Peter asked me to blog about the iPad.  And to give him a shoutout.  So here it is Peter, I will pad this blog post with references to you.

Anyway, the iPad.  Everyone has been talking (at least those who are geeky or Mac-loving enough to care).  Some say it was the biggest disappointment of human history while others are holding out for its impending success in some unexpected way.

Well Peter, here are the main complaints:

- not enough hard disk space

- no multi-tasking

- no Flash support

- no USB

- only App Store

- no camera

Before the last few years, before netbooks and MacBooks existed, built-in cameras never even featured in computers.  Now every mobile device has one.  But the general population doesn’t actually use a webcam to do much more than take funny Photo Booth pictures or the occasional Skype conversation (fine, they also take vain photos and put them as their profile pics). But the average user isn’t actually thinking about how to communicate to other people virtually.  Most of them pick up the phone.  Or meet in person.

How many people actually examine the hard disk/flash disk capacity?  Only the most geeky.  More often than not I’m finding that the people I know are choosing the products by colour first, and then possible specs.  That’s why Apple is offering size selection, if you want to be picky, then you get to pay for it.

No multi-tasking.  A lame complaint.  Do you actually do more than 1 thing at a time on your computer?  Like, how often do you actually read two webpages simultaneously, or compose two messages at the same time? There is the odd occasion that I will watch a video while doing something else, or be working on Illustrator or Photoshop at the same time.  But that is what my powerful computer is for, not my mobile device.  I won’t be creating vector graphics on my mobile device usually.  Rather, I will choose to brainstorm stuff on the fly, and then go home and make it awesome when I’m sitting in my ergonomic task chair.

No Flash?  No problem!  The web world is starting to move away from Flash. Apart from Flash video (like what you are familiar with on YouTube), most legitimate websites are built on CSS, XHTML and other clean searchable code.  In fact, YouTube and Vimeo are moving away from using Flash for displaying the videos, instead choosing to move towards HTML5 using h.264 video embedded in their pages.  This is not as resource intensive (does your computer fan start going crazy when you view a Flash video online???).  The only sites that are going to suffer are ones like media-intensive youth-oriented Flash sites.  I do believe those coders are intellectually flexible enough to create sites that are media-intensive yet still CSS/XHTML clean compliant.  They just choose not to, and it’s holding back the whole interwebs. Now Adobe (owner of Flash) is not going to leave this without a fight, but I think the world of Flash has just been given its eviction notice subtly by Apple.  And the intriguing thing is, Apple is still the company that pushes change in the whole computer industry (nixing floppy disks, bringing Firewire to the forefront, MagSafe power plugs, built-in webcams, multi-touch) — I am not saying they invent these things, but they make them mainstream and expected.  And all the other manufacturers still play catch-up.

App Store.  Annoying for developers.  But simple and unbreakable for users.  The standards are high (and picky) so you don’t have unusable crap getting onto iPhones and iPads.  Average user, they bend to such demands.  And it’s user-friendly, unintimidating, and rock solid.  All the apps that are approved are ensured to be clean, secure, and useful.  The ones that are turned away, well, maybe Apple is just picky or protective. But at least you actually need to know how to buy an SDK to develop for Apple’s mobile devices.

Everyone is critiquing the iPad as if they know anything about human-computer interaction, product design, usability, interface design, and software development.  All this, because they have seen the iPhone or iPod Touch and they think they know what they are talking about.  But in reality many complainers (general nerdy public) are just USERS.  They are consumers.  They don’t invest the money in product development and usability.  They don’t look 5 years down the road at what will be viable.

Here’s another way to look at it — if you own an iPhone or iPod Touch, your piece of mobile device was the Beta.  You were the early adopters, so you tested out the product for Apple, giving them feedback, complaints, and suggestions.  The iPad is not just simply a large iPhone.  Instead, the iPhone or iPod Touch was simply a smaller version of the iPad.  The smaller devices were released for people who were willing to line up for hours for a product that doesn’t offer HD-resolution video, to see how they would respond to the multi-touch and App Store.  Now the iPad (which they have likely been working on for longer than the iPhone) has come out and it’s going to be inevitably more stable, more secure, and more usable than the mobile devices that were mere glimpses.

The iPhone was revolutionary for early adopters.  The iPod Touch was revolutionary for the more cautious consumers (they still own a cell phone that they don’t want to let go of).  The iPad will be revolutionary for normal people.

