This would be a huge cultural shift. In the 20th century, U.S. firms aggressively promoted planned obsolescence, designing things to break. Buying new was our patriotic duty…
I’m unsure how well the Maker Movement has caught on outside of the geekier of circles. It’s a concept that intrigues me, coming from an adolescence as part of the Boy Scouts, [1] and envy of people who know how to do stuff with their hands. Like any good larval geek, I played with electronics kits, took apart alarm clocks that I couldn’t reassemble, and generally wondered how the heck all this crap we use works. I’m from a generation that could fix or upgrade computers when they grew aged. Of the various personal computers I owned, it was my first, a 486, that saw the longest time in action, lasting almost seven years before the RAM sockets broke. [2]
A fixer movement has the potential to change our relationship with technology. The level of agency we can get from learning how to add life to the gadgets we own and not throwing them away is beneficial to a greater understanding of technology’s role in our Thompson mentions in the article. Things start to fall down for me, just a bit, when I read his description of a “Fixer’s Collective” in Brooklyn: “A few feet away, a trio of people are elbow-deep in a vintage VCR, and there’s another team performing surgery on a lava lamp… As I watch for three hours, the fixers get everything up and running (except the lava lamp).”
While the article starts by depicting someone trying to fix a toaster oven, the articles Thompson chooses to mention make me think of the “Fixer’s Collective” as more kooky Brooklynite kitsch than passion for understanding gear. Precious few of us have need to fix a VCR in 2013, unless you’re really into grainy, low-res, pan-and-scan movies. It’s the sort of preciousness that also infects the Maker movement, with videos about hand-carved spoons on Boing Boing being the public depiction of something that is much bigger and more compelling. Thankfully, the “Fixer’s Collective” experience emboldened Thompson to tackle repairing a five-year old Dell laptop. It’s a story drives the potential of the fixer movement home.
If only everything were as serviceable. There’s a (valid) crack against Apple products, with their unwillingness to provide service manuals, and fetish for thinner and increasingly closed hardware summed up best in one quote. “Just to get an iPad open, Wiens [of iFixIt] had to make a rice-filled pillow that he could heat up and lay on top of the tablet to gently loosen the adhesive.” Considering that I’m writing this up on an iPad, that quote really hits home. Apple products have the benefit of longer usable lifespans than comparable hardware offerings, and a network of retail stores to provide fixes, but we shouldn’t need to rely on that. Considering that in 2005 I managed to replace the battery on my 3rd generation iPod (twice) with a guitar pick and some patience, it’s not a long shot to think we’re moving the wrong way.
The are two obstacles that a fixer movement needs to overcome. The is the fear ordinary people have of diving into the guts of their gadgets. The second is the sense that their time and effort are worth more than the cost of a replacement product. I expect that we’ll get most of the way to the latter by doing the former. Even the hardcore geeks I know swear by online guides like iFixIt for stuff as simple as RAM upgrades and iPhone screen replacements. I can also see this as an adjunct to Patrick Rhone’s no-grade. Squeezing all the lifespan we can out of our expensive gadgets, learning how to use them better, and learning how to fix problems ourselves—these all put control of our technology back into our hands, where it belongs. Start learning now.
Where I earned Merit Badges for leatherwork, wood carving, and basket weaving over subsequent summers. I set the bar high for myself. ↩
It trundled through when the computer repair shop installed shims to keep the RAM in contact with the sockets until we finally replaced the machine. ↩
My snarky post from yesterday was just a toss off in lieu of more grounded thoughts on the new iOS, or the thoughts other have on the new iOS. It was John Gruber on The Talk Show who noted “All the leaks are wrong” and that the new iOS design would be “polarizing”, which seems almost like an understatement now. When you have a technology commentator complaining/writing click-bait that iOS has become too “girly,” [1] I think polarizing doesn’t quite cut it.
