Multitasking is overrated
I’m often intrigued by people complaining about the lack of multi-tasking on devices like the iPhone and new iPad. Frequently these rants include more than one mis-spelled word. Since the rants were almost always written on devices that – at the very least – permit the author to check the spelling of his work while working on a document, it suggests to me that these believers in the value of doing two things at once aren’t actually that good at doing one.
We’ve become a society of multi-taskers. New laws in European countries and many US states are aimed at restricting, and in some cases outright banning, of the use of text-messaging devices while driving. (As an aside, I notice an exemption from most such US regs. for law enforcement officers. Is this really necessary?)
From the standpoint of the Apple devices (iPhone, iPad) the complaints are not strictly true. You can do two things at once: You can listen to iTunes music (or podcasts, audiobooks, etc.) while using most other applications – although obviously, applications that make extensive use of sound are probably not a good idea.
Doesn’t this limited-multitaking model actually mimic what works best in the real world? I think most people can safely drive a car (in most circumstances) while listening to the car’s stero. Its when we try and perform other, more mentally demanding, tasks while driving that we run into trouble.
One complaint I read came a day after the annual State of the Union speech. The commenter complained that with the Apple devices, he would be unable to upload to his Twitter account while simultaneously watching feeds on his iPad/iPhone. Its going to take an awful lot to convince me that this is a bad thing.
Technology and Media 
Please be quiet
Main Entry: 1ya·hoo
1 capitalized : a member of a race of brutes in Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels who have the form and all the vices of humans
2 [influenced by 2yahoo] : a boorish, crass, or stupid person
— ya·hoo·ism \-ˌi-zəm\ noun
Yesterday, Apple announced the (long-awaited, almost mythological) iPad portable media device.
And was promptly greeted with an almost deafening cacophany of scorn and derision from the vast majority of online “commenters.”
Now, by “commenter” I do not speak of people who are actually paid to review technology products. The David Pogues and Jesus Diaz’s of the world. People with some actual writing skill and training. I’m talking about the vast army of unpaid cretins who think that the world is just dying to hear their particular take on a product they’ve never actually seen in person, nor laid a hand upon.
These geniuses tell us what an awful product the iPad is. It doesn’t have a camera. (It doesn’t have TWO cameras!) It doesn’t support flash. It doesn’t multitask. Its only going to be bought by those too dull-witted to be running Linux on their self-built $250 netbook. I see the word “sheeple” used a lot: As if anyone who buys an Apple product is so gullible that they can be gulled into buying whatever Steve Jobs and apple come up with.
To which I would say: Please, just shut up.
There are two sets of people with skill sets I’m interested in hearing from: People with the technical knowledge and resources to actually create things like the iPad. And people with the writing skills to objectively analyze and describe them. The vast majority of “commenters” on blogs, technology columns, websites, etc. simply use the space provided to them to pour out whatever ridiculous prejudices and agendas that happen to be floating around their empty heads.
The problem with virtually all online “comments” is that the people making the comments bear no responsibility for what they write. If David Pogue makes a wild, unsubstantiated claim that is later proven to be fundamentally wrong – then he will pay the price. His credibility, and hence his livliehood, will suffer. And as a result, he has a built-in incentive to be objective in his writing.
Geeks
Internet Comments
iPad
Technology
Yahoos