Ipad 2 finally arrives in India. And there is hope the volumes sold would be ok. Iphone 4 is already out and many of tech eager population uses/flashes the same. While Apple has this ability to generate pull for its products, the underlying reason is SIMPLE(icity).
When I bought my Ipad (version 1, alas!!), one of the first user of the same was my 18 months old daughter. And she has been able to use it very effectively to try out all the apps I had downloaded for her. We have reached such a stage in user interface with technology. Multitude of tablets are now out trying to better the Ipad. And all of them are so easy and user friendly. Same is true for the new set of mobile phones coming into market.
Sometimes, I look back to really marvel on how things have changed during my lifetime itself. The first time I set my eyes on a TV was in year 1982, when Govt rolled out TV services to beyond the 7 cities it was initially broadcasting to. And the TV world was only Black and White for most of us. Wednesdays used to be day of Chitrhaar (first time we were able to watch film songs on media other than movie halls) and weekends for free movies. Could not miss any of these for the world.
Cut to today.. more than 300 channels to choose from. You can catch a movie any time of the day in one of the channels. If not able to watch live, recording facility is made available by all the satellite TV providers. While we waited for the evenings to watch the programs, now the programs wait for you to take time out to watch them!!!
So far as Computers go, I was among a few privileged lot to touch a computer just at the time of entering college (in 80s that was surely a privilege!!). PC XT was the first machine I ever touched. PCs with Monochrome monitors took as much space as a server today. And we were thrilled to know that the storage space in the hard disk was all of 20 MB!!!! And on top of that you could carry data yourself in floppy disks... Disks which were 4-5 times the size of a regular cellphone of modern era. The storage space was a princely 1.44MB!!!! And carrying a box of floppies was like carrying a tablet these days. You could see admiration in the eyes of the people who saw you with the Floppy Box. We were geniuses who worked on Computers!!
Windows?? Those days they were part of the buildings and computers worked on Disk Operating Systems (DOS, the basis of Gates' wealth). And if you needed anything meaningful out of the machines, you needed to write your own code. BASIC was basic and COBOL was for guys with big thumbs. Guys who had arrived in life wrote in Pascal, C++.. Pascal, the computer language and not the scientist!! Anything to do with computer had to code written. And then arrived the state of the art PC AT!! Wow!! Storage increased to 60 MB!! We hear something about Windows!! Windows on computer!! What was that? It was IT Nirvana!! Not many would know that the first version of Windows was a program on the menu list of DOS and had to be activated once the machine was booted up and ready to work. Combining the DOS and Windows was the success of Windows which we all are aware of.
Cut to today, my 18 month daughter uses the Ipad!! No keys to be punched, just touch and flicks .. No operating systems to be started.. Pure Plug and Play. Start the machine and use it. Complexity as we saw it those days is in the machines and not outside as user interface and that I think is the success of Apple and others who made this happen! Apple took it multi steps ahead by letting the customer use the most basic form of communication, touch!!
Rs. 16/- per minute irrespective of whether you receive or call... Launch charges for the Mobile phones. Those were the days when we thought the pagers were cutting edge. Anyone remembers (or may be even knows) pagers???? When pagers happened, we had a phenomenal tool in our hands to increase communication with the field staff. Prior to that if a sales guy is gone on field for the day, he could have gone anywhere, field, field (playing), home.. anywhere.. If you had to catch him, you call all the dealers/distributors in his beat plan on their landlines, one by one to check his movements. Those were days of peace.. imagine you are out on the field and no one can contact you.. Boss, colleagues, WIFE!!! Students once they left for hostels, the only way to communicate was STD booths (legendary lines outside booths post 10 pm can be the plot for another blog) and that too if the house had a phone.. Else call the neighbour who had a phone at home, inform that you would call back in 15 mins (cannot hold, charges are high!) and get back to the line again.
Cut to today.. Sometimes, cannot even pee in peace!! With Google and Apple looking to provide locational services too, you know what is the game!!
So has all this advancement changed life for all of us? I do not need to answer, for we all know it. And what a change it has been!! Good or Bad, it is for every individual to decide. But I firmly believe that true happiness was witnessed by me in middle 80s, when we had nothing to distract us from pure fun!!
Interesting piece, Sridhar. And to your half-asked-question in closing, it should be relatively easy to make a case for the benevolent or even ameliorating impact of Technology. Yet, there is more than innocence lost in its wake.
Listen to a thumri from a time when music was missing digital influences (no, not even playback!) and compositions were infused with an individual, quasi-independent realism. Even that note seemingly out of place, foretold a story - a quirk that provided a listener-virtuoso connect across time and space. It did not come across as imperfection. Far from it, it's memory made the piece - well - personal.
Cut to the current and the explosion of media. I am not sure the pitch-perfect, hyper-synthesized modern medley droning out a sitar aria carries the same character. Gone, with the rawness, it seems is also the memory-making potential.
So even as we rightly rejoice in the conveniences of technology, shed an occasional tear for the impersonalization of existence!
Echohum
May 15, 2011 at 3:10 PM