’re noticing a genuine lack of substance, the threadbare sensation of living in a culture where everyone’s talking and nobody’s listening.
Nick Carr delves into techie loathing of the iPad, and finds that these technologically advanced folks are actually … neo-Luddites. Excerpt:
If Ned Ludd had been a blogger, he would have written a post similar to Doctorow’s about those newfangled locked-down mechanical looms that distance the weaver from the machine’s workings, requiring the weaver to follow the programs devised by the looms’ manufacturer. The design of the mechanical loom, Ned would have told us, exhibits a palpable contempt for the user. It takes the generativity out of weaving.
And Ned would have been right.
Carr says he actually sympathizes with the geeks who lament what Apple is doing here, but:
…I’m not under any illusion that progress gives a damn about what I want. While progress may be spurred by the hobbyist, it does not share the hobbyist’s ethic. One of the keynotes of technological advance is its tendency, as it refines a tool, to remove real human agency from the workings of that tool. In its place, we get an abstraction of human agency that represents the general desires of the masses as deciphered, or imposed, by the manufacturer and the marketer. Indeed, what tends to distinguish the advanced device from the primitive device is the absence of “generativity.” It’s useful to remember that the earliest radios were broadcasting devices as well as listening devices and that the earliest phonographs could be used for recording as well as playback. But as these machines progressed, along with the media systems in which they became embedded, they turned into streamlined, single-purpose entertainment boxes, suitable for living rooms. What Bray fears – the divergence of the creative device from the mass-market device – happened, and happened quickly and without much, if any, resistance.
Progress may, for a time, intersect with one’s own personal ideology, and during that period one will become a gung-ho technological progressivist. But that’s just coincidence. In the end, progress doesn’t care about ideology. Those who think of themselves as great fans of progress, of technology’s inexorable march forward, will change their tune as soon as progress destroys something they care deeply about. “We love the things we love for what they are,” wrote Robert Frost. And when those things change we rage against the changes. Passion turns us all into primitivists.
Ouch. That cuts deep. In one of the combox threads yesterday, Conor Dugan pointed out that there’s something weird about Mr. Crunchy Con getting all gooey-eyed over a piece of technology. Guilty! What can I say, I contain multitudes. Seriously, though, I think Nick Carr is on to me just as much as he’s on to Cory Doctorow. The things I like are food and drink, and I don’t consider things that remove people from the creation of good food and good drink to be progress, but rather regress. Yet I don’t really care about being creative with my computer equipment; I just want the thing to work seamlessly, and let me do what I want to do with minimal hassle.
Conversely, it is entirely likely that a geek like Cory Doctorow would see me as a hopeless Luddite for rejecting labor-saving kitchen devices that take away from the pleasure of getting down and dirty with one’s dinner — who, after all, wants to waste time cooking when they could be spending it taking apart a computer and tinkering with it to make it do cool things? If “progress” promotes something I deeply care about — farmer’s markets, say — then I’m all for it. And if not, not. Similarly, if localism promotes things I care about, then up with it, say I; but let localism take away something I care about, and I’m going to whi-i-i-i-ine. As Carr indicates, we’re all reactionaries about the things we really love.
Do I “need” an iPad? Of course not. I love the aesthetics of books, magazines and newspapers, and I much prefer to read them in the old-school way, instead of electronically. Yesterday, leaving the office, I printed out an 11-page PDF file to read when I got home. I could have read it on my computer, but I really don’t like that. Similarly, I have this morning’s New York Times sitting in front of me as I type this, because I dislike consuming the paper on my computer screen. We routinely clean stacks of magazines out of the house after we’re done with them, because there’s no place to store them (we save the Saveurs for the recipes). And I literally have more books in my apartment than I have storage space for, because, you know. Looking at the iPad the other day, and holding it in my hands, was a revelation: the first electronic device that made consuming magazines, books and newspapers pleasurable. And as someone who makes part of his living blogging, it’s advantageous to consume media in that way; as it is now, I have to tear articles out of magazines and newspapers and put them on the table so I’ll remember to go to the website and blog about them later.
Keep in mind that the cost of an iPad is much less than it costs to subscribe to the New York Times for one year. If I bought an iPad today and cancelled my Times subscription, I could pay for the device by year’s end in the savings. Now, the Times won’t be free forever, but whatever it charges for access, when it finally gets around to doing it, would be something I’d gladly pay. I’d end up saving lots of money over what I pay now.
