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In certain ways, this "post-PC" era that Apple's brought us into with the iPad seems like a step backward. We're going back to something more like the broadcast

In certain ways, this "post-PC" era that Apple's brought us into with the iPad seems like a step backward. We're going back to something more like the broadcast television model, where a more or less centralized authority produces the content for passive users to consume. These tablets just keep getting more and more optimized for that. I suppose it's somewhat natural, given the way the market works, but it seems our tools for consumption are advancing at a significantly greater rate than our tools for production. I guess the opposing side is the Web. Amazon seems to be shaping up to be solidly on the side of the centralized authority-type cathedral builders, while the Web and Web technologies are more bazaar-like. It seems more and more like Google is the only powerful singular force whose incentives align with the Web instead of with more centralized production hubs.

ugh 15y ago
Whut? I just happily browsed the web, listened to podcasts, checked my RSS feeds and flicked through my Twitter stream for six hours during a train ride on my iPad. All tasks for which the iPad – or more general the tablet form factor – is ideal. I think your argument is incoherent.
- abstractbill 15y ago
  All the things you just listed are forms of consumption, not production. The argument seems coherent enough to me. I'm not entirely convinced about the "centralized authority" part, but the "tools for consumption advancing faster than tools for production" seems true (and inevitable).
  - ugh 15y ago
    Improving consumption doesn’t imply much about creation. So what if consumption is easier? Does that mean less people will create something? Why? Creating something doesn’t get harder because consumption gets easier. I don’t see the causal connection. (That central authority bullshit is just patent nonsense.) Oh, and our tools for creation still are rapidly improving. Prices for computers have gone nothing but down. People are today able to buy a great PC and a tablet for the same price of a PC ten years ago. Software has become hugely more accessible, hardware has become so much more capable. Creating stuff was never – never – as easy as it is today. We are living in a golden age of content creation and in a golden of content consumption. Tablets will help with that, not hinder.
    - orangecat 15y ago
      Creating something doesn’t get harder because consumption gets easier. You're absolutely right that there's no necessary dichotomy, but in practice that's what's happening. The iPad could be an awesome platform for a Squeak-like development environment where you create and program a bunch of objects and have them interact with each other. But Apple won't allow such an app in their store which makes it unavailable to the large majority of users, and if they had their way jailbreaking your iPad to run it would be a federal crime. Oh, and our tools for creation still are rapidly improving. Prices for computers have gone nothing but down. People are today able to buy a great PC and a tablet for the same price of a PC ten years ago. That's true, today. But if tablets replace PCs for most people as many are predicting, PC prices will go up substantially: partly due to reduced economies of scale, and partly because reducing the market to professionals and geeks will allow more price discrimination.
      - ugh 15y ago
        Apple is not the only company in the world. Tablets will improve. You predictions of doom are way overblown.
      - griftah 15y ago
        Programming is not a content creation.
        Karunamon 15y ago
        The hell it isn't.
- rryan 15y ago
  You seem to have misunderstood. joebadmo was saying that the post-PC era seems to be more about content consumption than content production. You responded in the negative by saying you spent 6 hours consuming content, which doesn't make much sense because that would be anecdotal evidence in favor of joebadmo's argument.
  - ugh 15y ago
    We're going back to something more like the broadcast television model, where a more or less centralized authority produces the content for passive users to consume. That’s the sentence I was responding to. Central authority bullshit and all.
- joebadmo 15y ago
  You just listed four activites that are consumptive in nature. What was the last thing you produced on your iPad? Not just that, but even the way you use it is not the optimized-for case, I think. Apple wants to optimize you buying music, movies, books, etc. through iTunes and iBooks. Amazon is continuing this trend. Yes, the post-PC devices will continue to allow you to participate in the Web, necessarily, but they will privilege consumption over production, and centralized broadcast models over decentralized peer-to-peer ones. Because that's where the money is. In contrast, the native Web on PCs is more read-write by nature. And Web technologies are making production increasingly easier.
  - ugh 15y ago
    Yes, I do that stuff. I have always done it. I now do it on a more appropriate device. It’s consumption and it’s fun. Not something to scoff at. (Mine was more a response to the central authority bullshit which is obvious nonsense.) It doesn’t matter what I did or did not produce with the iPad. Computers are cheap, software is cheap, creation was never as easy as it is today. We are living in a golden age of content creation but content creation is not for everyone. So what.
