More Apple hype than I can take

Once in a while a piece of Apple commentary drives me up the wall.  Daniel Lyons piece, The Hype is Right, in the October 14, online version of Newsweek is just such a piece.  According to the piece, "Apple's tablet will reinvent computing."  Wow, that is a pretty tall order for an unannounced product.  The article goes on to say the following.

...this device may actually warrant the hype. Not because of the tablet itself but because of what it and others like it could do to the way we tell stories.

It almost sounds like someone has fallen head over heels in love with the old Knowledge Navigator video.  As much as anyone, I would like an interesting new device which would make it easier to communicate with others. However, this vision of everyone toting around a tablet and telling stores or getting their news from it leaves me a little puzzled.

I can just imagine five or six techies in a circle with their tablets trying to tell stories. 

These powerful devices with constant Internet access will enable us (and force us) to rethink media.

I have news for the author, media and the way information is communicated has already changed massively. Apple has been missing from much of this change.  Why would they all of sudden become the leader when they show up with a tablet?

The world of blogs and social media have developed largely with little support  or even acknowledgment from Apple.  Is there an Apple company blog that I have missed?  Apple mostly communicates with Steve Jobs standing on a stage and the rest of the company employees afraid to even get near the media.  My experience is that Steve will not even let you in a meeting with an electronic device.  He is not very fond of note taking either.

Apple's iWeb clearly misses part of the whole point of blogging.  It ends up tying you to one computer.  The last version I checked you had to move around a lot of files in order to write from more than one computer.  Can you update an iWeb site from your iPhone?

With Twitter, Typepad, Blogger, Wordpress, Squarespace or almost any of the other platforms, I do not need to be hauling around a Mac tablet to write and communicate.  I can communicate from my Windows computer, my Mac, even my Linux box, or my iPhone if I had one.

The whole idea that a persistent Internet will change the world is interesting.  I have persistent Internet in my office and at home.  I do not have it in my boat or my car which is probably good since when I am using those, I am piloting or driving which demands my full attention.  I have about as much Internet as I can take.  I do not want to run into the Internet in a restaurant where I am trying to have a quiet meal or in a theater where I am watching a movie.  Oops I forgot, I should be watching my movies on my Mac tablet.  Wait I would rather see some films on the big screen, and as for college football, I would rather watch that on my my 46" HD television from the comfort of my easy chair.

The Internet has changed what we can share and how we communicate.  I give Apple's iMovie high marks for how it creates a quick YouTube video and iPhoto also does a good job of a quick and dirty webpage for pictures.  Beyond that I am not sure what Apple has contributed much other than the iPhone which has gotten MMS finally I believe if the news stories are correct.

The real advance in the way stores are being told comes from web based platforms that allow people to interact and display content that is important to them online.  Having said that, it is important to understand that a lot of the content that people produce is not interesting to everyone.  Each time I log into Facebook, I have to laugh at what some people do with their time there.  I continue to believe that some people on Facebook do silly things because they cannot think of anything better to do.

With Twitter, I sense that I am part of a new way of communicating.  Twitter is not so personal that I cannot jettison people whose communication annoys me.  While there is plenty of useless communication on Twitter, it has turned out to be a valuable way to watch developing news and reach new people.

I honestly believe that websites which are open to content and comment from a variety of people could be the wave of the future.  However, the big challenge that I have seen is that very few people want to be public content producers. While it is easy to do a few blog posts for several months, do you have the energy to do it every day for years and not be paid for it?  Not many people are willing to step up to that challenge.

With a friend who was at the forefront of the Blacksburg Electronic Village, I have been trying to breathe life into a regional website with local content and authors here on the North Carolina coast.  It is a challenge to find people who will write and share their experiences and to find a model that will support itself.

Will Apple's tablet change that dynamic?  I seriously doubt it, but I am willing to be convinced. At this point, it looks like to me that tablets could become the home movie device to avoid in this century.

Actually right now I am more interested in seeing our secret summer season come back than I am in Apple's future tablet. The unbelievable hype in this article was enough to get me writing, but I will now head back to the fall silence on the beaches here on the Southern Outer Banks.

Comments

[twitter.com/batess]

David, have you checked out posterous.com yet?

Pretty impressed, still getting it right, but it really simplifies authoring.

[ocracokewaves]

I will give it a look. I will try almost anything. I even gave iWeb a fair shot.

[Jim]

OK, so you don't want to be connected 24/7...fair enough. But I've said it before and I'll repeat it. Anytime/anywhere Internet connectivity is the killer app, and Apple through the iPhone has done a lot in that regard. Mobile Safari, location services, maps, GPS, all incredibly useful and life-enhancing. I'm looking forward to seeing what Apple does to make the input part of that equation easier, better, faster, and more intuitive.

[Wilfred Hildonen]

I think you are right in much of what you write, but since I finally got myself an iPhone (I was waiting for the tethering feature which I need), I must say that through that device, I think one can say that Apple has contributed to the development of internet; not so much by content as to the use of it. One example; by the dinner table we might discuss some topic and I lack some info. Earlier, I used to wait until after the meal before I went down to my office to search the info I needed. Now I bring out the iPhone and get it there and then.

Is that bad or good? Well, that can be debated, but it seems to have contributed to that kind of persistent access Lyons seems to be writing about. I don´t think that the tablet will contribute so much to it as the iPhone has, though. But that device definitely has brought us to a stage where the internet might be more than something you check when you get near a computer next time. It is about to transform itself to a part of our daily reality wherever we are. A kind of an extra brain, so to speak.

Whether that is a dystopic or a utopic reality remains to see.