Computing changes now

From the introductory post on my new blog about tablet computing, Case for the iPad:

The desktop computing paradigm is stale – yesterday’s bread. If you are a computer geek, you know this to be true and I can pinpoint a great example of why: I haven’t been excited about a new OS in years. New operating systems are the holiest of holies in PC terms and the last time I actually, truly cared that one was about to be released was April 29, 2005. I preordered Tiger from Apple and was beside myself with glee at the promise of much geeking out to come. And you know what? It was essentially the same thing as Panther in 2003. By the time I guardedly, I installed Leopard in 2007, hoping to be amazed, I discovered…meh.

The same can be said for all software. Adobe Creative Suite 5 is trundling down the pike and, I hate to say it, it stopped being compelling back around Creative Suite 2. Or maybe when it became a suite. Even hardware is less intoxicating, especially since Apple has said they have more or less perfected the shape of products and are committed to a long future of aluminum and glass. There’s a cynical commodification mentality that has set in and, in so doing, destroyed the sense of amazement that once surrounded computing.

(This is going somewhere, I promise.)

The most telling symptom of a stagnating paradigm, though, is my ever-growing fascination with mobile technology. An early 2003 love affair with Nokia’s European products morphed into a complete infatuation with the iPhone at its announcement in 2007. This was computing’s future, I just knew it. The power of information truly and easily being wherever we are – whether it takes the form of maps, music, the latest prices for tomatoes, a message from your mother telling you her flight is taking off late, what have you – is immense. It makes all knowledge and connectivity accessible in ways that it just can’t be with the computer. Biggest hurdle? The tiny (though, mercifully, improved on by iPhone and its touchy ilk) screen.

Enter the tablet. Most notably, the iPad. All the power of mobile, laid back, pervasive information with a screen worthy of the two-way, media-rich flow of the modern web. This is something important. I can feel it. And I want to make sure I document the birth of this truly new way of interfacing with the digital world that is going to reshape everything in…oh…three to five years. At least as far as it touches my immediate environment in higher education, that is.

(See, I told you we’d get there.)

To quote Fake Steve Jobs’ contribution to the Wired article, “How the Tablet Will Change the World,” that got me to finally put all of this into a single blog (an article that made me think “yes, that’s exactly what I’ve been thinking” more than once):

An ebook reader that also plays movies and music? And browses the Web? No way. Can’t be done. Well, we did it. And you can fly three times around the globe and watch movies the whole time on a single battery charge. It’s amazing. Phenomenal. Exciting. Magical. Amazing. Beautiful. Stunning. Gorgeous.

I was put on earth to restore a sense of childlike wonder to people’s empty, pathetic lives, and I must say that so far I’m doing a pretty outstanding job.

And that’s really the crux of what I’m on about here. The iPad – the tablet – makes me feel giddy and uneasy and like a million things are possible and like there aren’t enough hours in a day to explore each to the level it deserves. In short, how computing made me feel when I was a tremendously nerdy teenager tinkering into the early morning with a PowerBook 5300ce that I had bought with my lawn-mowing money, just for the fun of doing it. Just because it was new and uncharted and exciting.

To get the conversation started, I’ve collected the blog posts that I’ve been posting on my work blog and my personal blog since November 2009. I’ll be back with much, much more in the days to come.

Onward into the future,

Nick