    - joebadmo 15y ago
      Creation is much easier today, it's true. And for a while, it looked like the old model of a few rich broadcasting/production companies making things for the rest of us to sit at home and passivel consume was going away, replaced by a model where we all have the means to produce better and better stuff, where merit, originality, expressiveness, communication were rewarded more than the means to invest the necessary capital. It looked like livejournal, flickr, deviantart - the blogging revolution - was empowering a generation to turn off the television and engage in an active, participatory way in a global conversation. Not that passive consumption is inherently evil. I just was imagining a world where the power of creation is more evenly distributed. I'm a little sad to see that trend start to reverse. I agree that creation isn't for everyone. But the available tools have an effect. They encourage or discourage in subtle ways. The iPad's software keyboard imposes just a slight amount of friction on inputting text. That has an effect. It matters, to some however small degree, and it aggregates with every other way that Apple optimizes consumption over production. On centralized authority: again, the way you are consuming content is not the case Apple is optimizing for. They have allowed it, but their most sanctioned way is for you to buy content from their partners through their distribution channels. It's not a complete restriction, but an optimization of a certain model through UI. TFA's description of the new Kindle seems to follow, and, indeed, to go farther down this path. Meta: Not that I'm particularly offended, but why take such an abrasive tone? "Central authority bullshit," "obvious nonsense"? Do you simply not consider it a possibility that you didn't fully understand what I was trying to say, either because I communicated it poorly or because it doesn't align with your preconceived notions? I'm actually quite happy to be having this discussion, as it's one I've tried to have many times, but never got much uptake. But, why start with such a dismissive tone? I've seen so many threads start with mild, mutual abrasiveness and spiral quickly into full-out flamewar. Why take a step down that path? Is it so hard to be overtly civil? Honest question.
- peterbraden 15y ago
  I think your reply exemplifies his argument - you used an ipod to 'consume' media for si hours, rather than creating, which older computers may have been better suited for.
  - ugh 15y ago
    Wha? If I want to create I can. It’s never been as easy as today. You are creating a false dichotomy. The content I was consuming on my iPad – and that was my point – did not come from a central authority (no more than before when I consumed on my Laptop) and it’s enabled by the cheap tools available for content creation today. I was listening to one awesome podcast by a guy who made podcasting his job and survives (extremely successfully) from donations alone. I was browsing awesome webcomics from people who would never had a chance to make their comics accessible to as many people as they can today. I was reading awesome Harry Potter fan fiction and tales from a lawyer doing his job. All not possible only a decade (maybe two in some cases) ago. We are living in a golden ago of content creation. To be worried about tablets in that context is – sorry – crazy.
    - varunsrin 15y ago
      Was the podcast created by a guy on a iPad? How about the webcomic, do you think it was done in the iPad / Android version photoshop? Was the HP fan fiction typed on a tablet keyboard? The point the OP is trying to make is not that tablets discourage production of content at a higher level. It's that companies are spending a lot of money improving consumption device /software , instead of creative devices/software It's that there is more money is creating consumption devices, and most of the R&D is going into creating better and better consumption devices, with less focus on creation better tools for production. This is however a natural state of the free market - creating consumer-oriented consumption devices is suddenly a lot more profitable than creating devices targeted and production of content, and therefore that is where we are seeing the most innovation/investment right now.
      - ugh 15y ago
        No it wasn’t. The iPad is the wrong tool for creating that stuff. But it is awesome for consumption. Argh. This is sooooo frustrating. Why does everyone believe that it’s either the iPad or nothing? That just doesn’t make any sense at all. I don’t get it.
beaumartinez 15y ago
> our tools for consumption are advancing at a significantly greater rate than our tools for production Our tools for production have advanced as far as they can—what major changes have the desktop and laptop PC had over the last five years?
- chc 15y ago
  There are countless times over the past several thousand years when you could have said that, but our tools for production have managed to get a bit better since 2000 BC.
- zinkem 15y ago
  Production isn't limited to what you can and can't do with a desktop PC... I think what OP is suggesting is that we should be using computers to help people actively build more stuff, as using them to aid in passive consumption of things others have made.
- joebadmo 15y ago
  That's part of my point. The R&D is going into optimizing consumption instead of enabling production. I think there's still room for making it easier for people to produce expressive content. I don't think I'm necessarily imaginative enough to think of many, or the best, but I've started to try.[0] I think some people, particularly those working on Web stuff, are also trying. But I think web software is only one vector. Other vectors include: hardware, operating systems, native applications. [0]: http://blog.byjoemoon.com/post/9325300749/a-different-kind-of-gui http://blog.byjoemoon.com/post/9325300749/a-different-kind-o...
  - niklas_a 15y ago
    I think it seems you have decided on this view and regardless of all the evidence of the contrary you are sticking with it..
