iPad - the end of computing as we know it
Change is good and bad. It’s a little of both and there’s no stopping it.
First the iPhone, iPod Touch and now the iPad. They are a new class of electronic device. Yes, technically they are computers, but that complexity is hidden from us. They are just devices. Devices that let us check our email, surf the web, read books or the news and install apps at the push of a button. Information, entertainment, communication at our fingertips, in our hands, in our pockets.
I’ve tasted this with the iPhone and it is good. It hasn’t replaced my computer for writing software or large documents or creating databases or editing photos. But I used to have to use my computer to check my email or surf the web or watch videos or play a game. Now I don’t. Those activities are available to me on a little device that fits in my pocket and goes with me everywhere I go.
The iPad is another great step in that direction. It isn’t the first and it won’t be the last.
Yeah, I miss my Apple ][. Those were great times in my life. Like Mark Pilgrim, hacking on my Apple ][ kicked off an interest in technology that has become my career. But feeling sorry that today’s kids won’t have the same experience is no different than feeling sorry that he or I didn’t experience taking a trip to the general store in the family’s horse drawn cart or the fun of drawing water from the well by hand.
Times change and todays kids will have all sorts of amazing opportunities that we could only ever have dreamed of. iPad is just another thing. Our computers, operating systems and languages aren’t going to immediately evaporate because of it. For those of us who create content it should only be considered a good thing. iPad and devices like it will be making our content available to millions more people and making computing and the internet more a part of the fabric of everyday life.
