

The future of computing? - adriand
http://factore.ca/on-the-floor/43-the-future-of-computing

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swannodette
This meme of the iPad as primarily a consumption device needs to die. On
launch day you have plenty of very well designed drawing apps, some incredible
music apps (including a very nice digital 8-track,
<http://www.sonomawireworks.com/iphone/studiotrack/>) , and Apple's iWork
suite. In the coming months I think we'll see plenty of other quality
applications aimed squarely at artists, writers, designers, and musicians. The
iPad is the first _serious digital sketchbook_ , one in which you can sketch
out many kinds of ideas not only visual ones.

~~~
adriand
> aimed squarely at artists, writers, designers, and musicians

Do you really think writers are going to get any real work done on an iPad?
Because if so, I really disagree. The touch screen simply doesn't lend itself
to quick typing and rapid text editing.

Ignoring artists, designers and musicians - since, after all, most people are
none of those - and focusing on writing, I think the iPad has a chilling
effect. Writing is perhaps the most important activity the average citizen
conducts online, so that matters. People kept writing that the iPad is a
computer for mothers - my mother, like many others from her generation, was
taught to type, a skill that served her well as a legal secretary. She types
very well now.

Given an iPad, I expect that although some tasks may be easier for her to
accomplish, her lengthy email missives to her children, and her letters to the
editor, are going to be much briefer. That's a loss to her family and a loss
to civic society.

Of course, none of that matters if you look at the iPad as a toy, a sketchpad,
or a device mainly intended to consume media than produce it. But if you
believe that it is the "future of computing", as many call it, then this is a
problem.

The iPad may well be - and probably is - the future of content consumption,
web browsing, gaming, and perhaps television viewing. There's a difference
between that though, and the future of computing.

~~~
swannodette
Doesn't sound like you've spent much time with the software keyboard. It's
quite good. Also there's a reason why Apple makes a keyboard dock and added
bluetooth keyboard support. Not sure if your argument really holds up in the
face of these facts.

One of my favorite iPad features is that Pages goes into WriteRoom mode in the
landscape orientation.

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ryandvm
I find it amusing that Apple has come full circle and that their latest
incarnations of computing portend a much more dystopian future than anything
IBM had in mind in their 1984 Super Bowl commercial.

~~~
anamax
What's dystopian about a Hooter's waitress throwing a hammer at a big screen
TV?

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ggchappell
In short: Yes, but it's not a problem.

Consider the situation, say, 5 years ago. We all watched TV. That's consume-
only; no user production involved. We all read books. Same deal. Radio,
newspapers, etc. All the same. _But_ , we all also had computers, and we used
to them to produce, interact, etc.

The point is that we used a number of devices, we did some producing, but
mostly we consumed. Now, perhaps a few years from now, when newspapers, radio,
etc., are all dead, we will do all this with just one or two devices. But we
should still expect each individual to do a lot more consuming than producing.

(Note: This is not to say I'm happy with the Apple/Amazon-runs-the-show model
of computing. I don't own a Kindle, or an iPhone-OS-anything. Nor do I intend
to get one.)

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gxs
I'm only speculating here and what do I know, but in my opinion the
consumer/creator dynamic is cyclic. Right now, we have a lot of content, hence
the reddits, HNs, etc. of the world.

At some point the supply for all these aggregators will run low (not
disappear, of course) and we'll see a rise in the number of people that author
content. And so on and so forth.

~~~
Psyonic
It may have been in the past, but now that the internet allows far fewer
authors to spread their work much farther, I don't see it happening. But
here's to hoping!

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loup-vaillant
Except, the future is already there: our bandwidth is asymmetric, running our
own server is increasingly impossible, and the Internet becomes more and more
centralized, like good old closed networks like AOL.

The iPad is the symbol of that trend, but otherwise is tiny, irrelevant, even.

~~~
glhaynes
I dunno, with services like EC2 I feel like there's far more opportunity
available to me on the internet than there was a decade ago. I agree inasmuch
as it _feels_ different in some ways, though.

~~~
loup-vaillant
Using EC2 makes you the exception, not the rule (and by the way, I would
prefer to have a server at home). Most people don't use EC2 (let alone a
personal server). They use Blogger. Most people don't send mail. They ask
Gmail to that for them.

The internet used to be a bunch of interconnected machines doing peer to peer
communication. Now, we have a few servers and many many clients. So the future
already there. I believe we could reverse the trend and go back to a sane,
mostly decentralized, internet, but it will require a collective effort.

------
olalonde
For some reason, I knew this would involve the iPad vs PC but I still clicked
to make sure :/

