The world has now seen the unveiling of probably one of the most over hyped (and overpriced!) pieces of technology in the world.
Apples iPad (bad choice of name Steve – have you no women in your Marketing Department?) has been hyped as the next best thing since sliced bread – the greatest technological advancement since James Watt wondered whether he could turn pressurized steam into mechanical energy – the second coming…… A bit over the top?
David Carr of The New York Times wrote recently that Apple’s tablet would be nothing less than “the second coming of the iPhone, a so-called Jesus tablet that can do anything, including saving some embattled print providers from doom.”
The result, after the launch of this new piece of voodoo from the people at the forefront of technology has been a monumental disappointment. It seems to be no more than an electronic book, magazine or newspaper – with internet access and a few nice apps and a screen that will screw your eyes up in about 15 minutes!
What’s interesting is why some of us expected so much more from a new gadget. I suspect this is because for some people, technology has become a kind of religion. We may not believe in a God anymore, but just as 500 years ago the Spanish missionaries put shiny mirrors in churches to dazzle the Incas and draw them in – we still like to see shiny new things that fill us with awe.
We’re living in an age of change and upheaval – yet technology gives us the illusion of control, a sense of order. Pick up a smart phone or turn on your laptop and you have a reliable, dependable device that does whatever you tell it to do. And no wonder a lot of people in the media wanted to believe that a new device from Apple could stop the decline of our industry’s Newspapers and magazines. Both are struggling to adapt to the Internet, and no one has any idea what our business will look like when we get to the other side of this wrenching period. The iPad may very well be the answer …….. eventually. But not from day one – and not until you get one free when you sign up to a year’s subscription of …. whatever.
It says more about us and what we have come to expect from Apple than Apple itself. Yet Apple did not invent the MP3 player, and they where not the first to think of distributing music over the internet. What they did was make it ‘cool’. In a world where Apple only have a 5% share of the mobile market and about the same in home computing – I don’t think the iPad is the savior of the printed word. But its quite cool. Should have called it the iWant.
May 6th, 2010
