If you were left to your own devices and if absolutely necessary, could you (1) sew your own clothes, (2) raise and prepare your own food, (3) fix your home’s furnace, air conditioner, and refrigerator, (4) re-plumb a bathroom, or (4) build your own furniture?
Most reasonably intelligent people (and I’m including you in this group) probably could to one degree or another. And most reasonably intelligent people don’t, because people’s time and energy are finite resources, and we all have to make different choices based on our interests and needs. The fact that you don’t mill your own wheat for pasta doesn’t mean you’re infantalized, it means you have other shit you’d rather do and you’re happy to let someone else take care of that aspect of life for you.
In other words, you’ve engaged in the art of figuring out for yourself what matters to you, and what doesn’t, as do we all. I mean, I get it: we’re all tempted to think our hobby is the one that actually matters and everything else is a distant second, but we all make choices based on what we need and what we like.
IMO, I believe that the crticism in Cory’s original post goes to Apple, not the ipad. The ipad is just an example, a starting point to develop this opinion. Whoever read this post as a “bad ipad review” missed the point.
Imagine an idealist who was into this “tech thing” before it was popular:
They would expect that, when the time arrived, easily accessible technology (like the ipad) would be designed in such a way that they would try to bring the casual user up to speed with the current situation.
What is happening instead is that tech is being dumbed down instead and used as a marketing trick.
Even though Cory makes it clear that this is his opinion and does not necessarily apply to everybody, replying “if you don’t like it buy sth else” is oversimplifying the issue.
If the ipad is the leader in the market, it will lead the competition towards the same direction.
And as such, if LG is selling a product with a replaceable battery, the average consumer will think “well apple doesn’t, so LG must be doing sth wrong”.
And if consumer technology is made for the lowest common denominator, or at least the “average” consumer, everything associated will follow: see the common complaint that the internet is being turned into cable tv.
So, the ipad per se is not the issue here, as a tool it is perfect if not expensive for what it does. And it is just a glorified portable entertainment system with some computing capabilities.
I for one completely agree with Cory on this. Having configurable, modifiable electronics is the whole way I learned about computers, which is an increasingly important skill for the modern world. Products like the iPad that prevent expoloration of how they work (either in hardware or software) have a negative effect on the education and creativity of the generation(s) that grows up using them. Then there are the additional concerns of the environmental disaster that is unrepairable electronics, and the inherently regressive economic influence of products that are corporate controled after they have been “sold.” The iPad is as good an exemplar as any for the failures of modern tech
I think what the OP means is not that iPad is inconvenient, feature-poor, difficult to use or badly-supported. My impression (I have not used iPads myself, mind you) is that they work great, that Apple support is responsive, that they are sleek, that there are lots of apps, etc. I.e. they have good user experience.
What the OP is saying is that all of the above can be achieved without DRM, without batteries that cannot be replaced, etc. DRM is not there for improving user experience, it is there to benefit Apple. DRM is the trap, good UX is the bait for that trap.
You have to watch the whole series to understand - his point was that the world is too complicated for any one person to understand, and the only way to function if you want to understand all parts of society was to choose not to live in it. If you watch his followon series, “The Day The Universe Changed”, he makes the point that those making advancements in the past did a terrible, terrible job of realizing what advancements were “important”, and which were not, and that the society of the future was going to decide what was, and was not, important without their help.
The moral was: Don’t assume that tomorrow will look anything like today, or that’s what’s important today will be important tomorrow. or that one will be able to grasp all of the intricacies of technology’s role in the future by looking at today.
The app ecosystem has implications far outside any one device or class of devices, and the general movement towards less engineering knowledge is a nearly universal trend that also has implications massively beyond what the iPad is or isn’t. So trying to generalize that users who don’t understand their stuff makes a given class of users “child-like” or “simplistic” is doomed to be looked at as a gross misrepresentation by the users of the future. Much like riding an elevator or using a microwave is today.
I am fairly Luddite when it comes to electronics. BUT I think it comes down to whether you think the world would be a better place without an essentially capitalist/market driven system. Apple has done what the markets and system of regulations we have permit. If you want to steer the world away from Apple, you need to steer the world away from the conditions that made it possible.
I drive a sales route for a beer wholesaler. I kinda hate that it’s an iPhone cause I don’t like iOS, but my entire job runs through and iPhone for inventory, billing, and ordering. It’s a pain in the ass if you have to do any normal office stuff. But connectivity and usability while working on the road is just a lot better than a laptop. You aren’t physically climbing stacks of products in some one’s back room with a laptop that’s got a barcode scanner hanging out of a USB port.
From the company’s perspective they aren’t gonna be able to lojack a laptop six ways from Sunday to be able to tell if we’re where we say we are, track our working hours etc.
Only people who still use laptops for this are Boarshead reps and the liquor business. Liquor is increasingly going with tablets, mostly iPads.