I would still almost certainly read books the old fashioned way, but it would sure be a pleasure to be able to search books by keyword for the right passage. And as I age and my eyes start to fail, having the ability to easily bump up the size of the typeface would be a lifesaver.
The problem with all this is obvious: it only works as long as the electricity stays on. Leaving aside the apocalyptic possibilities of peak oil and suchlike, my folks were out of power for nine days after a hurricane two years ago. If their entire library were on iPad, they would have had nothing to read for almost all of that time. Nothing to read! That is my ideal of hell, frankly.
Anyway, I think the Amish have a sensible, non-ideological idea of how to judge technology. If it adds to, or at least doesn’t take away from, community life and cohesion, they accept it. If not, they don’t. It’s not immediately clear to me how the iPad would make life less human by these standards. But I do try to be skeptical of techno-utopianism. My favorite example is schools that brag that they have computers in every classroom — as if that were somehow a critical part of contemporary pedagogy! I don’t care if you have computers — those totems of progress — in the classroom. I only want to know if you are managing to teach the children things they need to know.
Anyway x 2, I am highly ambivalent about the word “progress.” To crib from Ambrose Bierce, many people think they’re being progressive when they’re just rearranging their opinions.
posted April 9, 2010 at 7:02 am
Mr. Dreher, @ 6:42 AM writes:
“David Pogue’s NYT review of the iPad seems to have captured perfectly the polarization it’s causing. Techno-geeks tend to hate it, while the masses love it.”
Two thoughts on that: first, what about those of us in Your Studio Audience, who are more-or-less indifferent to it ? I suspect that WE are the vast majority here, at least so far; there are 330 million American subjects out there, and so far only a small fraction seem to even be aware of the iPad phenomenon. For most of us, the iPad comes under the general heading of “oh, some new gadget. That’s nice. Can I get back to work now ? The rent’s come due, taxes are due next week and Suzie’s got to have some new shoes before gym class on Tuesday.”
Secondly, all this tumult about iPad seems to be an upper-middle-class-and-above business; I have yet to see someone from rural Cortland County, the South Side of Syracuse or the outer reaches of Madison County say anything at all about it.
“Laura Miller’s Salon piece spells out what I intuited about why I’d love to have an iPad: it makes reading text on a computer pleasurable.”
Reading text on a paper page is even more pleasurable, and you don’t have to worry about breaking it if you drop it by accident.
Your servant,
Lord Karth
posted April 9, 2010 at 7:31 am
Some time ago, Alan Jacobs coined the term “techno-Amish” to describe a posture of discernment toward technologies. There are those who believe discernment requires the avoidance of all computer-assisted forms of communication. I assume none of the readers of this blog are in that company.
So if computer-assisted communication is a given, one can still make choices about the form of computer, particularly the shape of physical interaction it enables or deters.
The iPad seems to me to be a device that takes embodiment more seriously than conventional displays. The sheer act of taking it in your hands establishes a kind of engagement desktops and laptops fail to achieve.
Full disclosure: I preordered one and have a vested interest in rationalizing my spending. But I am also an enthusiastic sympathizer with Postman, Steve Talbottt, Langdon Winner, and others who urge the pursuit of “appropriate technologies.”
(sent from my iPad in the Charlotte airport)
posted April 9, 2010 at 8:14 am
I was a fan of Apple in the 80′s because they championed open architectures with the Apple II. I put up with the Mac for a while, but their locked down we can fry your device if you mod it attitude put me off. Basically I paid for the darn thing, why can’t I use it as I want?
So I won’t be buying iAnything, or anything else with similar logic bombs in it. Unless of course someone hacks the device to break the locks and I find the unlocked version compelling in some way.
posted April 9, 2010 at 8:43 am
“If it adds to, or at least doesn’t take away from, community life and cohesion, they [Amish] accept it. If not, they don’t.”
They accept many things that don’t fit in comfortably with that definition these days, as long as they have to do with work and are limited to certain times of the day. Phones – land lines and mobile – are a good example.
I appreciate the point you have raised about computers in schools, but at least one reason they are there is because the future demands it: some colleges issue laptops, others require them, and can you think of a business these daus that doesn’t require computer skills? It does brown me off, though, when I visit schools and teachers complain that their iMacs are 3 years old – the horror!