If familiarity breeds contempt, so too does novelty bring antipathy. People have been clamoring for a visual refresh of iOS since the run up to iOS 6, but the critics have been more vocal in the last year. Apple’s UIs were too “skeuomorphic” with their reliance on textures and replicating real interaction behaviors. [2] iOS looked dated next to Windows Phone 7 and Android 4.0. The company that lead the charge of GUIs, invented the modern smartphone and tablet, and kickstarted an industry had “fallen behind.” And, seeing as the last major proponent of the texture and physicality-rich UI had been drummed out of the firm, plenty of folks at Apple were gunning for change, too.
And outside of Apple, enough people wanted a change that skilled designers spent ages mocking up UI concepts and creating YouTube videos simulating new interaction designs. I don’t fault them for doing it. It’s good practice for a designer, a way to get your name out there, and maybe get a new client or two. However, the proliferation of iOS 7 concept shots and videos permeated the mindset of fans, bloggers, critics, and journalists alike. It was clear that, though Apple probably wouldn’t mess too much with the fundamental interaction design of iOS, whatever Ive and his team of professional designers came up with would be very different than what had been going around. Clearly then, because Jony and Apple didn’t just rip off your preferred rumoriffic mockup, Apple is “doing it wrong.” Though what people who say that really mean is that “They didn’t do it the way I would.”
Jony Ive inherited the role of overseeing software UI and UX at Apple only seven months ago. Now, we’re seeing the first fruits of his labors. Whether Ive brought Apple’s marketing team to do the icons, or painstakingly drew every icon and overlay in Illustrator, seven months is not a lot of time. There’s room for improvement, and even the people who like the new UI for iOS will admit that. [3] Apple needs two things to improve iOS: user feedback, and time. With their unwillingness to do “focus groups” and internal user testing, the Developer Preview is the best way to get feedback.
Note these words: “Developer Preview.” This is software that, though shown to the world, is not ready for the world. Maybe the idea of a “beta” has been watered down by companies slapping it on hundreds of functional-enough consumer services and apps. [4] iOS 7 in the state it is at the time of writing is neither feature complete or design complete. By way of example, the current version is missing the “Voice Memos” application. If we assume a September release of iOS 7, this gives Apple three and a half months of time to tweak, add, and remove things. By then, who knows what Apple will change. This is something a lot of the more vocal complainers of iOS 7’s new look are forgetting: it’s not done.
I’m not linking to this guy, because that would only give him what he wants. He’s wrong, he’s sexist, and you shouldn’t take design criticism from a guy who uses a tiled background on his website in 2013. ↩
They weren’t exactly wrong here, either, debates over the meaning of “skeuomorphism” aside. ↩
What is the deal with the Game Center icon, anyway? ↩
Apple’s even done this with a certain sassy “digital assistant.” ↩
I’ve spent the last week digesting the news about PRISM, the NSA’s system for spying on pretty much everything we do on the Internet. If you don’t know about it, Wikipedia has a good breakdown of what it’s about. Suffice it to say, the US Government’s domestic security apparatus has a way to see everything we do through Google, Apple, Microsoft, Yahoo, Facebook, Skype, and more, with Dropbox “coming soon.” Reaction has been swift, and angry—justifiably so, but the more I think about it, the less worked up I get, and I was never terribly angry to begin with. It’s not that I don’t recognize PRISM as the grave threat to individual liberty and privacy that it is. It’s just another piece of straw thrown on the long broken back of a camel that can no longer care.
