A word or two on the digital age
I can still remember the time when my folks bought me my first computer... It was back in 1996, a grey mini tower with the state of the art Pentium 133MHz processor, Diamond 3D graphics card, Sound Blaster 16 bit and a "massive" 15" CRT monitor! I kept that computer till the 2nd year of University, September 2002 and was still working perfectly! Of course, it took one hour to convert one CD to mp3's and literarly a week for ripping a DVD movie, but I was perfectly satisfied as I did not do anything else besides writting my university essays, coding and viewing the occasional movie.
Dont forget, there were no Digital Cameras, no DV video cameras, no mp3's to download, no iTunes, no internet, no need for more than a couple of gigabytes of storage... Life was simple... Word documents, excel sheets and the occasional game.
Then the digital revolution happened. The notion of multimedia finally became a reality. The introduction of fast and always on internet revolutionised content sharing, the age of Napster came and gone, digital cameras long ago replaced films and the iPod became the Walkman of the present. However, the evolution of software and, less so, operating systems was less evident. It was not until last year that Microsoft came about updating its operating system which hadn't seen any updates since early 2000 with Windows Vista replacing the aged XP. One year later and my company has still not migrated to Vista and is planning to do so in over a year from now.
Looking in the early 90's, each iteration of Microsofts operating system was a true evolutionary step. Look into the transition from Windows 3.11, to Windows 95 that introduced the multimedia concept, to Windows 98 that attempted to integrate the internet on a users desktop, to Windows 2000 and XP.
Looking over the past decade, none of the digital consumer revolutions have filtered down to the operating system layer. How do you archive and handle photos? Still using the photo preview utility in Windows, or the nifty Picassa application? How do you manage your music library? Using windows media or Winamp - iTunes? How do you create CD's and DVD's? Using the CD burning wizzard or Nero? Instead what we see is changing shape of icons, fancy 3D effects and semi-transparent windows... User is bombarded with pop-ups, notifications, flashing icons and fading menus that do not serve him but distract him.
That lead to the era of consumer computer specialists, A.K.A. The Geeks. When your not-so-computer literate aunt wants a new CD for her car, she must come to you and ask as she does not know how to use this little wierd application with a flame burning the Colloseum on it (nero). And why should she? The younger have been gradually trained to accept the inconsistencies in user interface between different applications doing the same thing (see Winamp with Windows Media) and are willing to search the internet and download/buy the application that will fulfill their needs.
But why should they? Why should feature rich equal to better product? We live in a society that having more is considered living better and that has cascaded down to the design of our applications and hardware. Who and why needs a quad-core processor with 4GB of ram and 1TB of storage? Consumers? Will it be a life altering experience to be able to rip a DVD in 10 minutes instead of 20? So what if the computer cannot store 500 movies but "only" 250? Do we actually need 3000 photos from our last 5 day vacation or are we missing the point of actually living it and focusing on clicking on the shutter?
Just take a step back and think... Why should minimalism be the new trend in internal decor but not in your digital life? There are plenty of alternatives out there if you are willing to change.
Go take a look at an Apple computer with clean lines both outside and inside. Look for the iPhone with an incredibly small but focused number of features. Dont like Apple? Check out the new trend called "NetBooks", like the Asus EEE that expect to fourish over the next years. Ask yourself, do you really need a full blown Photoshop licence to edit a couple of family photos?
Put your digital content into diet. How? Try to fit your digital life in an 80GB hard drive. Why should you keep files that you havent seen or accessed for more than 4-5 years? Archive them and let them die a peacefull death, until your grandchildren find this wierd looking disk called DVD stored in your bookcase, blow the dust of it and slide it in the incredibly thick Macbook Air of yours...
June 4th, 2008 - 04:20
Good Job!!!!! I didn’t know you had a talent in essay writing!!!
