Every
year, thousands of people express their excitement for the new Apple products over
social media as Apple holds a conference announcing all their new products and
the innovations they have made. But how “new” are these products? Are we
actually seeing innovation or just buying the same product slapped on with a tiny
new feature?
David Gelernter predicts this
phenomena in his 1999 manifesto : “we don't believe in technological change (we
only say we do), we accept bad computer products with a shrug; we work around
them, make the best of them and (like fatalistic sixteenth-century French
peasants) barely even notice their defects — instead of demanding that they be
fixed and changed.” When thinking about the most touted “innovations” of the iPhone
over the years, we think of Siri, fingerprint scanning, and facial recognition.
However, for the newest set of iPhones, the iPhone 11 and iPhone 11 Pro, the
biggest feature we get is an ultra-wide camera. Most people will buy the new
product, even if they won’t use the feature or whether they think it’s new or
not.
The question
then becomes: how do we define technological change? When Gelernter made his
prediction did he mean that features such as “Siri” counted as technological
change and does the preexisting idea of a ultra-wide lensed camera, slapped
onto a new product, also fit within that definition? It seems that the idea of
technological change is different from person to person and the broad state by
Gelernter does not take this into account. For one person, such as a
photographer, an ultra-wide camera on an iPhone is the best thing since sliced
bread. For others, they accept the product with a “shrug.” But that does not
mean they don’t believe in technological change, they just have their own unique
opinion on what it looks like.
Hi Meelan, great take on Gelernter. I loved reading his predictions and you connecting his prediction to the recent IPhone developments just made me appreciate the predictions more. I definitely agree on your analysis on the callous attitude that we have with regards to the technology we use. I guess a possible reason why could be our own detachment from technology due to how complicated it can sound. I think a more relevant example could be about how the IPhone IOS are designed structurally to fail with the older physical models of the IPhone. There was some level of debate with regards to that, but Apple still continues to push that out with their laptops to encourage sales of their newer products. I think that an alternate development to your argument to make it more holistic could be thinking about the core values of the designers of these technological products. What are their main motivations behind leaving such gapingly obvious flaws? I think that could be a possible point of contention that would have made your post broader. Asides from that, this was a fun read!
ReplyDeleteYou do a good job off bringing your reader in. Your second paragraph is mostly a quote from Gelertner. I would consider adding in more examples of how we see this phenomenon. Maybe, talk about an example from when Gelertner was writing this to see if the "changes" that were made then are comparable to the ones made today. The last paragraph does a very good job of closing the blog.
ReplyDeleteGreat job on the blog! The issue you brought up is something that is popular in tech, especially with Apple. One thing that could enhance your blog is maybe talking about your stance on the issue. What would it take for you to get a new iPhone and what is your threshold for something to be called innovation? Apart from that, great read!
ReplyDeleteI like this post. I like your honest response to the technology that does seem to be kinda lame in recent years. I am wondering though, what kinds of features would you look for in a smartphone that doesn't exist already? I was listening to a podcast this morning about the new generation of phones with 5g capabilities, and, though the physical features aren't that "innovative", the claim is that you'll be able to download an entire season of your favorite show in less than a minute. I think there's an interesting distinction to be made between the features on the inside and the features on the outside. I think one thing that could make this post even better is further developing your comparison between Gelernter and our current society. Specifically, it would be interesting to hear about how we "work around" the issues with technology.
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