A response to Cory Doctorow’s post on the iPad.
The reasons he lists are all reasonable reasons to not buy an iPad. Like Cory, I don’t need a computer-like appliance. That’s also why I don’t own an iPhone or a Wii or a Kindle. (Also, I’m poor.)
But just because *I* don’t need it doesn’t mean that I think it’s ethically dubious for someone else to. Yes, you’re opting into Apple’s walled garden. Yes, you’ll never be able to hack the device or install your own stuff on it or replace the battery yourself. But if you’re fine with all that, if your needs match what the iPad appliance offers, go ahead and purchase one. Especially if you already own a “real computer” (which is pretty likely, and something a lot of criticisms along these lines seem to miss). No one argues that purchasing a car with closed-source software embedded in it or a stylish, no-screws toaster is akin to investing in blood diamonds.
So why all the hate on the iPad? My guess is misplaced expectations. Critics expect a “real computer” and howl that it isn’t one. That’s frankly like whining about how the Eee PC sucks for running Photoshop. Those who want it and will buy it have different expectations.
I’ll tell you what my problem with it is – and why I am very happy that Cory wrote that article. Firstly, I think you’re totally wrong about ‘howling critics’, and suggest you try to keep the rhetoric simple since metaphors inviting comparison between other reasonable people and slavering wolves are usually not conducive to rational conversation. Ok…
Schools. Colleges. Universities. Well-meaning and technically inept people, of which there are very many indeed, who decide that it would be AWESOME to give kids a whole new world of multimedia content. Who want to create a learning object repository for said people to use. Who want to support all the good and awesome things in the world, like saving trees and reducing back pain on the part of those poor students who will have to carry all those books around university. They’re right, incidentally – it would be awesome, and we all like these ideas :-)
Truth: These people have no idea what is out there, but they have seen glossy pictures of the latest iFad in the magazine rack. They have no real understanding of the issues (yet): legal, technical, social, economic, all that stuff might as well be in Esperanto for all the relevance it has to their decision-making. But wow, is that iPad shiny! And they are well-meaning people, don’t forget. They really believe this is revolutionary, and they want to help their students benefit from the revolutionary awesomeness. And maybe just maybe in the smallest possible way somewhere in the back of their well-meaning minds there’s just a tiny voice whispering that perhaps they might benefit just a bit from being seen with the awesomeness – maybe they’ll be just a little bit more awesome too.
So an educational establishment decides it’s going to spend say $750,000 getting some learning objects that look nice on an iPad. It hires a couple of people with CVs that implausibly suggest that they have been developing for the iPad for, oh, years and years. They develop iPad apps to replace the older learning objects that wouldn’t work on iPad. I say this to highlight the fact that there is a considerable startup investment required in order to gear up for deployment of a new piece of kit. Then there is initial expense for each student: the staff picks reading matter that’s available on Apple’s bookstore, and gives students lists of books for them to buy out of that store. It adds the iPad to the list of things that each student has to buy. Every student that registers for that course needs to get an iPad. Compare this with getting said students to buy a PC running any of Windows, Mac OS X or Linux, or listing anything in a range of five devices compatible with a number of open standards and asking students to choose. Nothing like the smell of vendor lock-in in the morning, but because the different types of devices currently have pretty dissimilar profiles – and because the iWhatever storefront is unique to Apple – there’s no way that anything else can run those apps, for example.
Now the fact is that we don’t really know what the impact of this would be. I reckon it would be more expensive for students than carting around paper books. The resale market for second hand textbooks is huge, but these students will not be able to participate or recoup any costs. It is probable that the iPad will not replace a computer for technical courses, since many will require very specific software to be run. Anything that requires a great deal of text composition, video editing, etc. will also be problematic. So the new iPad infrastructure will be additional to the existing infrastructure, and presumably will be Just One More Thing for IT to support. The iPad itself is not exactly cheap compared to Other Things that Don’t Replace Computers. etc. etc. And we haven’t even talked about potential problems with the actual Apple infrastructure yet, the potential cost of tying your organisation to evolving closed standards, etc…
Pragmatically, the answer is for institutions to wait and see, and not to sign anything or go all early adopter – but you know what? They won’t necessarily think about all these issues unless someone like Cory writes about them. They’re busy people, and responsible for many things, and have a lot to think about, which is why someone else – like say Cory or the Open Rights Group – needs to take some responsibility for pointing this stuff out. It may sound like politics and it may sound invasive to say ‘I don’t think you should buy an iPad’, but it does have the advantage of being entirely true. I reckon it’s okay for responsible adults to buy themselves an iPad (individuals have the right to lock themselves into all sorts of weird stuff), as long as they’re really aware of what they’re doing. However, I’m not going to recommend they do so, because I try not to lie more often than strictly necessary. In particular, I really don’t think it is okay to, at this stage, recommend it as part of anything that will constitute any kind of organisational lock-in. For the time being the thing is nothing more than a curiosity piece for people who could pragmatically afford to burn half a k in used bills. In short – I agree with him, and I thank him for taking the time to write it down.
ps. lots of people are concerned about devices with closed-source software, especially after the infamous The Car With A Stuck Accelerator Is A Toyota accidents that have happened recently. ‘Drive-by-wire’ is something that has been causing many raised eyebrows recently :-) Furthermore, your ‘no-one argues’ comment is essentially a category error. Car firmware is under scrutiny because a) it makes life much harder for motor mechanics, who absolutely do complain about this shit all the time, and b) getting it wrong can be fatal. On the other hand – find me a toaster that costs $500 and is sold as an educational aid and I will concede that this part of your post is relevant to the plot.
Pragmatically, the answer is for institutions to wait and see, and not to sign anything or go all early adopter – but you know what? They won’t necessarily think about all these issues unless someone like Cory writes about them. They’re busy people, and responsible for many things, and have a lot to think about, which is why someone else – like say Cory or the Open Rights Group – needs to take some responsibility for pointing this stuff out. It may sound like politics and it may sound invasive to say ‘I don’t think you should buy an iPad’, but it does have the advantage of being entirely true.
i am planning to buy an iPad since it looks lighter than a regular desknote and i don not use much of the features of a laptop.’-`