You just listed four activites that are consumptive in nature. What was the last thing you produced on your iPad? Not just that, but even the way you use it is not the optimized-for case, I think. Apple wants to optimize you buying music, movies, books, etc. through iTunes and iBooks. Amazon is continuing this trend. Yes, the post-PC devices will continue to allow you to participate in the Web, necessarily, but they will privilege consumption over production, and centralized broadcast models over decentralized peer-to-peer ones. Because that's where the money is.
In contrast, the native Web on PCs is more read-write by nature. And Web technologies are making production increasingly easier.
Well, I never really used the iPad as a consumption device. Of course I loaded it with movies, e-books and pdf papers, but it gets old fast. I still buy 4 books a month and watch Netflix on the living room exclusively... =\
However it instantly became my go-to e-mail client at work, reminds me of appointments (integrates with Exchange), holds my to-do list, has my personal issue-tracking database (Bento), browses trough our github projects, syncs with Dropbox, allows me to connect to SQL Server, is on Skype all day long and I even did some (simple) presentations on Keynote for our meetings.
I also use it for online banking when I'm not home and I have Amplitube and iRig to play guitar trough it on weekends.
I also know some people who use it in college, my sister borrows mine sometimes when she's in town and her classmate also owns one.
Granted, I'm a developer, not a manager, so those apps aren't critical to my work... but I LOVE having only two apps on my Windows Workstation: Firefox and Visual Studio. Talk about focus!
Also, I work on a university, and we're in the process of buying tablets for the whole staff. Probably not iPads, idk.
Of course, it's a weird use case, but well, it is possible...
While I do agree it's mainly a consumption device I think it's already quite useful as a creation platform (I write/sketch out music on it). IMO it's a reflection a culture where most people are consumers not creators.
Mainstream PC use is for games, netflix, and facebook. All passive. I guess facebook is 50/50, if you call writing a never ending Christmas card update letter creative :)
There's a button Safari toolbar that allows you to save a bookmark as an app icon on the home screen. Your argument that Apple hates the web makes no sense.
That is a pre-tablet mindset. It wasn't long ago that GUIs were chided for being "just a fad".
"GUIs are just a fad,when their novelty wears off, users will soon return to true command-line interfaces like DOS", Jon Gladden 1986.
You've misunderstood me. I don't believe tablets are a fad, if anything I'm lamenting they're inevitable success.
I also don't claim that Apple hates the web. I just think it's in their interest to privilege 1. Consumption over production; and 2. Consumption through their centrally mediated channels of distribution.
Yes, I do that stuff. I have always done it. I now do it on a more appropriate device. It’s consumption and it’s fun. Not something to scoff at. (Mine was more a response to the central authority bullshit which is obvious nonsense.)
It doesn’t matter what I did or did not produce with the iPad. Computers are cheap, software is cheap, creation was never as easy as it is today. We are living in a golden age of content creation but content creation is not for everyone. So what.
Creation is much easier today, it's true. And for a while, it looked like the old model of a few rich broadcasting/production companies making things for the rest of us to sit at home and passivel consume was going away, replaced by a model where we all have the means to produce better and better stuff, where merit, originality, expressiveness, communication were rewarded more than the means to invest the necessary capital. It looked like livejournal, flickr, deviantart - the blogging revolution - was empowering a generation to turn off the television and engage in an active, participatory way in a global conversation.
Not that passive consumption is inherently evil. I just was imagining a world where the power of creation is more evenly distributed. I'm a little sad to see that trend start to reverse.
I agree that creation isn't for everyone. But the available tools have an effect. They encourage or discourage in subtle ways. The iPad's software keyboard imposes just a slight amount of friction on inputting text. That has an effect. It matters, to some however small degree, and it aggregates with every other way that Apple optimizes consumption over production.
On centralized authority: again, the way you are consuming content is not the case Apple is optimizing for. They have allowed it, but their most sanctioned way is for you to buy content from their partners through their distribution channels. It's not a complete restriction, but an optimization of a certain model through UI. TFA's description of the new Kindle seems to follow, and, indeed, to go farther down this path.
