Photo by Brinkie (Wikipedia)
Back in the early 1980s — or maybe it was even the late 1970s — there was a short, speculative piece in Omni magazine on a future computer, just a few paragraphs long, or even one. The computer would be a portable, small device that you could carry around with you. The picture that accompanied it was nothing more than a black, rectangular slab. I can’t remember all the things that the writer speculated it would do, other than everything, with the keyboard being a touch-sensitive affair that was part of the slab. It was so logical that such a thing would come to be, eventually — one device that did everything, portable and durable. This was at a time when personal computers were still new and nothing was mobile, wireless, or compact.
Not a new concept, certainly, but ever since then I’ve wanted one, been anticipating one. Now, with the announcement recently from Apple, it looks like we’re getting very close. It still doesn’t do everything — add a video phone so that you can hold it in front of you and talk to your friend, then it will have everything — but it’s close. And you can’t go wrong with a rectangular slab, not if you want to live in science fiction. (And look how 2001: A Space Odyssey just so happens to depict a portable device).
2001: A Space Odyssey (Wikipedia)
The screen of this thing just announced doesn’t seem conducive to long-term reading of a book, but it still bodes well for short fiction, doesn’t it? This holds exciting possibilities for science fiction and fantasy magazines, no? And the magazine industry in general? Large screen and in color, with the chance to add illustrations and photographs, with a simulation of the reading experience because with the swipe of a finger you actually see the page turning (and when watching the demonstration video, when a corner of a map is lifted to adjust some settings revealed underneath, I gasped).
I’m going to get one. I don’t care if I don’t need everything it does and if it doesn’t do everything. I want to walk around with that little black slab in my hand, closer to the dream than the Kindle, iPhone or any of the others. I want to walk, as they say in Max Headroom, 20 minutes into the future.
Oh, and I also want an iPad. Too bad they got the name wrong.
I wanted a Nook because of Stephenson’s The Diamond Age (the e-ink part of the device was kinda essential for me; I can delude myself that it has less environmental impact, but also it’s much easier on the eyes).
Yeah, I’d also want e-ink because of the eye strain factor. I don’t have any of these yet.
Rumors are that the iPad will have a camera in its next generation. I’m also thinking of the device in “Earth: Final Conflict,” which you opened up like unrolling a scroll to reveal a flexible screen that was a videophone. (Cool device; not-so-great show.) Word is that flexible e-ink screens, and color ones, are coming — flexible not so much that you can roll it up but so that they are lighter in weight. (I just read about these on Wired’s Gadgetlab site.)
I don’t suppose we’ll actually get an all-in-one device anytime soon. That will cut out a company’s other product lines. Plus, different options for different users. I have an iPod nano that has an FM radio and a video camera, but can’t take still photos. No FM radio in the iPad, the iPhone _can_ take stills, etc.
Did you get the Nook? Do you like it?