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Sometimes I feel people writing this type of article decided to see the world through their window and ignore what goes around it. I get the ways the iPad can be detrimental to software development and the perception of what constitutes legitimate use of a device, just as the iPhone was/is. However, to place it as an anti-creativity agent infiltrating our lives is either disingenious or misinformed. There's no doubt different interests are at stake here, and that old media is trying desperately to feel in control again. But media consumption is but an use case for this and similar devices. To reduce it to that and ignore the amazing things people have been doing with their post-iPhone mobiles is to dumbly state only the issue of content distribution (written content, mostly) is relevant in this discussion. Look at Everyday Looper, the many drawing apps, the games. You can argue any way you want about how it isn't an IDEAL situation, but there's vibrance in the community of developers, and a growing number of things users can achieve. I am not a musician, and I have been working beats. My drawing frustrates me a lot, but on my phone I feel free to sketch, and it allows me to spend my time in more creative ways than I would have a couple of years ago. And maybe, just maybe, all that arises from the perceived stability of the platform as opposed to Android (and its many versions): people can target it in code, people can use it and know it will be a thought trampoline, and that different trampolines will come out soon. We all have our biases, and too easily frame situations as if our version of inside baseball were paramount to the fate of the world. While we do it, people will keep churning great ideas wherever they feel enabled to do so. Apple is kind of like New York, or Berlin, or Paris in that sense: there's much to dislike about it, but it provides enough of a cushion for creatives (including programmers), enough inspiration in the form of the works of others, to help make great things. |