Old World, New World, and the iPad
When the iMac came out, Apple drew a line in the sand. They said: we are no longer going to ship a computer with a floppy disk drive. The entire industry shit its pants so loudly and forcefully that you probably could have heard it from outer space.
Are you insane? I spent all this money on a floppy drive! All my software is on floppy disks! You’ve committed brand suicide! Nobody will stand for this!
Fast-forward to today. I can’t think of a single useful thing to do with a floppy disk.
-I need to talk to you about computers by StevenF.
*slow clap*
I’m still sort of on the fence on this tablet thing. I can definitely see how it’ll be immensely useful for lots of industries, or around the home (as an ebook reader, a portable newspaper/simplified browser, even a board game platform), etc. I don’t agree with all the “it’s the laptop replacement device!” hype going around through – for some tasks, you need a dedicated keyboard or some other way of inputting larger amounts of text than you can comfortably type on an on-screen keyboard. The iPhone’s on-screen keyboard is fine for typing out short text messages, etc, but you wouldn’t want to compose a novel on it.
I won’t be buying one myself, not yet at least, but I’m still incredibly intrigued by the love-hate reaction it seems to be getting at the moment.