June 4th, 2008 - 04:22
Me neither! I’ve been writing too many powerpoints lately…
!!! Come back for more 
Mouhaha 
June 6th, 2008 - 07:37
Judging by your intro, I thought that you were posting a retrospective of the personal computers evolution process. Disappointing, you wrapped up your essay by comparing Mac with Windows…
It doesn’t take too much effort to figure out that you are a font Mac lover, which is ok by me. But since you set the start of your retrospect back to the 90s, you have to give some credit to Microsoft for helping PCs to become one of the main digital era driving forces
I know that this sounds like a cliché, but still it’s true. In the late 80s and until mid 90s, the elitist market approach that Apple followed drove away young PC users to Windows, as it offered far more applications than the professional oriented Mac OS products. Giving to the consumers the freedom to choice what software to use and eventually what to do with their computer is what drove young people to familiarise with digital technology.
I don’t want to depreciate the role Apple played in the evolution of the PC era, as they are the ones who originally developed a window based GUI, but it was Microsoft who managed to catch the attention of people and intrigue them to start using personal computers for tasks other than work.
It’s not a long time since Apple directors realised their mistake and start promoting a new range of products designed to “sell” and at the same time formalise a new life style… Minimalism and simplicity are coming back, as they became the fashion of the decade, but is that enough excuse for a company to commercialise digital applications that fit to this fashionable mould?
Just to make this clear, I am not referring to the actual body design of gadgets such as iPod and lately iPhone, which in my opinion is pretty good in both cases. I am trying to make argument based on the actual purpose of those devices, which is nothing else than allowing us to enjoy the earliest digital conveniences.
In consequence, Apple, is not only telling us how our “digital accessories” should look, but what to do as well. I really don’t like when others dictate how we should live our lives, although I don’t consider myself being an aginner. Apple not only is telling you what you should do with your digital gadget, but they are making you pay for that as well. I don’t think anyone can call that a bargain…
Just to set some examples, you can only buy music through their iTunes store, there is no software to install to iPhone other than the default one and even worst you can’t even customise its interface! Ok, I get it Apple! I am a stupid sucker for gadgets and I don’t know anything about how they work. But why should they take away from me the chance to make my life easier by customising the way iPhone for example looks or even better learn by experimenting with it? And I think that you all agree that curiosity and the tendency to differ is in human nature. Moreover, as far as I know achieving customer satisfaction is the number one rule of commerce.
As nothing is set on stone these days, I might pop in a CarPhoneWarehouse shop one day and buy an iPhone, but still I will find it pretty annoying that purchasing the handset automatically means signing an agreement with them about what I am going to do with my phone.
Anyway, I don’t think it will be long until another brand launches a competitive series of trend-making digital products and then we will find out if Apple made a long lasting product like Windows which set their mark in the digital age or just a top-selling fashion gadget series that faded away through the course of time.
June 6th, 2008 - 07:49
Ah… The purpose of the article is a quick overview of the digital age, the decade of 00’s. Apple brand was mentioned once in the article, same as credit was given to Microsoft for the innovations during the 90’s. From my perspective, and I stress that, Microsoft stopped revolutionising in the 2000’s. Became a big, slow organisation where great ideas get lost and evolution is preferred to revolution.
On the Apple side, there seems to be some misunderstandings, even though I did not want to focus on Apple in the article.
Completely wrong on this one… You can add web apps on the iPhone, purchase, download for free and distribute applications from the App-Store which has been announced and will go live on Monday…
Not true… You can upload MP3’s, MP4’s, AAC files and purchace music from Amazon, Napster and all the other music stores that sell DRM-free MP3s. Apple just integrated a service in a product and that’s what made it successful.
Well, Apple has made its mark in the digital content business with round 80% market share for its iPod and 1st position in music retailing in US, including physical stores. This is the mark of the 00’s, along with Netbooks like the Asus EEE, which have founded a brand new category in personal computing.
I dont claim the above, the market does. Windows is still the king, but with a reducing market share. The innovation and the spotlight is now elsewhere though (Web 2.0, Facebook, Google, Netbooks, the iPhone).
June 6th, 2008 - 23:00
Check this out:
The next wave of PC’s:
http://news.cnet.com/The-next-wave-of-PCs/2009-1032_3-6240749.html?tag=newsmap
Intel Atom, Via and the Netbook