Boy oh boy. "What if the status quo isn't sustainable" is The unasked question because everyone is (or should be) terrified of the answer. The billionaires have their New Zealand compounds as their answer, which should make anybody who still see them as visionaries really, really nervous. It's something everybody knows, but swallowing the implications is more than most of us can handle. Maybe this is what's at the root of all the free-floating unfocused insecurity in developed nations' populations with their long national nightmare of Peace and Prosperity. The centuries of wealth and growth from exploiting natural resources and ingoring/socializing the costs Party is winding down, and the waiter is standing there with the bill. Simple psychotic-break level denial is the easiest answer, so it should be no surprise that it's the American default. It's worked before. The dust bowl went away, and who needs passenger pigeons anyway? We'll Tech our way around it! It's always worked before.
I got the impression that Apple deprecated the virtual reality aspect of the device. I got the impression it was more an augmented reality device aimed at people who want to be somewhere but have access to all sorts of relevant data. For example, someone managing some kind of facility like a server farm, manufacturing system, or chemical plant. Other examples would be people doing site planning, ecological studies, street or traffic analysis or incident reporting. The idea is that you go somewhere and do things, but you can construct guidelines, place markers, see invisible infrastructure, explore sensor records, survey distances, or report sightings.
Virtual reality might be fun for gaming, otherwise its like a stereoscope or Viewmaster. Apple has a much more interesting product because it aims at adding to what is there rather than replacing it.
I really appreciate your views on this. They align in some ways with my own about this increase in tech products being marketed and sold on potential alone. I do wonder how much more appeal a face computer would have in the degraded future over a tv, a laptop, a smartphone, or a tablet. It’s interesting to think about the smartphone being a standout product among the tablets, smartwatches, and now the face computers because of how the smartphone is rooted in the well realised existing potential of the phone and communications. It’s the root purpose that makes it a *thing* that you can’t leave home without. Through that lens you can see how Apple is trying to give those other devices this same property with things like health monitoring (quantifiable self) safety features like the auto car crash detection and now the mental health monitoring feature. The removal of a driving purpose that these things are created to serve (for the consumer, not the business) leaves a void that is essentially a weak spot of opportunity for consumers to say “what is this for?”
One stray thought about the smartphone versus everything after: my recollection is that smartphones were responsible for dissolving the distinction between online and offline. It had previously been the case that, if you were online, you were tethered to a desktop or a laptop and thus weren't moving about in the world. (This was especially true in the dialup era, when being online meant people couldn't even call you and leave a message unless you had a second line.)
Smartphones integrated online activities into the rest of our daily lives. That was a sea change. Everything since (tablets, wearables) has been a smaller in degree.
It’s true. It also killed the business phone / consumer phone dichotomy. But it’s that phoneness that made mobile phones, before they were smart, a universal dont-leave-home-without-it device, which I can’t see present in anything portable since.
I feel like there was a social learning curve/transition for the mobile phones, though. Like, I have a distinct memory of getting my first mobile phone in early 2000, brining it with me to college, and being treated as kind of a social pariah because "really, dude? You need your phone with you at all times? How important do you think you are?"
It took a few years for mobile phones to become universal, dont-leave-home-without-it-devices. And then it was just a few years later that smartphones replaced the category.
(This also reminds me of a passage from, I think, Isaacson's biography of Steve Jobs. Basically, IIRC, the iPod was such a hit for Apple that Jobs got obsessive over what might replace it. The obvious candidate was a mobile phone that could store all your music, since everyone already had mobile phones at that point.)
Oh for sure, I was a hold out for a long time. SMS was probably what pushed me over the line (and having enough income). The messaging made it *group* social.
While I see your point about the future, I am very much despirited by your despair. The answer is not a pair of expensive ski-goggles that will only increase (I suppose?) the surveillance capitalist grip on your existence.
The answer is to change the course that your society is on.
This sentence:
"It isn’t better than the status quo we have available today, but it is preferable to the alternatives we’ll face tomorrow."
reminds me of a Russian joke an old neighbour of mine told me:
An old man, asked how his family was doing, said "On average, we live pretty well. Not as good as last year, but not as bad as next year will be."
