iTablet Prognostications
In his story in the October 26 issue of NEWSWEEK magazine, Daniel Lyons piques the interests of all tech-dom as he speculates on what is sure to be Apple’s forthcoming success, the “iTablet”.
Although his story begins with a description of the future Apple version of a tablet computer, interlaced within the article is a series of pithy comments about current and future internet technology. What emerges is a story within the story that is more compelling than its headline.
Rather than summarizing and paraphrasing Lyons’ jewels of commentary, the following are extracted quotes, in order of appearance, that are mighty notes of technological titillation:
- . . . this device [tablet computer] may actually warrant the hype. Not because of the tablet itself but because of what it and others like it could do to the way we tell stories.
- Veteran editor Tina Brown, who now runs The Daily Beast, says we are about to enter “a golden age of journalism.”
- The Internet is no longer a destination, someplace you “go to.”
- You don’t “get on the Internet.” You’re always on it. It’s just there, like the air you breathe.
- This device is also your TV, your stereo, and probably your telephone too.
- In the past we’ve all worked in silos. “Print people” had one way of describing the world. “Video people” had another. But the silos are getting crunched together.
- It’s as if for most of your life you could get by speaking only English, but now you need to learn a bunch of other old languages, and, what’s more, you must then master a new language that is evolving out of the DNA of all the old ones.
- The Internet today is a lot like TV circa 1950. But we are about to take an evolution-ary leap. That’s why all this hand-wringing over the dying newspaper business is so misplaced. In 10 years the print newspapers we have today will seem as quaint and primitive as those old Uncle Miltie shows.
- I have no idea what the “new news” will look like, but I know it will arrive. Look at how people have turned their creativity loose on the iPhone. In just 16 months, thousands of developers have created 85,000 applications for that device. The same will happen with tablets.
- These powerful devices with constant Internet access will enable us (and force us) to rethink media. What is a newspaper? What is a book? What is a movie? What is entertainment?
- Somewhere out there, the Orson Welles of the digital age is in grade school, or maybe high school. Soon he or she will be inventing a new language for telling stories. I can’t wait to see what it looks like
Neither can the rest of us, Daniel.
