Mac and the End of an Era

by: Conrad Gempf

One of my favourite early Internet stories is the one where the "wired" church vicar found himself in a detailed personal conversation with someone he'd never met in real life. He decided he should let his correspondent know that he was a clergyman. So he typed "I'm wearing a 'dog collar' right now." To his great surprise, the reply came: "that's funny, so am I!" Except that the second dog collar was a literal one - leather with spikes - around the throat of a motorcycle gang member! It hit him hard when he realized just how unlikely it was that this conversation between two people with zero in common could ever have taken place in "meatspace."

He later used this story in his role as an evangelist for the Internet, arguing that the net would increasingly break down the conventional barriers between people - the old "on the internet, no one knows you're a dog" routine. He envisioned a utopian future in which everyone talked to everyone, and everyone listened.

But, of course that's not going to be the case.

In the early days of automobiles, if you were out for a drive and you saw a fellow motorist bending over his machine, goggles pushed over his head and tools in his hands, you would stop and help. When automobiles were for hobbyists only, then even two people who had nothing else in common had that hobby in common. Nowadays, when everyone has a car, you don't stop and help someone who has broken down unless you have something else in common.

It's the same with computers and the Internet. Whatever the state of your dogcollar, if you used high tech gadgetry to connect you to the Internet, you had something in common with other people who did the same. When everyone has a Internetted computer, you'll only talk to people you already know or people with whom you have something else in common.

The computer and the Internet are, as you're reading this, turning from high tech hobby to an accepted part of life. And I don't know whether to be happy or sad. No computer makes the transition as obvious as the iMac and its success among first-time computer buyers. The computer is finally being consumerized (which is what Steve Jobs intended with the first Mac back in 1984). Just after the iMac launch, the news agencies ran a story about a professional woman who went into a CompUSA shop with no intention of buying a Mac, and who came out with an iMac. When interviewed she said something like "Any computer I can buy is faster than I can keep up with, so why not buy the one that you like best?"

I love the iMac, but I shudder to think what will happen when companies with less concern for quality start translucentizing. Like the automobile industry before it, the computer industry has moved, with the iMac, from an age of technical innovation to an age where the stats and speed matter less than the image and experience. The metaphorical V8 engine is still mentioned, but the real selling points are the upholstery and the "smooth ride" and the size of the tail fins. Heaven help us!

Dr Conrad Gempf lectures in London and has had articles and product reviews published in such print magazines as *MacUser UK*, *MacTimes* and *Program Now*. He is webmaster of and regular contributor to the online webzine 'Pages for You' at http://www.londonbiblecollege.ac.uk/

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February 09, 2010