With the rise of the smartphone, the attendant hype has included some talk about the "ghettoization" of the internet--in the sense that "the internet" is defined as content snarfed from one or more web servers from a laptop or even horrifically retro desktop computer. Yet, as I read yet another "the reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated" article, titled The Fall of Wintel and the Rise of Armdroid, it occurred to me that the coming "ghettoization" may not be drawn along the lines of content producers vs. consumers as along content itself.
The distinction between playing a game on a small screen and everything that goes behind it (interface design, scaling data and processing over multiple servers and writing/testing/deploying all the code that makes that happen) is the distinction between the proverbial tip and the iceberg. (Even minus Kate and Leo and a whole lotta CGI). I hope we can agree on that.
Disclosure: I don't own a tablet or smartphone, per se. (Yet.) A netbook--with a keyboard that would have put Margaret Mitchell ("Gone with the Wind") on the sidelines well before Atlanta was toasted--yes. And I've certainly been accused of shallow thinking. And not just recently, nor without justification.
Which, I'll admit, makes it seem more than a little pretentious to swim against the tide of "conventional wisdom." ('Cuz when business writers predict long-term computing trends, it's totally like, "Gartner data-point. Your argument is invalid." 'Nuff said, right?) Even against the swaggering conventionality of dudes like Mr. Allsworth--who, so far as I can tell, think they're scooping the meteor from "Fantasia" just as the dinosaurs double-take the bright light in the sky like some chorus line of "Durrrr." Because we all know how sharply striated the mainframe-to-minicomputer-to-PC adoption was, yes?
Mockery aside, I think I can safely predict that we're living in a Golden Age of niches--perchance even a Cambrian explosion of computing life-forms. Simply because hardware is cheap, software alternatives range somewhere between "cheap" and "free" and tying together systems is not limited to dedicated telephone wires--owned, I might add, by a monopoly. Making the statistical likelihood of such one-or-the-other thinking rather on part with being struck by lightning during a shark attack.
No doubt 24/7 availability of fully networked computers responsive in a more three-dimensional sense will change the equation somewhat. But the fact remains that small screens with cramped user interfaces are geared to forms of content for which a desktop in which you can immerse yourself for twelve hours straight (thanks to three monitors, keyboard, mouse and who-knows-what-besides) are thermonuclear-scale overkill.
For instance: There's snapping a photo, cropping it, tagging it, uploading it--yea even with LOL-caption. There's firing off the multi-person SMS message otherwise known as a tweet--or even skinny post. Stupid-simple, and as close to "free" (in terms of time and money) as possible for both the creator and the recipient. Then there's the longer-term commitment of content on the level of, say, "Avatar" or "Inception" Even bootlegged copies carry the cost of going on two hours of time. (And, in an economy where too many work more hours for less compensation, don't ever make the mistake of discounting the value of "idle" time!)
Seriously now...will the next Lady Gaga video be mixed on an iPad as facilely a throwaway iApp can make caricatures of your photos? Me, I'm thinking not. And not only from the standpoint of raw computing power--something that typically comes in inverse proportions to the prized battery life of such devices. A multi-screened Mac, fully accessorized, by contrast, will capture the nuances that dumbed-down resolutions and tinny, cheap earbuds will not. All the difference in the world between a handful of Facebook friends and millions of "L'il Monsters," in other words.
In short, content is not created equal. Either in the creation or the consumption, I might add. And never will be. Just like sometimes you can get by with the "fun-size" Snickers bar you poached from the communal candy jar--the calories don't count if you pitch the wrapper in your cube-mate's waste-basket. Honest--I read it in "Scientific American." But at other times nothing short of the infamous seventeen layer "death by chocolate" volcano cheesecake torte from the local Tchotchke's will do.
Or something like that.
