[LINK] Steve Jobs: Great unwashed don't need PCs

[Steven Clark]

On 3/06/2010 9:32 AM, Stilgherrian wrote:
> On 03/06/2010, at 9:08 AM, Ivan Trundle wrote:
>   
>> On 03/06/2010, at 8:12 AM, Stilgherrian wrote:
>>     
>>> Further to my point about the way we use computers changing...
>>>
>>>   http://mailman.anu.edu.au/pipermail/link/2010-June/088260.html
>>>
>>> 'It is official: Steve Jobs no longer thinks that PCs are going to be that important.
>>>       
>> The vitriolic that appeared almost instantly on many online forums is astounding (concerning the truck analogy): it appears that many feel threatened by the 'appliance model' of computing. In America, I've seen statements that declare that this is an attack on American values, and freedom.
>>     

I've been awaiting the recognition that computers have been drifting
towards being appliances for some time now. The convergence of mobile
phones and ultraportable machines will be an interesting experiment to
watch in the near future.

>> It's a great shake-up of a complacent industry.
>>     
> Absolutely. A reckon there's two reasons for the vitriol, apart from the sheer annoyance that many people feel for Steve Jobs. Actually maybe they're just one reason, with both financial and psychological implications.
>
> If the majority of people no longer need a difficult-to-maintain computer for the majority of their activities, that puts a whole swathe of computer support people out of a job. No more expensive call-out to reconfigure Outlook for a new email account when Gmail (or Windows Live or Apple's MobileMe or whatever) "just works". No sense of superiority over "lusers" who need the expert to solve all of their problems.
>   

A great deal of what has been delivered by the ICT industry over the
past couple of decades has been what tech or marketing want to deliver,
rather than what end users want or need. To my mind the 'revolutionary'
aspect of the iPad is that it is so much less, so much simpler than a
laptop to get using.

I'm going to be interested in the curve of user reactions in the coming
months regarding what they actually use the iPad for, and *how* they use
it. And then the impact of multithreading when OS4 rolls out.

> If you've spent 10 or 20 years becoming an expert in "the PC", only to be told that most people don't need a PC any more, well, that cuts to the very core of your being

I've spent pretty much that amount of time trying to convince
developers, implementers, and suppliers to deliver what clients actually
*need* rather than just more of more. Mind you, I've also had to spend a
chunk of time trying to convince the end users to consider what they
actually need all the bells and whistles for. A shiny new front end does
not hide complex and cumbersome functionality for very long.

It'll be interesting to see what kind of impact the iPad actually has on
computing and on technology delivery per se - not just 'consumer'
devices. The Victorian trial of iPads in schools in parallel with
netbooks will be worth watching, methinks.

-- 
Steven R Clark, BSc(Hons) LLB/LP(Hons) /Flinders/, MACS

PhD Candidate & Sessional Academic
School of Commerce, Division of Business
City West Campus, University of South Australia (UniSA)
http://people.unisa.edu.au/Steven.Clark

Deputy Director, Economic, Legal and Social Issues Committee (ELSIC)
Community Engagement Board (CEB)
Australian Computer Society (ACS)
http://www.acs.org.au/index.cfm?action=show&conID=acscas
<http://www.acs.org.au/index.cfm?action=show&conID=acscas>