
Fraser Speirs's iPad commentary: Future Shock - cpr
http://speirs.org/blog/2010/1/29/future-shock.html
======
DanielStraight
While that's true, the orthogonal skills can sometimes make the real work
easier. Knowing even a small amount of VBA could save you hours in Excel.
Knowing a small amount of Python could let you rename every mp3 file on your
hard drive in 5 minutes. When you remove access to the low levels of the
computer, you remove a lot of the ability to solve one-off problems. There are
people who put panels inside panels on WinForms just to get a border color
other than black, because they aren't aware they can override Panel.OnPaint.
Having only high-level access may make easy things easier, but it can also
make hard things much harder.

There was a great submission here recently called "Programming as a super
power"
([http://blogs.msdn.com/alfredth/archive/2010/01/20/programmin...](http://blogs.msdn.com/alfredth/archive/2010/01/20/programming-
as-a-super-power.aspx)), where the author said that "there are more programs
that should be written than professional programmers can ever write." This
could be abstracted to "there are more things that should be done at a low
level than superusers can ever do." So if the iPad doesn't _let_ you do things
at a low level, there will be negative consequences.

~~~
akeefer
Let's take it as a given that the iPad and like devices won't kill normal
computers any time soon, if ever, so those of us who know we want to tinker
will have a place to do it.

The question, then, is if one is designing a mass-market computing device, is
the ability to tinker with it going to produce enough good in the world to
offset all the misery it causes to other people? For every person that saves
ten hours using VBA to program their spreadsheet, how many other people lose
hours because they get a virus or install incompatible programs or corrupt
some obscure system file?

In other words: you're 100% correct that there will be negative consequences,
but don't forget that there will be positive consequences as well. It's a
judgment call as to which side you think weighs more heavily and where the
overall balance will be. Yes, you lose something important and valuable when
you lose the ability to tinker. Yes, the world would be better if you could
have that AND not have people frustrated and crippled by their technology. But
no one has figured out how to do both yet.

I think it's fair to say that you have to make the choice, and you can't have
it both ways. And given that choice, my personal accounting tells me that we
gain a lot more by removing the frustration than we lose by removing the
power. While we lose something, I think we gain a lot more, and I don't see
any way to gain it without giving something up.

~~~
flogic
I think there are more solutions than just open or closed. I just recently
tried my hand at Blackberry development. It runs 2 type of code. Signed and
unsigned. Accessing certain API's requires signed code.

------
blehn
The iPad is great technology, to be sure. And a lot of that technology may be
incorporated into the future of computing. However, I'd suggest that the shock
comes from the fact that this particular iPad is a computer for the past, not
the future. It's great for moms and grandpas--people who grew up without
computers. The moms and dads of my generation--people who are in their teens
and twenties now--are pretty comfortable with the computers we have already.
We want a computer that incorporates the technology of the iPad to enhance the
power and flexibility that we are used to, not cripple it. That's why the iPad
is disappointing--because we wanted the future, not an indicator of the
future.

~~~
DougBTX
Anecdote: Wednesday evening, my younger sister's laptop crashed while shutting
down. She pressed the off button, the screen when dark. The next day, she
pushes the power button, screen lights up, displays the crashed logging off
screen. She has to call me up to teach her how to use the power button to
restart the computer - 1 sec for sleep, 10 sec for _really_ off.

A few people in their teens and twenties are pretty comfortable, many more are
not.

~~~
blehn
Of course, but I'm not saying that computers shouldn't become easier to use
and more elegant--they absolutely should. I'm saying that they should become
more capable at the same time, not less capable.

~~~
DougBTX
Capable is a tricky word, without a user who can use it the computer is
capable of nothing.

------
Herring
That's a very good strawman. Nobody's complaining because it's too simple. As
far as I can tell they're complaining because it's not open.

~~~
joubert
Can software that is open without bound remain simple (non-complex),
logistically, politically, technically?

~~~
joezydeco
How many years has Linux been trying? 10? More? And they're still not there.
Android is probably the next best hope.