Apologies from the province of Quebec for the wildfire smoke!
Boy oh boy. "What if the status quo isn't sustainable" is The unasked question because everyone is (or should be) terrified of the answer. The billionaires have their New Zealand compounds as their answer, which should make anybody who still see them as visionaries really, really nervous. It's something everybody knows, but swallowing the implications is more than most of us can handle. Maybe this is what's at the root of all the free-floating unfocused insecurity in developed nations' populations with their long national nightmare of Peace and Prosperity. The centuries of wealth and growth from exploiting natural resources and ingoring/socializing the costs Party is winding down, and the waiter is standing there with the bill. Simple psychotic-break level denial is the easiest answer, so it should be no surprise that it's the American default. It's worked before. The dust bowl went away, and who needs passenger pigeons anyway? We'll Tech our way around it! It's always worked before.
But also this? https://qz.com/new-yorks-air-pollution-is-a-bizarre-advertisement-for-1850518060 "New York's air pollution is a bizarre advertisement for the Dyson Zone"
I got the impression that Apple deprecated the virtual reality aspect of the device. I got the impression it was more an augmented reality device aimed at people who want to be somewhere but have access to all sorts of relevant data. For example, someone managing some kind of facility like a server farm, manufacturing system, or chemical plant. Other examples would be people doing site planning, ecological studies, street or traffic analysis or incident reporting. The idea is that you go somewhere and do things, but you can construct guidelines, place markers, see invisible infrastructure, explore sensor records, survey distances, or report sightings.
Virtual reality might be fun for gaming, otherwise its like a stereoscope or Viewmaster. Apple has a much more interesting product because it aims at adding to what is there rather than replacing it.
I really appreciate your views on this. They align in some ways with my own about this increase in tech products being marketed and sold on potential alone. I do wonder how much more appeal a face computer would have in the degraded future over a tv, a laptop, a smartphone, or a tablet. It’s interesting to think about the smartphone being a standout product among the tablets, smartwatches, and now the face computers because of how the smartphone is rooted in the well realised existing potential of the phone and communications. It’s the root purpose that makes it a *thing* that you can’t leave home without. Through that lens you can see how Apple is trying to give those other devices this same property with things like health monitoring (quantifiable self) safety features like the auto car crash detection and now the mental health monitoring feature. The removal of a driving purpose that these things are created to serve (for the consumer, not the business) leaves a void that is essentially a weak spot of opportunity for consumers to say “what is this for?”
One stray thought about the smartphone versus everything after: my recollection is that smartphones were responsible for dissolving the distinction between online and offline. It had previously been the case that, if you were online, you were tethered to a desktop or a laptop and thus weren't moving about in the world. (This was especially true in the dialup era, when being online meant people couldn't even call you and leave a message unless you had a second line.)
Smartphones integrated online activities into the rest of our daily lives. That was a sea change. Everything since (tablets, wearables) has been a smaller in degree.
It’s true. It also killed the business phone / consumer phone dichotomy. But it’s that phoneness that made mobile phones, before they were smart, a universal dont-leave-home-without-it device, which I can’t see present in anything portable since.
I feel like there was a social learning curve/transition for the mobile phones, though. Like, I have a distinct memory of getting my first mobile phone in early 2000, brining it with me to college, and being treated as kind of a social pariah because "really, dude? You need your phone with you at all times? How important do you think you are?"
It took a few years for mobile phones to become universal, dont-leave-home-without-it-devices. And then it was just a few years later that smartphones replaced the category.
(This also reminds me of a passage from, I think, Isaacson's biography of Steve Jobs. Basically, IIRC, the iPod was such a hit for Apple that Jobs got obsessive over what might replace it. The obvious candidate was a mobile phone that could store all your music, since everyone already had mobile phones at that point.)
Oh for sure, I was a hold out for a long time. SMS was probably what pushed me over the line (and having enough income). The messaging made it *group* social.
While I see your point about the future, I am very much despirited by your despair. The answer is not a pair of expensive ski-goggles that will only increase (I suppose?) the surveillance capitalist grip on your existence.
The answer is to change the course that your society is on.