iWant(?): Apple's iPad, Desire, and Shame

Yesterday, I took two tech devices to my class, sort of a combination show-and-tell and teaching aid. The first, an original Apple iPod, drew lots' of comments: "it's so heavy," "when was it made?" "the wheel moves," "does it still work?" (yes), "why is there so much music from the 1980s?"(shhhh!)

The second device, an Ergo Audrey drew near silence, then ridicule. "What is that thing sitting over there?" asked one student, pointed, a look of near disgust on her face. Still more questions: "what's it  for" (it's an internet appliance "for women"), "why does it look like that?" (they were going for that 1950s appeal–you know, when women's fascination with kitchen appliances was at an all-time high–it's that sort of Mad Men-ish appeal we seem to have embraced now that we have a reasonably safe distance from the realities of 1950s and 1960s America.)

History and Desire

I have been reading and taking stock of the conversations about Apple's iPad. And I have to admit that after viewing the video with a colleague, I spontaneously tweeted out "iWant" for all the world to see. Friends were shocked–especially given that my blog is all about the practical, tempered, somewhat intellectual approach to tech. I later modified my desire with criticism, a very weak, "it doesn't have a camera" and a really lame personal hygiene joke.

Still, I let my memory take me back to my history with Apple products. Although I was practically raised on Macs, I did not own one until 1993, having had access to them in school as a young journalist. My purchase was a doozy–a Centris 610 fully loaded. Four months later, Apple discontinued the line. D'oh! Still, my Quadra (er, Centris) stuck with me until 2000, when the poor thing could stand no more. I switched over to PCs for a while, mostly because of necessity, but also because of a lovely little Satellite from Toshiba. I temporarily dallied with a Mac G3 before I found joy once again with an iBook G4. I'm now working on a MacBook.

But dammit, I want and iPad!

Despite the proclamations (including my own) of what it doesn't do, I want to think about what it does now, and the possibilities for building on this device. I remember being highly critical of the iPod touch when it was first released, even advising friends not to purchase it. But then I took one of my "think days." Once or twice a month, depending on my workload, I take a day off from email, phoning, media, and reflect.  I did a fair bit of reading that day, and started to think and ask myself questions: what is it for? who is it for? and even, why does it look like that?

It's very easy to chronicle a history of Mac failure, as many have done ad nauseam. More challenging is to think about what the iPad represents, what Apple wants to accomplish with it, what does it do for us,  the challenges and possible opportunities for the device. I've seen some good advice from Sarah Perez here about why you should wait. Michael Kirkpatrick also offers another good analysis of the "Epic FAIL" argument that is typically preferred over sound insight.

Let's take a day off from Babel and think.

Tags: Apple, iBook, iPod touch

This entry was posted on Saturday, January 30th, 2010 at 6:48 pm and is filed under blog, business, media // culture, technology. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.