In my humble opinion, all these techno things are luxuries. I love my iPod, but think the iPad is just a cool toy with which I wouldn’t do anything especially productive. If you like it, you should get one. But you can’t turn around and complain that people need to liove simpler more sacramental lives at the same time (I’m not accusing you of this BTW).
But, as you are fond of saying, should a black swan show up you might ask yourself if that $600 would have been better off in your bank account.
posted April 9, 2010 at 10:04 am
Sounds like Carr is channelling Heidegger (who himself channelled Marx).
Yeah, Heidegger was a Nazi gasbag, but he wasn’t only that. You might want to check out his ‘Question Concerning Technology,’ as well as (I think) ‘Letter on Humanism.’
posted April 9, 2010 at 1:06 pm
“If their entire library were on iPad, they would have had nothing to read for almost all of that time. Nothing to read! That is my ideal of hell, frankly.”
A modest solar panel and access to the southern sky will fix that.
The biggest concern I have with iPads and other electronic gadgets is the tremendous amount of natural resources it takes to manufacture them and their short life-cycle. Thousands of gallons of fresh water and megawatts of electricity are required to make the processors in these gadgets, and their life cycle is rarely more than a few years. After 5 years, most people have long since tired of their laptop, cell phone, desktop, etc and are ready for the next toy. The internet and its peripheral server farms and fiber optic trunks consume almost 10% of all electricity in the US.
I don’t worry about being thought of as a neo-luddite at all. It bothers me more to think I have to have a new tech toy every year or two to satisfy my media cravings.
posted April 9, 2010 at 2:33 pm
Artie, I’ve found that people getting tired of their old computers is a great way to get free gear. For example, I recently got a free laptop and with some $20 ram off e-bay, a reinstall of the OS, and it was good to go. I was honest with the person who gave it to me and told them how to fix it, but they didn’t care and wanted something faster.
posted April 9, 2010 at 2:52 pm
Ok, I admit it: I don’t get the furor over the iPad. It looks like a bigger brother to the increasingly common iPhone, and like it it’s intended to sell a whole lot of copies. Those who like to hack on their gizmos will probably find some way to hack on the iPad. The majority of customers won’t want to hack at all, so it’s not a big deal for them.
So it’s another way to read stuff off of the web, be it news site, opinion site, cooking site, argument site, whatever. So what? An improvement over Kindle and the laptop, essentiall (laptops outsell desk tops in the aggregate computer market and have for a couple of years now, so portability is clearly something we customers of computers want). My informal coffee house count indicates a steady increase in the number of 20-something college students with Mac’s over the last 5 years or so, suggesting that a larger market is ready for Mac products.
One of the posters mentioned the shift in radios and record players, and likely that is part of the friction. A long time ago, someone who wanted to listen to the radio assembled one from parts, or bought a ready-to-use radio that still required some skill to operate. The superheterodyne tuning did away with some skill, and I’m sure at the time it bothered some people that there was no longer a need to know the difference between the antenna tuner & the audio tuner. Mac’s have long had a bit of snob appeal for some, perhaps there is resentment to the great unwashed crashing into Macworld? I dunno, really, and don’t have the time to go read yet another great argument.
Now then, if Rod has read this far…
Rod, I have a philosophical point to pick with you, the use of the word “consume” in terms of books. I consume food. When I’m done, it’s gone. I read books, when I’m done, they are still there, and some of them I re-read multiple times. Maybe it’s just a semantic tic that I have, but I’ve never cared for the term ‘consumer’ in the commercial context, preferring ‘customer’. So far as I can tell, the term comes out of a branch of economics (“producer-consumer cycle’) but I could be wrong on that. The words we use affect how we think to varying degrees, and it makes me uneasy to contemplate the consumption of books vs. the reading of books. Although I guess you could have a point, given the way we all read and dispose of newspapers, magazines, etc.
Still, it just seems a bit excessive to refer to one’s reading habits as “consuming”, as if books were bottles of soda.
posted April 9, 2010 at 3:00 pm
Artie, you might be interested to know that there is a thriving market for repaired and/or refurbished Macs. I’m typing this on a 15″ PowerBookG4 when I should be doing work on my portable desktop, a refurbished 17″ PowerBookG4. For everything that I do at this time, OS X 10.4.11 suffices, and the refurbed machines cost quite a bit less than the new ones. Recently an old 15″ laptop that I knew of developed a problem with memory (half of it vanished), there are shops that specialize in that particular repair. We got it fixed and it’s the backup laptop for that office, at a much lower price than a new one, plus the person using it did not have to migrate all of the “stuff” off of it. A search on “Refurbished Mac” will turn up several shops that do that work around the US, I do not feel comfortable posting commercial URL’s in Rod’s comments box.
