Hey watch this!
No, I’m not getting one. But gosh, are they cool! Thanks, Olde English!
Less
More
Archive for the 'tech' Category
Apple’s site has been pissing me off lately. It’s a silly little thing, but it’s frustrating to me. They’re advertising the iPhone on the front page of apple.com. It’s shiny, it’s pretty, it’s the bleeding edge, but the site is instructing me to do something that I can’t do.
I can’t “slide to unlock,” because the phone is just a quicktime video. And the second I click it, before I have a chance to slide, it sends me to the iPhone page.
It’s stupid, right? But I doubt that I’m the only person who tries to “slide to unlock.” And this isn’t just an annoyance. I want to slide to unlock. I want to be able to have a playful relationship with that image, and by extension with Apple, their website, and the iPhone.
Let me slide to unlock. If nothing else, give me the satisfaction of having that tiny interaction. At worst, it will give people a half-second of enjoyment. At best, it’ll make them feel a connection to the phone; a direct causal relationship to its interface. It might even make them want to play with it more.
Let’s talk about Apple’s iPhone for a minute. From everything I’ve seen, it looks to be an incredible piece of technology. It’s going to shift paradigms, reinvent wheels, think outside of boxes, blah blah blah. It’s still calling itself a phone, and I think that’s a mistake.
While climbing down Masada, Bonnie and I indulged ourselves in an extended conversation on mobile devices, from cell phones to PDAs to Smartphones. We agreed (!) that Smartphones (like the Blackberry and Sony Treo) demonstrate the current generation’s obsession with “always on” internet tech, and that all modern mobile tech is heading toward the same eventual conclusion: the ubiquitous portable device.
This device is best compared to the portable Knowledge Navigators in Serial Experiments: Lain — devices that are, interestingly enough, based somewhat on the Apple Newton. Our conversation on Masada turned out to be quite topical, as Steve Jobs would announce the iPhone several days later. The iPhone very closely resembles the ubiquitous portable that I’m predicting, except that it seems reluctant to call itself anything other than a phone. And “phone,” in my opinion, is a very limited — and limiting — nomenclature.
I understand that it’s a marketing strategy. Everybody wants a phone; not very many people want portable NAVI’s, but the result of the iPhone’s branding is that it by itself won’t kill the idea of the phone. I’m in a bit of a gray area, so let me be clear: our future is in devices that connect us, without prejudice toward any one type of connection. These devices can do audio, but they do text as well, and images, as well as other forms of data, and there’s no emphasis on one form of communication over another. The iPhone reinforces the notion that phones are the center of communication, rather than expanding our understanding of what communication is.
I’m sure Apple still has a few tricks up its sleeve regarding its newest family member. We’ll see what comes our way before June. I’ll be a happy Scott Jon if, in the next ten years, we can retire the word “phone” from our daily vocabulary.
Awesome. Not only do I get to repeatedly turn my laptop on and off again, hoping that this time it’ll boot up completely and allow me to backup my files, but I also get to drive to the closest Apple Store (about an hour away), and argue with the resident Geniuses about why I shouldn’t have to pay for repairs again if the repairs I paid for the last time obviously didn’t do a damn thing. Sweet.
(Note to self: I owe Bonnie a quarter — hell, probably a fiver by the time I get this sorted out)
I should have made it a dime; I think I’m going to be in trouble soon.
Almost every time I use Cyberduck these days, I’m confronted with this:
I consider this to be a horrible, horrible thing.
It asks me a “Yes” or “No” question, but only gives me the options of “Don’t Change” and “Change All.” Invariably, I always manage to select the wrong one, resetting all of my passwords and forcing me to reenter them countless times.
I understand this dialog box so little it hurts. I WANT Cyberduck to access the same keychain items as the previous version. I want to click “Yes,” but I can’t! Do I click “Don’t Change,” assuming that Cyberduck will then not change my passwords, retaining the old ones? Or do I click “Change All,” assuming Cyberduck will then change its keychain settings to access the old passwords? WHAT THE HELL DO I DO?