Meta: Not that I'm particularly offended, but why take such an abrasive tone? "Central authority bullshit," "obvious nonsense"? Do you simply not consider it a possibility that you didn't fully understand what I was trying to say, either because I communicated it poorly or because it doesn't align with your preconceived notions? I'm actually quite happy to be having this discussion, as it's one I've tried to have many times, but never got much uptake. But, why start with such a dismissive tone? I've seen so many threads start with mild, mutual abrasiveness and spiral quickly into full-out flamewar. Why take a step down that path? Is it so hard to be overtly civil? Honest question.
The iPad and other tablets are not great tools for writing. Emails or comments on HN (another one of those things that wasn’t possible for very many people one or two decades ago) work great, longer or more complicated stuff quite often not. There are, however, quite a few use cases where tablets are better tools for content creation than, say, a PC or at least could become better tools given time and software.
But I feel you are ignoring the larger picture. Tablets are currently third devices and prices have developed in such a way to actually allow for a third device. What’s wrong with a consumption oriented device when what most people were already doing was consuming?
Given that creation is as simple as it never before has been and that all the tablets actually can receive all of the created content I just do not understand how tablets could threaten content creation in any way whatsoever. It seems absurd to me.
Tablets are freaking awesome for content consumption of any kind and they can do quite a few other things. They are also cheap enough to make it possible to also buy a very capable PC. I … I really don’t understand how that could have any negative impact.
(Meta: I actually feel very bad about my tone now. I sometimes start to furiously write stuff like that and I always regret it but hardly ever learn. I’m very sorry for my tone. It was a mistake.)
Again, I agree that it's not one-dimensional. Tablets are making the consumption and light interaction aspects of computing accessible to a huge section of people for whom they were inaccessible before. And that's great. But the PC represented a tool that made the production aspect of computing accessible to a lot more people, too. And the web was a continuation of that trend.
Tablets look like the end of that side to me. It looks like an optimization of the consumption aspect at the expense of the creation aspect.
You may see it as a third device, but I think a lot of people see it as a replacement device, and those are exactly the people who could benefit most from tools that make it easier for them to produce things.
I think my ultimate lament was that the way the market works, of course large companies are going to privilege consumption, because they can make more money that way.
(Meta: Thanks, I accept and appreciate the apology!)
At least Apple, I think, sells music and videos and books and apps because people want them. Sure, they make some money (not much compared to the rest of the business) but they mostly do it to turn their devices into something people actually like to use.
People want music, want videos, want books, want apps. The market gives them what they want. This is not a case of the market delivering something consumers don’t actually like.
This is not a conspiracy of big companies to dumb people down. People are already that way. The PC didn’t help with that one bit and tablets certainly also won’t help.
I think you could have used the same argument for the media distribution model that existed before PCs were widely accessible: look, everyone is sitting on the couch, watching television, clearly that's what they want. But once we gave a lot of people access to PCs, we saw an explosion of interaction, content creation, communication, participation.
I don't think it's an overt conspiracy, it's just self-interest and centralized resources and power.
I believe that PCs did change the way people are, and the way they think. Not everyone, maybe not even a majority, at least not overtly. But I think it had a profound effect on the culture. I believe the Web made a difference. I believe the ways we have to access the Web make a difference.
You can point to dumb people continuing to be dumb and say there is no problem. I see a problem, and my solution is to talk about it, to try to get influential people to think about it, and think about making tools to empower creation by the technically lay (like me).
You do know Napster? You do know The Pirate Bay? People want access to mainstream music, mainstream videos and mainstream books, no matter the device. If the big companies don’t give it to them people will go to great lengths to get said access. That’s just how it is, always has been, always will be. You are again and again creating false dichotomies.
The media distribution model of all the mainstream stuff is not different between PCs and tablets. Tablets might be a bit more convenient when it comes to buying stuff (probably not even that) but that’s it. You can get mainstream stuff on both. People want mainstream stuff on both. Napster and all the later filesharing is a testament to that.
But that’s not the whole story. Far from it. All the other content out there is perfectly accessible with tablets. They are just as good at accessing non-mainstream content as PCs. They are not limited in that respect. They all have awesome browsers (the most modern stuff you can get), they allow you to download podcasts or to subscribe to RSS feeds. It’s all possible.
Tablets are the content consumption Yin to the content creation Yang.
I just don’t understand how one could see that any other way.