Eventually, of course, these machines will become harder to maintain. But it is a lot easier now than it was some years ago to buy basically a recycled laptop or desktop.
One last thought: there used to be organizations, generally religious but not all of them, that would take used computers in working condition and ship them to poor countries. Sure, a Pentium I 166MhZ is not even good enough for games anymore in the US, but it might well help some farming co-op in Uganda to keep track of various data. Don’t know if any of this is useful to you or not, but here it is anyway.
posted April 9, 2010 at 3:01 pm
“…I’ve found that people getting tired of their old computers is a great way to get free gear.”
Yes, but like lunches, there are no truly free computers. It’s a good thing that the heavy metals of your free laptop are not leeching into a landfill. But the content we access on our computers and phones come from server farms, and server farms, their numbers in the 1000s, already require 100s of megawatts each to run, more than a medium sized city, and the increases in server efficiency do not offset the growing numbers of servers out there.
All to satisfy our thirst for more information and entertainment and novel ways to consume it. There is a distinct downside to the latest gadget. It’s literally a growing problem.
posted April 9, 2010 at 4:25 pm
Avid readers are starving for a device like this. I generally read non-stop, and have books all over the house. I own (and honestly pretty much love) a Barnes and Noble Nook, and it’s my new best friend. I plan to avoid the iPad for two reasons:
1) It costs too much for what it offers, at least in my economy. I never regret waiting when it comes to purchasing things like this.
2) It’s still a big glowing monitor, and it impacts the eyes like a monitor. By the end of the work day, my eyes are shot, and I do NOT want more time staring at a backlit screen. The eInk technology that eReaders like the Nook and Kindle use are wonderful.
I am waiting for a color eInk device, and it’s coming. As a regular reader of comic books (laugh if you must), the color aspect is critical, but the iPad isn’t quite what I’m waiting for. Sure looks fun, though!
posted April 9, 2010 at 4:30 pm
Actually, the eInk technology that eReaders like the Nook and Kindle use *IS* wonderful.
Sorry, guys.
posted April 9, 2010 at 4:48 pm
Funny, MWorrell, the lack of a backlit screen is what I really don’t like about the Nook and the Kindle. I find they are not a pleasure to read for that reason alone. Which is why I was so tickled to see e-books on the iPad, and how much easier they were on my eyes.
posted April 9, 2010 at 6:10 pm
Bah, a laptop is more powerful and flexible. Also has a built in keyboard.
posted April 9, 2010 at 8:31 pm
Interesting that Rod wants a backlit screen while MWorrell does not. The e-ink of the Nook and Kindle is one reason they have lower power consumption and thus last longer on a single battery charge. Modern printing is not always as crisp as it could be, making paper books not as pleasant to read. I was looking at a 1920′s copy of an Oz book the other week and just struck by how sharp the edges on the letters were (not to mention the pen and ink illustrations), a result of a different printing process than what we use now. When and if we can make digital “paper” that is as crisp, that will be interesting.
John E – Agn Stoic has a good point, but let me observe that one major repair point for laptops is the hinge and the connection between motherboard and display. It’s a known weak point, and IMO one of the things Jobs wanted to address with iPad. IF the main use of your laptop is surfing the web, THEN you may be a potential customer for iPad.
posted April 9, 2010 at 10:35 pm
you do realize that when it comes time to change the battery you have to get Apple to do it and that they will charge your $170 to do it and you better back up your data before they change it?
sorry won’t buy one
posted April 9, 2010 at 11:00 pm
Peterk says:
you do realize that when it comes time to change the battery you have to get Apple to do it and that they will charge your $170 to do it and you better back up your data before they change it?
Same as the iPhone, and there’s no easy way to remove the SIMM card from an iPhone either. That’s not a bug, that’s an iFeature…
posted May 23, 2010 at 5:42 pm
Anti, you are correct. If you can not turn a screwdriver, spend $14 on a new battery, and have 15 minutes to spare, you can not change the battery in the iPhone. In addition, removing the SIMM card is even harder, you need a thin paperclip to press down in the hole on the top next to the mic jack, takes about 5 seconds. Just because you don’t know how to do something does not make it a big conspiracy.