I would like to share a vision with, a
vision that clearly displays the distance between the computer industry and its
undisputable leader. Nowadays, when you walk into a multi-brand computer store,
you’ll find technology that is so alike it seems difficult to trace back its
development from the time it reached the market. If one has spent some 5 years
with no contact with technology whatsoever, only now would they see touchscreen
telephones, tablets that answer to single taps and computers so small that can
be used as Ginsu Knives (literally!). What’s that, you say… tablets? This is a
whole new segment that is so young and already born on the edge of simplicity!
Steve
Jobs
Five years ago, when we talked about
revolutionary concepts and technology, we were referring to changes that would
take decades to come true. Mostly, we talked about technology that was already
in use, only developed, nothing so astounding. These last years have seen a
change in concepts that have paved the way for an unthinkable phenomenon in the
computing world.
The
vision I would like to share is the challenge of developing a device even
simpler and smaller than an iPhone, an iPod Touch, an iPod Nano or an iPad.
The vision I would like to share is the
challenge of developing a device even simpler and smaller than an iPhone, an
iPod Touch, an iPod Nano or an iPad. How can one eliminate another button when
there’s only one button to begin with? How can one build a thinner-than-3-mm
computer? What can be even simpler than a glass screen? Apple is on its way to
reaching the point of optimal reduction regarding both size and simplicity.
This invisible boundary should be celebrated as the end of our technological
teenagehood and the beginning or our adulthood.
You can lift your iPhone with your
fingertips and it’s really hard to miss a button, for three are no options
other than that central one.
Who
wouldn’t love to have an iPod Nano with a one-icon screen and thin as a sheet
of paper?
We’re approaching the time when Apple will
announce, is one of its famous keynote speeches, that it has added a few
millimeters to the iPhone, due to customer demand, or that it has introduced an
innovative way to pick up your iPad generation 07 should it be turned upside
down. I can only imagine the answer from Technical Assistance:
‘Sorry, sir, we cannot send a technician
to your home to lift your iPad from the ground. Didn’t you read the warning
never to let its screen face down?’
Who wouldn’t love to have an iPod Nano with
a one-icon screen and thin as a sheet of paper? Apple and its competition now
enjoy a never before seen freedom: the freedom to develop bigger and more
comfortable devices. The quest for ‘less’ or ‘smaller’ has ended. Let it be
clear that we’re not talking about graphic interface or software. Actually,
that’s where the complexity lies, in dozens of resources, buttons, gestures and
all that can become a virtual task in our devices. We shall discuss this on
another occasion.
The truth for Apple products industrial
design, developed by Sir Johathan Ive, is that their final frontier has almost
been reached. Mission accomplished. Beyond that, there’s only new technology
never before used in industrial scale or even outside the sci-fi realm, such as
folding screens, holograms or teletransportation. It’s like seeing the world
through glass and metal, beyond its basic elegance. This will surely be Ive’s
greatest challenge.
We’ve just touched Alice’s looking glass.
