Stuff White People Hate #4 - I.T. that makes them look dumb (iPad redux)

There was an article by Cory Doctorow on Boing Boing about why he wouldn't buy an iPad:

I believe — really believe — in the stirring words of the Maker Manifesto: if you can’t open it, you don’t own it. Screws not glue. The original Apple ][+ came with schematics for the circuit boards, and birthed a generation of hardware and software hackers who upended the world for the better. If you wanted your kid to grow up to be a confident, entrepreneurial, and firmly in the camp that believes that you should forever be rearranging the world to make it better, you bought her an Apple II +.

In essence the argument is that by locking it down and being unable to tinker, this iPad device is letting the next generation of wannabe geeks down.

The response on Daring Fireball is something like "This is the Way now, get over it":

Such is the march of progress. 40 years ago you could open the hood of your car and see and touch just about every component in there. And you had to, because many of those components required frequent maintenance. To properly own a car required, to some degree, that you understood how a car worked. Today, you open the hood of your car and you see a big sealed block and a basin for the windshield washer fluid. You can buy a new car, drive it for years, and never once open the hood yourself.

That’s the iPad.

My own take on this is that they are both right, and wrong.

Firstly, the iPad is not the sort of device that will help the next generation of tinkerers. But this generation of tinkerers are not tinkering with the iPad and most other Apple stuff anyway. On the PC front they are mainly playing with WinTel devices, overclocking them, building their own gaming machines etc etc. They are also tinkering with mobile devices and mobile applications. To the extent that the iPad allows apps they will tinker with it, but thats it. Geeks love Android for that reason.

Secondly, the iPad demographic - in fact all of Apple's recent product's demographic - are not "real" geeks. Apple stuff is aimed at faux-geeks - the sort of people sent up so well in the "Stuff White People Like" blog:

Plain and simple, white people don’t just like Apple, they love and need Apple to operate.

On the surface, you would ask yourself, how is that white people love a multi-billion dollar company with manufacturing plants in China, mass production, and that contributes to global pollution through the manufacture of consumer electronic devices?

Simple answer: Apple products tell the world you are creative and unique. They are an exclusive product line only used by every white college student, designer, writer, English teacher, and hipster on the planet.

You see, you don't actually need to be very geeky to operate Apple stuff. By locking it all up you can't f*ck with it:

When you ask white people about Mac’s they will say “oh, it’s so much better than Windows,” “it’s just easier to use,” “they are so cutting edge,” and so forth. What’s amazing is that white people NEED to meet people who use Windows to justify themselves spending an extra $500 for a pretty looking machine.

It is also important that white people are reminded of their creativity, and remember you need a Mac to creatively check email, creatively check websites, and creatively watch DVDs on planes.

An Apple device will by and large not embarrass you in public by requiring you to know how to dig into it and make it work. And for a mainstream adoption market this is essential for business success, and Apple does a brilliant job of selling to the (high margin) upper middle classes who want to feel that they are tres geeky.

But don't be fooled into thinking this is where today's real geeks are to be found, they will be wherever you can open stuff up and tinker with it....

As to the iPad taking off outside the fanboi/tech journo/road warrior market, we are yet to be convinced that its ergonomics work but its still very early days.

By the way, it has come to my notice that some Apple owners may be grumpy with me for the above, to which I must add that (i) Yes, I have an iPhone, and thus can creativley check my emails and (ii) White People Love to Be Offended

Update - Fake Steve Jobs does almost good a job as me on taking the p*ss on iPad Hype :

Indeed, even those of you are lining up and standing outside stores may be wondering, Why am I doing this? Why am I lining up like a zombie for an expensive piece of consumer electronics, a product for which there is no shortage and which, let’s face it, nobody really needs? Back in the early days of our design process, Jonny Ive came in to see me and we spent a long time trying to decide where on Mazlow’s triangle this product would sit. Because we knew if we couldn’t be way up above the very top of that pyramid, floating above it, totally outside the needs it describes, then this wouldn’t be a product we wanted to make. Some of our early iterations, in fact, had to be tossed out because when we looked at them we realized that parts of them were too, well, necessary. Don’t get me wrong. That’s fine for other companies. It’s just not what we do here at Apple.

....

The truth is, this is all about spiritual emptiness. That is why you’re standing in line. Except for Scoble, who is an attention whore and just doing it to get attention.

Price of iPad - $500. Value of the marvellous p*sstaking it is driving - Priceless