Take that, Peter.

Ask this question to a friend this week: “would you rather a life full of meaning yet the possibility of much pain, or a life that is without pain but also without meaning?”

See how they respond.

My hunch is that most people are indeed experiencing pain while having no meaning in their lives.  The short end of the stick eh?

It rained last night.  Freezing rain.  And then the temperature rose a bit above freezing, so basically all day it rained.  Which is absolutely horrid for the Rideau Canal Skateway!  And the ski hills at that.  Now I’m not sure if I can go skiing tomorrow night (which was the plan) or on Saturday (which was a hope).

I am really wondering what they do now with the canal.  Do they have to wait for another 2 weeks of below -10 C weather before they can let people on it again?

Although on another note, rain is kind of nice at this time.  It is just nice to have a bit of variety in the winter.  It just kind of plays havoc on all the norms in Ottawa during the winter.

The opening band was “Paper Tongues” and they were pretty hype, almost a hip hop rock band.  They were actually really loud, I would say louder than Switchfoot.

The Switchfoot portion of the night was also pretty epic.  They played through their new CD “Hello Hurricane” in entirety, and then played through some old material.  I realized that my ears weren’t fuzzing out because of the sound mix necessarily (the cymbals were a tad loud maybe) but rather from the cheering of the crowd.  It was a small venue (Just Pour Rire Montreal) and so it wasn’t hard to fill that place with volume.

The new CD is really quite epic on its own.  The songs aren’t too complicated, but the words are jam packed with passion and every instrument had marvellous tone.  And they are very singable, despite being in the very top of Jon Foreman’s vocal range.  There was a dude in front of me who sang almost every one of the new songs.  Somehow, Switchfoot is able to take a crowd (consisting of many macho guys actually) and lead them in singing songs of desperation, hope, and reflection.  This is still pretty unheard of; there aren’t many huge bands out there that succeed in putting out reflective material.

I’ll be buying this CD and pumping it really loud in the car, and trying to hit every note with them.

I am going to test my ability and reaction to news that I haven’t even read.  At least my reaction to visuals and graphic media relating to this apparent disaster.

You see, I am in an information bubble.  I only read the news I choose, for the most part.  I haven’t read a single article about the Haiti earthquake.  I haven’t seen any videos.  I haven’t seen any photographs.  My world revolves around what I have chosen to receive, because I am entirely in control of the information that comes to me, for the most part.

However what I have received is an onslaught of non-profit organizations’ emails and friends’ blog posts and friends’ facebook condolences and prayers telling me about this disaster.  They are affected.  And I am not.  I did not feel an earthquake.  None of my buildings collapsed.  I have the same access to food and water and shelter as I did yesterday and the day before and last year.  I don’t even know whether or not there really is anything to think about or worry about.  All I know are second-hand stories…

And so I’ll go and find an article, some photos, perhaps a video or two, and virtually step into another country, here in the comfort of my apartment in a warm room, dimly lit, getting ready to go to bed before I have to wake up tomorrow bright and early for another day on campus.  How will this affect me?

——————

Wow when I went on a webpage about the earthquake, there was a paragraph of text but when I saw the images, I was drawn in really quick.  I didn’t need to read the paragraph.  The fact that I saw people suffering and in pain, some photos of the dead, other photos of the buildings just utterly collapsed, it drew me in right away.  Seeing PEOPLE made it more real for me.  Just reading about people and their names wasn’t enough for me.  That didn’t internalize it enough.  The images, and some videos of the aftermath, have brought it close, almost to tears.

So it’s real.  And actually documented.  Countries from around the world are sending teams to help and search and rescue.  God help them to get there soon, to find a way to land and set up and to make a difference as soon as possible, before more die under the rubble or from their injuries.

This all seems pretty surreal.  I’ve gone on to my banking site to figure out how much I can give towards assistance there.. and CIDA will match every donation given through Power to Change/Global Aid Network. I’ll be praying tonight as well.  These are tangible ways to affect change directly.

And yet, tonight I’ll be going to bed, and the night will be quiet, my sleep likely undisturbed.  God help me not to move on.

Also read http://www.challies.com/archives/articles/neil-postman-on-the-earthquake-in-haiti.php for some thoughts on virtual disconnect and the effect of technology on our ability to internalize and bring change to what we find out about through the web.