Napster, at least (I don't know about Pirate Bay), also enabled a class of underground/amateur music by giving it a distribution channel that never existed before. In a way that iTunes does not. I think, at least to some degree, you have the causality backwards. People consumed mainstream content because that was what was largely available to them. How much of mainstream content consumption has been replaced by amateur content on the web? As the culture at large gets more and more used to this, I think the idea of mainstream will hold less and less power. Of course, unless devices like tablets continue to convince them that the mainstream is the only valuable stream.
The content is available on tablets, too, but the device subtly privileges its own centrally mediated distribution channels. I believe this privilege will only get stronger.
Getting rare music through file sharing sucked. I know it, I was trying to get it. The iTunes music store has a greater selection of rare music than any file sharing I ever tried in the early 2000s.
Of course, unless devices like tablets continue to convince them that the mainstream is the only valuable stream.
Why should that happen? Why? I don’t understand. Non-mainstream content is a first class citizen on tablets.
I … I really don’t get it. You are postulating a effect that seems so wildly implausible and absolutely absurd to me.
I agree with the thrust of your argument. Many are drawing a false sense of opposition between consumption and creation. Listening to music (consuming) became insanely easy in the last decade, but, surprise surprise, the tools to create music improved just as dramatically. Just as importantly, the ease of consuming enabled musicians to draw on an unprecedented pool of influences - many genres have undergone wild transformations as artists have been able to access more inspiration with increased ease.
Some here might dismiss TV completely, but many consider this a "Golden Age" for television writing, too. Is it a stretch to think that almost unlimited access to the history of film might actually be inspiring more and more people to write smarter material for popular media?
Yep, and differently from tv, consumption on the iPad is much more likely to be 'relatively' peer-to-peer. If we pay for content, there will surely soon be more producers around, given an easy-enough distribution chain/a flat-enough distribution channel. Very different from the TV business and it's intricate hierarchies and institutions!
I sure think this IS a Golden Age. The bizarre and 'negative' traits, and our moments of distress, easily hide it for us - but it's here and now. We just need to learn how to create a society out of the jumble (ie, planet) that's out there...
I think the disconnect here is you're simply seeing the ipad as a pc replacement when the reality is the ipad is a new category that while partially replacing PCs also can partially replaces many other things: books, magazines, newspapers, the radio on your desk, the bedside clock, photo albums, etc.
Someone like Ugh or myself sees you call all of this awesome a "step back" and laughs.
I think you've sold the iPad short too early. Intent or not it will be a huge device for content creation the same way the iphone is a huge device for content creation -- the best camera you have is the one you have with you and as Flickr attests, iPhone 4 is used by millions every day for creation.
Similarly the iPad will be huge and Apple has already recognized this with signature first party apps like GarageBand, iMovie, Pages, Numbers. I have a feeling in years to come a lot of musicians will say that the best keyboard, drum set, guitar, etc that you have is the one you have with you.
Do you like to write sometimes? There's an app for that. When you're not at your desk will the best typewriter be the one you have with you? Probably.
Do you like to draw and doodle sometimes? There's an app for that. When you're not at your desk will the best drawing and painting studio be the one you have with you? Probably.
Awesome take – it seems to suggest that what we're seeing is the creation of a new mobile nexus for people's work, slowly replacing the desktop as the center of our 'tool lives'.
EDIT: Replacing the desktop – AND drawing plenty of other old technologies into this new one.
This whole trope about creation vs consumption is pointing fingers in the wrong direction: why blame the iPad, when a lot of the creativity is going into tweets and likes? You mention 3 older social networks as being some kind of revolution, well, what about FB, twitter, G+, etc? We are all consuming each others creations, so the whole centralized authority bit is overblown.
That's not to rip on social tools, or the iPad. Just pointing out that your global conversation has evolved, not died.
I think the iPad is one vector. I think the social networks you mention are another. That also feels to me like a closing down, or a narrowing. I think Facebook, to take the biggest example, restricts and narrows and makes shallow our communication.[0] It reduces our interactions to shallow, superficial comments, likes, low-fidelity photos, etc. In its way, I think the move toward closed social networks is also a step backward from the open exchange of ideas that blogging represented. And I think this is partially due to the tools we've made, too.
In contrast, the native Web on PCs is more read-write by nature. And Web technologies are making production increasingly easier.