If you’re trying to tie this back to writing your own code, I will once again reiterate that you can in fact still do this with an iPad, you just need a Mac to compile it, and there’s no need to give Apple $99/year to do it. You only have to pay Apple if you intend to distribute it.
No piece of technology works that way; not even the Apple I is immortal the way a book is/can be. And even if the iPad did somehow magically work this way, who else besides Apple are you going to get your replacement electronics from? These things rely on deeply-integrated SoCs with custom logic boards printed at highly-specialized factories in order to be this portable and efficient. You can’t just go to Radio Shack and buy a replacement A9 for your iPhone SE if it shorts out because you dropped it in the toilet.
I will agree with you that it’s important to educate people about the things that shape their world. However, I think “you should be able to build your own iPad” is not something that aligns with that need. Hell, I don’t even think “everyone should learn to code” aligns with that need (as has been pointed out elsewhere, companies pushing “everyone should code” curricula makes it easier for them to pay coders less money because it’s no longer a valuable, specialized skill). Engaging with closed-source platforms is something everyone is going to have to do eventually, unless you want to be Richard Stallman and never fly on a plane or stay in a hotel (just… please have better hygiene and a better understanding of professional behavior if you do). Teaching people about how computers work in a general sense, and not just how to use SUM() in Excel, is extremely valuable, and something that our educational system has largely failed to accomplish. Ensuring that people understand the tradeoffs that are inherent in using closed platforms is important. But “everyone should build their own computers if they really want to know what’s going on in the world” is a really absurd argument. It’s like asking everyone to have a degree in waste management in order to know how to use a faucet. For most people, as long as clean water comes out of the nozzle when they turn the knob, they don’t really care about the way the entire system operates. In most cases, it’s the job of actual professionals to deal with the fiddly bits that make clean water coming out of the nozzle happen reliably. There are times when it fails, and it’s usually when people who don’t have that understanding try to pretend that they do and make decisions without consulting those professionals (hello, Flint). While I would advocate that people get more invested in civil operations in general in an effort to avoid those kinds of avoidable catastrophes by ensuring proper oversight, I wouldn’t say that everyone needs to spend a month working in a waste treatment plant to understand the importance of a well-functioning sanitation system. As long as the education is available for those who need and/or want it, there will be people who can manage the systems that make the end-user experience functional.
How much education for the real world of using computers did plugging cards into ISA slots and navigating labyrinthian IRQ settings actually give you? Knowing how to fix autoexec.bat is not the same thing as understanding how computers work. It’s a skill that had limited application as a way to fix Windows after it inevitably shit its pants (not kidding, a Star Wars screensaver pack totally nuked our Windows installation when I was a kid, if you want a reminder of just how bad the bad old days really were), but these days is basically useless.
People say this a lot, and I don’t really think anyone has really bothered to elaborate on how it has a negative effect on the education and creativity of the people who use them. It really just sounds a lot like the moral panic around kids watching too much television turning them into mindless zombies. There are kids writing apps who get invited to WWDC every year on scholarship tickets. If you’re afraid that the next generation won’t have any incentive to write their own software because of the App Store, your fears are highly irrational.
I think the blowback Apple received over removing the headphone jack is a good indication that sometimes the industry goes in directions regardless of what people may actually want or think is “right”.
Did you miss the part where I said I do web development on it? 'Cause it’s actually a pretty good tool for that, too. It’s also a pretty amazing drawing tablet. The only people who seem to insist on calling iPads passive content consumption devices are the ones who have never bothered to use them.
My father wasn’t interested in taking apart or programming the Amstrad PCW he bought in the 80s. But lucky for me it could be could be taken apart and programmed, because writing my own games for it set me up for a career in software engineering, rather than the blue collar work he did.
The kids whose parents bought iPads after 2010 weren’t as lucky. They never got to tinker with anything beyond the sandboxed drag-and-drop coding-lite games you can get in the App Store. The junior developers we’re hiring now never wrote their own code before college.
I remember reading Cory’s post in 2010 and thinking it was bullshit, but I couldn’t agree more now.
This is where it goes wrong, because when the iPad came out, it did have a customer in mind: Steve Jobs himself. His philosophy as Apple CEO was that he wanted his company to make things he himself wanted. That included flops like the PowerMac G4 Cube, but the iPod, iPhone and iPad hit his personal sweet spot.
And Apple’s current missteps like the MacBook Pro’s keyboard are a result of the same philosophy, only with Jony Ive the one who made things according to his own desires, what he personally wanted to own. And, well, letting the lawyers further off the leash than they should have been.
But, other computers still exist for anyone who wants one. There’s a whole subculture of building PCs and tinkering with them. The fact that a lot of people like the iPad doesn’t actually prevent anyone from getting something else.
i still have my iPad Air2, and it’s great for what i use it for, which is reading and surfing, and occasionally streaming something to the kitchen while i work. but all apple things are like that to me. i like that they actually work and it’s relatively no fuss. and i say this as someone who started using apple products with the Apple ][.
