I was initially going to write a bit of a fluff piece today… or at the very least a short, sweet, and to the point piece so I could direct most of my writing time working on editing Chapter 9 of my book. Then, as I imagine everyone does on a rather regular basis, I found myself a little side tracked looking up random things on that series of tubes that the young kids call the Interweb thing. I ended up stopping by to visit the blog of a fellow writer whom I’ve yet to really meet other than a friendly Facebookian hello. Anyway, Kyria Abrahams has a new weekly column on The Faster Times where she reviews gadgets and so forth. You can check out her column here.
As you can read a delightful piece of bemused and amusing observation. Other than wanting to share a fun read, the reason I bring all this up is that her column got me thinking about a few things of the tech variety. It’s not that I’m against technology, I do dig it. It’s mostly, I guess, that I am a bleacher type of fan. I’m not in the middle of it by any means, but I’m close enough to eventually hear about now things and can raise my big spongy #1 finger and yell out, “Yea technology!”
I mean I have a cell phone, but at the same time I’ve made sure to block any and all texting capability from it. I see the pictures of all the new toy and have wonderful friends who stood in line for four hours on opening day for the iPhone release just so they could get one… and then do that gushing Apple euphoria thing that Apple fans do whenever they get a new toy that sports an incandescent image of an apple with a bite taken out of it. I’ve even held an iPhone more than once over the last year, and you know what… they’re cute. Not as cute as a puppy mind you, but cute in the “Ahhh, the little Autobot decided to take a nap.” kind of way.
At the same time I still occasionally listen to my cassettes, and I still take pride in my collection of 27 Elvis cassettes I scored for .25 cents each at a garage sale back in 1994. Oddly though, I might be the only one that takes pleasure in this. I mean if you listen to your 8-tracks you’re considered “old school.” If you still listen to vinyl you’re admired as “retro” or “vintage.” But telling someone you still listen to cassettes, I swear, they look at you like you’re some sort of degenerate that just climbed out of a cave while picking your nose and wiping the leftovers on the front of your shirt. Someday the masses will consider cassette tapes to be more than just burning blocks used to assist in the demise of the ozone layer, but until then I think I’ll keep that little nugget of appreciation to myself… I mean… damn!
The key realization I had while reading Kyria’s article was, and I’m not saying Apple is the only one responsible for this, but it seems that the time of having four remote controls to run all the crap in your entertainment center has sort of evolved and decided you head out of the front door with you every time you leave the house. Instead of four remotes people now have four random devices with them at almost all times. Here’s what I mean:
- A person with their iPhone using a Bluetooth headset so they can take calls and e-mail at the same time. Not to mention the GPS running in the background to help them find the nearest Starbucks. Which we all know is right in front of them on the street corner. All they need to do it look up from their phones screen to see it.
- Then they have their Kindle (but are now secretly obsessing about and pining for the iPad) for reading the Wall Street Journal, or the complete works of Douglas Adams, to which I’d like to point out should really only be read in electronic format on Apple products out of homage the man.
- There is their iPod, attached to the one ear that is not sporting the Bluetooth headset, so they can listen to some newly purchased artist that has yet to be discovered and it absolutely brilliant… while still talking on the phone.
- And finally, there is their MacBook Air, for writing that screenplay they keep talking about while sitting in the coffee shop, talking on the iPhone about the new iPad while listening to their iPod.
Hey Steve… quit it already! Just do us all a favor and just make the equivalent of an Apple iconed universal remote. Some type of universal Apple electronic device thingy so people can avoid having to purchase the new iCrap satchel for all their i… well, crap. Or at the very least give us some iBuprofen to help us deal with the endless “i” onslaught. Or coupons… we’d all dig some discount coupons!
What do all you Appleachians… Appleites… Apple folk think? Oh, and sorry about all the iPuns. Sometimes it’s a little hard to quit once you get going.
Image Sources:
Google Images, key words: Apple, foamy finger, and cassettes.
iAm with you. I work in a primarily Apple-using shop, and I’m the lone PC-guy. (Maybe not as cute as John Hodgman, though.) And all the Apple-onians look at me with that slightly smug and a little bit sad look, as if I were somehow damaged. But I do appreciate all the nice work Apple has done on their OS, so that the features can eventually show up in Windows.