~~~
jodrellblank
"""There's another reality distortion field at work, though, and everyone that
makes a living from the tech industry is within its tractor-beam. That RDF
tells us that computers are awesome, they work great and only those too stupid
to live can't work them"""

Not _everyone_. It's more and more obvious to me that I only thrive in
computing where I can control my environment. I do make a living from the tech
industry, and I find myself in the same position as "normals" do when faced
with "software for normals", and I hate it as much as "they" do.

Error messages are meaningless to "them" but meaningful to me. So called
'friendly' error messages are also meaningless to "them" and worse they are
meaningless to me as well.

Hiding complexity isn't simplifying things. Arjan van de Ven said about the 5
second linux boot project "Don't settle for 'make boot faster'; it's the wrong
question. [..] It's not about booting faster, it's about booting in 5
seconds". - <http://lwn.net/Articles/299483/>

Apple are saying "it's not about a nice GUI over the top of a complex system,
it's about a simple system". They've thrown out everything they can get away
with and then a bit more; which Linux distro's can't or wont do. Linux is
'simplified' by people who don't want or need it to be simple, Windows is
'simplified' by people hobbled by backwards compatibility, inertia and lack of
focused obsessive direction.

~~~
joezydeco
"They've thrown out everything they can get away with and then a bit more;
which Linux distro's can't or wont do."

 _Bravo._ I would hazard to guess ChromeOS is Google's stab at this. There's
also Jolicloud and some others for netbooks, so maybe there's hope in that
direction.

------
chaosmachine
Here's a Star Trek prop from 1987, called a PADD.

<http://imgur.com/e3fju.jpg>

~~~
ugh
Funny that 80s and 90s sci-fi is beginning to look just as archaic as 60s sci-
fi (blinking light bulbs and many switches) looked then. We’re not quite there
yet, but soon we will.

~~~
ericb
Very true--my old phone was essentially Kirk's communicator, and the iPhone
surpassed it.

<http://images2.fanpop.com/external/860814>

------
kindly
Will the ipad actually be useful for the things people actually need to get
done to do their jobs? and contribute to a better world because of it? I think
in very limited cases it will, but will mainly help non technical people
consume more media. Is this a good thing? I personally think not, because I
like nature too much. I am happy that some people do not spend their life
glued to a screen. Others may differ on this. In terms of useful applications,
for doctors and for others who need convenient information retrieval, the Ipad
will be great, and I welcome it. On the most part though it will just be a
gadget that people will get addicted to and waste more or their worthwhile
lives on. Real work will be done on real computers (with a keyboard).

~~~
rimantas
_but will mainly help non technical people consume more media_

Why is "non technical" there? Do electronics engineers construct TV and Radio
sets for themselves, or just grab one off the shelf and are happy with it?

I do not want to write a browser when I want to consume the web I will be more
than happy to use one someone already wrote — given that it is good enough for
the task. What iPad comes with is more than good enough for the things it is
intended for.

~~~
kindly
By non technical, all that was meant was, people who currently find
technologies hard to use. I agree it will help everyone consume more media,
but it will particularly help these people.

------
eagleal
Reading all the comments about iPad, I can see how people fantasize and
abstract things. I mean, the iPad it's just the result of a trend that derived
from the iPhone, Kindle [, etc] success. iPad as computer killer,
simplicity/complexity that help/destroy the world, et cetera.

I'm not talking only for the product itself, but derivation of the product,
the mission, and all this stuff. By fantasy I mean that they overestimate,
creating tales, of what it's simply a business decision, following current
trends.

Not just hype, but _fantasy_.

EDIT: I'm not saying that it's a bad thing, I really like to learn new
perspectives. Fantasy in the sense of fanboys of StarTrek, Apple, WoW,
Dungeons & Dragons.

------
stcredzero
Sigh. Why does everyone have to labor under the belief that background
processes are somehow impossible for iPhone/iPad hardware or Apple? Apple can
create an API to register short functions with hard-retime constraints. That
allows OS X (Apple) to dole out milli-watts to background Apps exactly as it
sees fit while satisfying 90% of dev's needs. I predict it will happen.