Their relentless campaign against the right to repair is unforgivable, and their lobbying affects a lot more than their crappy products.
I don’t begrudge anyone wanting a simple device that requires no tinkering or technical knowledge to operate, but companies have taken that desire of the masses and sewn it into a straight jacket for the rest of us. Until the very recent upswing in tinker boards along the lines of the raspberry pi (of which the pi is the most famous, although certainly not the freeest example) the prospects for tinkerers to just do what they’ve always done with technology had been disappearing at an alarming rate. Without the tinkerers, the next generation of ‘it just works’ devices will look and feel a lot more like cable TV, but worse. So the tinkerers and the ‘make it as simple as possible’ crowd have common cause here.
Keep tech free for everyone, not as an ad-serving, privacy stealing, rent-to-never-own, monopolist’s dream.
What does Apple have to do with electronics that aren’t something you can tinker with? It’s not their job to make every kind of electronic device that suits your fancy.
Your issue―and the issue that most people here seem to have―is that nobody ELSE makes that product. Apple isn’t what’s wrong with the industry, what you perceive as wrong is that your niche isn’t catered to, and arguably, that isn’t even true: if you want to tinker, buy a raspberry pi.
Stop holding Apple as the scapegoat in a discussion that ultimately has nothing to do with them.
I’ve been a progressional programmer for more than half my life now, and I use an iPad because it’s a useful tool to me for some things that I want to do. This snobbish, elitist, classest argument that because the iPad isn’t a tool that tinkerers and programmers love it has no value is honestly really galling.
The whole take is bad; the article should just be, “it has no niche in my life, and I don’t really like Apple.” At least then I could appreciate the honesty, rather than this post-justification for denigrating an entire segment of the population for not liking the same things as him.
I agree that Cory wasn’t trying to insult Apple fans. He also doesn’t say that Apple ever said this. (After all, Apple’s marketing is not run by complete morons.)
What I don’t think a lot of people get is that for those of us who do want to take devices apart/improve/maintain, Apple’s policies seem to be aimed at excluding and belittling us. In general, the tinkerers, hackers and makers tend to improve technology. From our perspective the reasons for excluding us have nothing to do with improving or protecting the technology/device/user experience, rather it’s only about making a buck.
Plus the wastefulness of this type of scheme is just appalling. Gluing devices together and filling free spaces within them with glue is the equivalent of grocery stores that spray produce they are throwing away with bleach to prevent those who can’t afford to buy it fresh from getting it at all.
Vital rare earth elements are mined then just thrown away. (Not even going to get into the pollution)
I use a Mac mini as a personal home server, mostly for media but also for a couple other things. In the latest release of the macOS Server software, Apple removed the built-in DNS service that you could just toggle on and off with a switch. I had previously been using that service to route traffic to a separate computer on our network that hosts other software which doesn’t get along well with the Mac (and/or would overload the poor mini’s limited RAM).
Because it’s UNIX under the hood, I could absolutely set up my own DNS service on the Mac mini using any number of open-source utilities, some of which Apple helpfully provided links to in their support document outlining the changes to their Server software.
Have I set up a DNS service to replace the one removed from the Server software yet? Nope. Because the other tools are geared toward actual network administrators and are basically impenetrable to me. There’s no GUI to configure anything with and the manuals are like reading Wikipedia articles on mathematical formulae. What had been a simple, idiot-proof “it just works” solution that abstracted away all of the underlying ugly setup work is now something I think about maybe once a week and then sigh to myself because I know I’m either going to have to knuckle down and learn something I shouldn’t have to bother with learning just for the sake of routing “jira.menagerie.lan” to an internal network address, or I’m just going to have to memorize the network address for the JIRA server.
Maybe if hackers and tinkerers want to be a dominant market force, they should get their act together and provide actual user-friendly tools for doing things, instead of getting angry at Apple for doing it for them.
(Also, if you want to talk about e-waste, Apple has a recycling program built into its purchasing process both in-store and online if you can’t find someone else to pawn your last-gen iThings off onto.)
Nonsense. There’s little stopping you from learning how to code “real” apps for these platforms - you just need an actual computer to do it. You don’t even need a developer license or actual hardware to code apps as emulators are quite good these days.
Well thank goodness Ive is out. The latest post-Ive iteration of the MacBook Pro is really damn good. (I still find the Touch Bar to be a needless solution in search of a problem, but the keyboard is spectacularly good after they basically reverted back to the 2015 scissor keys.)
I agree with all the points about consumers having the right to service their private property without restrictions and not have devices that secretly spy on them, etc.
That said, I got an Ipad in 2011 and the battery is still going strong almost a decade later.
Really the whole device still does most things rather well and I feel like it has outlived the original investment of 700 or whatever it was. I mostly just use it for streaming. while on the road. It has outlived 4 or 5 laptops, multiple TV’s and still feels like a remarkable device.
