Steven F on the iPad: Old vs New World

<i>Is a stick shift better than an automatic? No. Is an automatic better than a stick? No. This misses the point. A better question: Is a road full of drivers not distracted by the arcane inner workings of their vehicle safer? It’s likely.</i><p>I may stand alone on this issue, but I see this the exact opposite. In an automatic, being able to drive along with just a foot on the gas and hand on the wheel, I find that I actually pay <i>less</i> attention to driving and more attention to everything else: other cars, the radio, my passengers talking, billboards, buildings, etc. In a manual, I'm infinitely more aware of what my car is doing and what <i>I'm</i> doing to mesh that hunk of metal and plastic with the rest of traffic, and far less focused on all of life's distractions.

Like most geeks I was underwhelmed after watching the iPad presentation and was disappointed that it uses the iPhone OS and not a lite version of Mac OS. But after reading this article and many others it is clear to me that using the closed off iPhone OS is a no brainier for this tablet.<p>The iPad does everything that my parents currently do on their computer without the annoyances of a PC. If you look at my parents desktop it is covered with miscellaneous files. They don't care how anything is stored. They only want to do simple tasks and have everything work.<p>The more I think about it, the more that I realise that the current user experience on a computer is not pleasant. Especially for my parents who don't want to have to worry about defragging and keeping virus protection up to date. This is where the iPad will excel. As Steve says "it just works".<p>However the locked down aspect of the apple system and the potential for a monopoly is worrying so I'm hopeful that that Android and Chrome OS will fit into this New World market.

Is it basically all about multitasking vs not multitasking? Because it seems to be true, without multitasking, there is no need to worry about spyware or software breaking the system. It's a bit like giving up, though.<p>As for the elderly loading their iPhones with apps - my experience is that people do that with "old school" computers too. Only then it does break their computers.

<i>How long will it take to complete this Old World to New World shift? My guess? The end is near when you can bootstrap a new iPad application on an iPad. When you can comfortably do that without pining for a traditional desktop, the days of Old World computing are officially numbered.</i><p>The bad thing about the keyboard/mouse/screen workstation is that it is designed to efficiently soak up all of your attention, and the overhead of entering/leaving the active use mode makes this an all-absorbing proposition.<p>That is a big disadvantage of the workstation interface, versus the iPad, a Kindle, the morning Newspaper. Those can soak up your attention, but you can also set them down pretty quickly to get up and open the door. The mode switch isn't such a large overhead. So these interfaces blend in more harmoniously with everyday life.<p>But for programming, a workstation is <i>great</i>! In fact, for any activity requiring extended, deep concentration, a workstation is a very good proposition. For programming? I think it's pretty fantastic.<p>We have cars today that might as well have the hood welded shut, or at least with a lock open-able only by the garage. But we also have cars like the Ariel Atom, that are so focused on function, that they even lack body panels. We still have car modders and hippie enclaves with 3 Mercedes Diesel 240DLs in a garage shed out back.<p>Hacking is not going away.

If I had to pick a single dichotomy between, say, a MacBook and an iPad, it would be that the latter is optimized for consuming content in a way that the former is not. The iPad is primarily an output device.<p>The fact that the keyboard is a bit of an afterthought is telling. Yes, you can create presentations, spreadsheets, emails and documents, but there's no denying that it's awkward in a way that reading a book or surfing the web on the thing is not.<p>It's a bit like when the Walkman was introduced without a record function. It didn't spell the end of tape recorders, but it recognized that people spend vastly more time consuming music than producing it.<p>I think the fact that it's locked down the way that it is is orthogonal to the consumption versus production question. It's as though this Walkman will only play studio-mastered tapes. Which is why I'm rooting for some credible competition to come along and force the issue.

<i>favors benefit to the end-user rather than the developer or other vendors</i><p>I think Apple's current approach favors benefit to <i>apple</i> rather than developers or end-users.<p>Sometimes Apple's interests line up with those of the user, but often they don't. I hope it hurts their sales and benefits more open platforms (probably Android) - that may be because I'm from the old world.<p>I like the dreams embodied by the Lisp machines and by OLPC. The idea that every part of the system can be easily inspected and manipulated resonates strongly with me. The freedom to tinker with a device can and does lead to new and amazing things the original creators never imagined. College kids playing with iPads will never invent Multifinder, and that's sad.

I'm not sure if this division makes sense. Are Android phones "Old World" or "New World"? They have an open development model, and yet have most of the attributes and advantages of a New World device: applications are sandboxed, no need for virus scanners, etc.<p>I think people are conflating Apple's locked-down restrictive policies with the OS design of iPhone and Android which prevent installing a bad app from breaking your device.

I'm not quite sure why there's this hard line drawn. Surely Android, for example, falls somewhere in between, with sandboxed apps and all the rest, but not quite the same draconian closed-ness?