This new fierce competition between the iPad (Mini or 4th-gen), the various Android tablets and the new Microsoft Surface does bring its fair share of "fanboyism" on various Internet forums, which includes a number of taunts. I'm not qualified enough in that art of Internet flaming and trolling to defend any of the positions, though one of those insults was about calling one or other device "a toy".
Sure, a personal computer used to be mainly a work tool, regardless of Apple's aspirations for the now-decaying computing platform. And, of course, since it was optimized for productivity, it ends up being a far more powerful and efficient tool than tablets. Hence, "toy".
But there's something else too. I suspect that the appellation was also influenced by the state of euphoria when we get one of those new devices, and spending hours in awe as we start "playing" with it for the first time. Sadly (or at last) I don't feel much of that with new devices. At work I had to make use of a new computer, and I couldn't care less other than my job. Last year, with my iPhone 4S, I was pleasantly surprised by its speed and screen, and that quickly faded away the next day, too busy just using it.
In a way, I don't mind that too much that I can adapt so quickly to new devices, computing metaphors and processing speeds; On the contrary, I appreciate that by making devices so "consumable", they quickly get out of the way when I try to do stuff with it. Contrast this with using Vim or EMACS, where I have to try convince myself how cool this is all the while going through the painful learning curve.
My real bother though, like actual toys, is my worry about what to do with those devices once I stop using them. I've read that there is now a new tax on electronic devices to pay for recycling services. I'll look into that since I already have a dozen devices full of toxic chemical I need to dispose of.
Published on October 24, 2012 at 20:13 EDT
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