In the case of PRISM, it’s more the sense of ineffectiveness of any sort of organized protest against a program that’s already been in place for years. I don’t blame the companies involved for opening up access. When the NSA comes knocking on your door, demanding access to your data, the cost of saying “no” is likely to be worse than the cost of saying “yes”. Ire should be pointed squarely at the government, and I think few people would disagree with this. Only knee-jerk haters of Company X would think otherwise. [1] My only hope is that the sheer quantity of data the NSA is collecting makes real analysis difficult to outright impossible. It made me think of this clip from The Simpsons Movie. [2]
Perhaps the populist backlash will get PRISM dismantled, but that’s only a temporary victory. When the furor dies down, those with something to benefit from collecting our every move will try to do it again. If there’s a way to prevent this in the future, it’s through increased technological literacy. Tomasz Tunguz notes that “28% of Americans don’t use the internet and 32% lack broadband.” When more than a quarter of the population isn’t involved in technology, they’re disincentivezed to care. Even worse is the lack of knowledge that our elected officials have of technology. According to an article on Slate “The 111th Congress, which took office in 2009, was the oldest in U.S. history, with an average age of 57 in the House and 63 in the Senate. (The sitting 112th Congress is only slightly younger.)” The technological disconnect was only too well illustrated by John McCain asking Tim Cook why he had to update apps on his iPhone.
Without being involved and developing an understanding of the increasingly connected world we live in, both average citizens and politicians alike are in danger of being dominated by far more aware technocrats with sinister plans. It’s one thing to say the NSA can see what’s on some random person’s “Dropbox”. It’s a very different thing to let the NSA get access to your own personal files. Spying of this nature is never limited to just the textbook definition of “bad guys”. Ex post facto justification of PRISM could come from using it to bust anyone for the cause du jour. If terrorism doesn’t work out, the NSA could bust someone for piracy because they have an illegally downloaded MP3 on their Dropbox account. We need to nip this in the bud, have public accountability, and the knowledge to understand where the eyes of the government belong.
Perhaps I care more than I thought I did. The question remains: what can I actually do about this?
This includes Google. While Google’s also looking at everything we do, they have some slightly more valid reasons for it than “law enforcement.” ↩
That’s the only version of the clip I could find. Sorry. ↩
Near the end of episode 204 of Enough, Patrick Rhone delivers a short monologue on the transformative nature of modern technology: smartphones, social media, the web, and all of that jazz. Though, it would be a more accurate statement to say his monologue was more about how non-transformative this stuff is. Actually, it would be even more accurate to say that his point was it’s way too early to tell how much impact any of this stuff has had, or will have. It makes sense. When you’re up to your eyeballs in the sea of technological change, all you see is things changing. Only when the seas calm, do things become clearer.
Where I think Patrick’s argument falls down is comparing the impact of the Internet to that of fire, or the wheel—and arguably neither were as transformative as developing the hand-axe. The first technologies were technologies of control. They allowed us to be more than subservient to the environment. A hand-axe can cut down trees to build shelter, obviating the need for caves and other natural shelters. Fire provides light, and cooked food, allowing us to extract more nutrients. [1] The wheel was less transformative. Look at what the Olmec accomplished without it.
The changes modern technology are making are more on par with the printing press, and other democratizing communication methods. I think it was the recent episode of Quit! with Matt Haughey that discussed how the barriers have been lowered to creating things and disseminating them to a wide audience. To have a radio show, until someone came up with the podcast, you needed a license, training, internships at a college station, and a lot of luck. Now, all you need is a web server, an Internet connection, a microphone, and some free software. The more open and accessible these tools of communication are, the better it is for everyone. A small transformation is still a transformation, isn’t it?
If these democratizing communication technologies are changing society, it’s only in the sense that it’s enabling a desire innate to nearly all of us. We all share, we all communicate, we all create, but now we have new ways of doing those things, and a wider audience to do it with. We haven’t developed the next wheel, we’ve developed a better wheel. There will be social fallout from how we’ve made communication with a wide audience easy, immediate, and ubiquitous, but how much there will be has yet to be seen. It’s early days, indeed.
Technology as we know it now is merely a point along a slow, inexorable journey with no clear destination in mind. What if Google Glass, or wearable computing as a concept takes off? What if our bodies become input devices, or computers themselves? What if someone determines a new, better form of ubiquitous computing, or any device you touch becomes your computer? To pin down any existing technology as the game-changing, society-transforming inflection point to end all inflection points is to risk falling down yet another technological rathole. It behooves us to step back a bit and think about how transformative all of this stuff really is—or if it is. We could be surprised.