  - 9999 15y ago
    In terms of desktop publishing you might be right, but I think we've seen amazing strides in the realms of audio and video production in the past ten years. It's now possible to buy cameras and audio recording gear for pennies on the dollar of what you used to pay for tools with similar capabilities. Meanwhile the software side of things has advanced just as rapidly... For example, I had to do some noise reduction on some audio recordings a couple of weeks ago and what used to take hours to do in early iterations of Protools now only takes a few clicks in Adobe's Audition (and probably in the latest version of protools too...). Photoshop, Illustrator, Flash... All of these tools have advanced considerably in the last few years, much less the last decade. Tablets have any number of interesting productivity software being developed for them (innovative word processors spring immediately to mind), but developers are severely limited by the hardware capabilities of those platforms... Obviously we won't see a full fledged version of Photoshop or Final Cut written for a tablet for many years to come, but I think we might see that eventually.
chc 15y ago
Can you explain how a tablet-form Kindle is more centralized and passive than one with physical keys? I don't follow.
- joebadmo 15y ago
  Not more than the old kindle, but more than the old model of computing, PCs with dedicated input.
  - Hawramani 15y ago
    To me things haven't really changed. The non-techy users never made good use of the freedoms of the PC-era, so to them their environment was just as restricted as the Kindle or iPad environment. As for the geeks, things haven't changed either. We find ways to open up the devices and get the freedoms we want.
    - joebadmo 15y ago
      I agree with you on the extreme ends of the spectrum. But there are plenty of people in the middle who can be encouraged in either direction by the way we construct our tools. I think the explosion of content on the web, or Web 2.0, is all the evidence you need.
      - chc 15y ago
        The iPad has also had an explosion of content. Why is that not all the evidence you need?
        joebadmo 15y ago
        Could you elaborate on that? Do you mean apps? Or some other kind of content? I'm not quite following what you mean.
        chc 15y ago
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jccodez 15y ago
This whole thread is a great discussion. Commenting so I can come back and read the replies. I agree with many points regarding content creation vs. content consumption and the lines drawn between the two. I do believe the tablet is a great consumption device and that is a major function in the consumer market as well as business (even more so for business based on my experience with my software)
- sgns 15y ago
  Yeah! What's easily missed too is that the 'free creativity and production for all' ethos on the web – all the good stuff that got us here! - so far largely missed out on financing for most of the traditional cultural sectors. Much of what is most highly valued in our cultures has been woefully underfinanced for our entire lives. The iPad/app model – positioned between all these previously-existing devices and media/content like books/mags/+ – at least makes a start for a venue, a potentially enormously widely available venue, for content producers where they can be discovered – consumed/networked and get paid for their work by a simply enormous audience. This is not necessarily at all a boon for central distribution in the sense of the old massmedia institutions! I'd say that Apple having a lock on it – to the extent that Apple IS the central distribution channel, even if Amazon's tablet is just around the corner! – is not as important as that they provide a relatively 'flat' market for distribution – as I perceive them to do right now. To my understanding, they're basically running their stores at break-even. With Amazon coming into the picture, it's about to become SO interesting – there will be so many different business models: sellers of Gadgets, Content and Ads! EDIT: typos
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spa942 15y ago
I don't buy the idea that tablets are getting more optimised for consumption. Just take a look at the app store to see the huge amount of music production software available, some of it replacing music $500+ hardware for $30. And even with its approval process, I find the app store a bad example of the cathedral model considering how all app makers are treated equally. Sure, you have to buy an external keyboard to write longer content on the new tablets, but if the post-PC era happens, I find it hard to believe that content creators will be stopped by that. Time will tell, of course.
OWaz 15y ago
If you don't mind would you elaborate on what type of content you meant when you said: "centralized authority produces the content for passive users to consume". When I think of content the first thing that comes to mind is stuff like image editing (Photoshop, LR3,Aperture etc) and video editing because those are two realms I spend my free time in. I didn't get what you meant by your statement so that's why I asked. And just to be clear I do believe that tablets are aimed at content consumption and not so much content creation, and I believe that to be a good thing. Why? Well people don't need a $2000 laptop to surf the web and check email.
- joebadmo 15y ago
  I was referring to big studios producing expensive movies, tv shows, albums, music videos, book, and magazines.
siglesias 15y ago
Two factors have led to the perception that tablets are "consumption" devices. 1) A tablet is a computer you can hold. Books and magazines have over time become optimized for holding (see size and weight) precisely due to the ergonomics of reading. Thus one would expect that tablets, which can store a vast number of books and magazines, would be "optimized" for such content. 2) Due to (1) it makes sense to trade power for battery life and thus iPad-era tablets use ARM processors. Word processors, music editors, video editors do exist for tablets and each has full privileges to have any interface it wants by assuming the full screen. Over time that software will get more powerful as these low-power processors advance. It can't be argued that iOS itself hinders content creation, but it can be argued that slow processors do. Time will take care of this. Also I don't see consumption--by which you mean reading--to be a bad thing to do with a computer. Amazon's stated purpose for the Kindle is to enable every book in every language ever printed to be available in under a minute. That's an extraordinary vision if you think about it, and we're getting there very quickly. Hardly a step backwards.
