I fell for the iHype

My philosophy crumbled under the hype wave of the iPad. I had to see what many of my fellow tech geeks were seeing. I had to understand precisely what value this interface offered. How else can I cater to the imagination of this social group of early adopters. I must know what they know.

I don’t believe in the longevity of the App Store or any similar funnelled market. The free market has a way of breaking down walls. Application stores are the equivalent of captive audiences, and automatic affiliate cuts for the store owner. Why can’t we go to other stores on our iGadgets? Sure the app store model will generate a wad of bills before web apps can replicate all desktop functionality. Notice a lack of flash support? How many high functionality web apps rely on flash? The answer a boatload. Apple’s answer to developers who use flash has so far been “use html5 instead”.

For starters there are already issues with searching the App store for genuine applications referred by friends. Another issue is forced compliance with a desktop operating environment. If it’s not Mac or Windows it’s not good enough for iTunes. The constraint of going through iTunes to get to other portable computing devices is bizarre. Developing on an Ubuntu Linux install at home is a pleasure. Why can’t I just copy media or other files over wifi to my tablet? What sort of bargain have I made just to have a nicer browser/reader. Why do I have to but a Mac box at home to sync up media on my iPrisons. What am I contributing towards?

My need to understand and experience hyped gadgets trumped my principles. We’re talking powerful levels of cognitive dissonance. My true curiosity in this recent purchase, what psychological magic has Apple pulled to cause me to override my disdain for closed markets? Could it be that deep down I believe competition has failed, and the free market and open computing environments are merely an illusion?

I surely hope not.

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  • http://steamcatapult.com/ Dave Pinsen

    This is at the Rails conference at Javits? If nothing else, the iPad sure is pretty.

  • http://www.victusspiritus.com/ Mark Essel

    My desk at home, mostly to compare thickness to a book. I've now read two books on my phone and pc since I got the rails way. Need a handy PDF, wish they'd give you one free with a book purchase

    it's nice having rails way as a reference :)

  • http://twitter.com/mikecane Mike Cane

    iTunes requirement is due to legacy of DRM. Isn't there a Linux iTunes clone — is it Songbird? — that will let you do such syncing of *DRM-free* stuff?

  • http://www.victusspiritus.com/ Mark Essel

    Thanks Mike, my buddy Aakin suggested the same tool. It actually remote plays media on a local synced desktop so it's not quite what I'm looking for. Thanks for the heads up. One day I'll have super portable computers that are, well, computers. Good old copying files over networks, and installing stuff without painful funnels.

  • RichardForster

    so…what's it like? I felt the same way about all apple products until I bought the iPhone. I don't think I'll be able to resist when it is released over here.

  • Pingback: The Gilded Cage of Technology « Victus Spiritus

  • http://www.victusspiritus.com/ Mark Essel

    It's an ideal hand held web browser. The applications I've used are ok, but I primarily use it as a reader/browser. I have a dozen or so Kindle books, and 5-6 iBooks on it now. I have many pdfs on my DropBox account (which is a scaled up iphone/ipod app), hoping Dropbox will release an iPad app soon. I picked up something called evernote (free app) which promises to give me another 20gbytes of storage on the web.

    Michelle and I have watched movies on it, but holding it at the right angle becomes a pain after a while, so we're going to see if the component out to the tv will let us watch netflix.

  • Pingback: iPad Links: Monday, April 5, 2010 « Mike Cane's iPad Test

  • http://www.iamronen.com iamronen

    here's the latest I know of regarding Songbird and iPods:
    http://blog.songbirdnest.com/2009/08/05/open-so…

    I was this close to getting an iPod and because of this stupid Songbird issue I ended up not getting one:
    http://www.iamronen.com/2010/02/not-getting-an-…