- joebadmo 15y ago
  You're right that it's certainly a step forward for consumption. What I meant is that it's a step backward for what I saw as the trend toward a world in which the power to create things is more evenly distributed. Don't get me wrong, I have a kindle, and I love it. But it's not just optimized for reading, it's optimized for reading content that's distributed through a centrally maintained distribution channel. (And while Amazon is trying to wrest control of that channel from the traditional publishers, it's a transfer of power from one central authority to another.) Which is why I appreciate tools like Readability's 'send to kindle' bookmarklet so much: it lets me read content from the bazaar more easily. But. Even then, I had to jump through hoops and the formatting isn't great. In short, it's not optimized. Furthermore, while on the web on a PC I can read a blog post and then immediately comment, share, or respond in a blog post of my own, on my kindle I can't do any of that. I have to put my own system in place to even remember to do it later. In other words, the Kindle optimizes my consumption experience at the expense of my production experience in a way that's sort of profound in a way that I acutely feel is a step backward.
  - 15y ago
nigham 15y ago
A step backward is hardly the way I'd put it. Consumption-related technology as well as production related technologies are improving dramatically; we perceive the pace of consumption technology as being faster because consumption technology is far more applicable, and affects more users, and so it's more on the news. This is not a problem, there have always been more readers than writers, movie watchers than movie producers, software users than software creators. There isn't too much discussion when there's a new version of Photoshop, or VIM, or Django, or Wordpress, or countless other technologies (e.g. http://www.asciiflow.com/ http://www.asciiflow.com/) and platforms that help with content creation. One reason I read HN is that these items usually make it here. It's easier to create content now than at any time in the past. How many people built software before iOS and Android? A few folks scattered across huge companies that either built consumer products or provided services for those companies. Today, iOS has half a million apps -- somebody produced them. Arguably the 'consumption-only' device that you think has taken us a step backward has given tens of thousands of people incentive to produce something. Amazon's vision is for authors to be able to self-publish without going through the hassle of publishers, giving more incentive for people to produce. Whereas making movies was once a task for multibillion dollar studios, Youtube has enabled something like the Khan Academy to start earning money by producing content. You cannot have better and better consumption oriented devices in a vacuum. Someone has to produce what the masses are consuming.
- estel 15y ago
  With respect to app development, which has been incredible in how widespread it's become, it's possible it's just an extension of what the Web started: incredible democratisation of creation.
  - sgns 15y ago
    Great point! Illustrates just how we're still living with the implications of just how the first extremely undemocratic reality of 'code as content' – first encapsulated in program devlopment, then going through a slight democratization route regarding computer usage through the Macintosh, and moving on through the html web – still is playing out. One can at least see that the path-to-market of content has been democratized with the web over time… and the App stores/'App paradigm' are also helpful in making it possible for more to program. I think a big part of our dilemmas have had to do with how isolated and abstract programming and development have been compared to mainstream society. A relative 'mainstreaming' of programming is still an incredible thought – yet it is happening right now! Whatever happens to our present jobs, I can't help but think that the infusion of new programming talent is about to create a new reality – a wave that could lift a great number of us – given appropriate channels for us all to contribute so much more than regular business logic programming - and us people practicing and getting ready to catch it! (over the top eh? :)
swlkr 15y ago
I totally agree with this.
blrgeek 15y ago
Think of the post-PC tablets as replacing TVs/books/browsers/iPods in time spent consuming content. Content consumption devices (aka radio, TV, books, mp3 players) have not had a significant advance in decades. The browser was the first new conduit that moved people away from these devices. These people used a PC, but merely as a content consumption device, NOT as a content creation device! Now tablets - which are mostly hardware for browsers, becoming more so with 'cloud' services - are becoming personal content consumption devices. As long as there's a browser, it's a window to the world of content - not just the central authority's content. For so long producers have wanted to have a powerful computing device in every hand. Now that day is closer!
HSO 15y ago
I'm growing more and more irritated by the classification of "reading" as "consumption". Consumption is usually defined as a sink of goods (as opposed to "investment" or "production"). Reading per se, however, does not result in anything vanishing from the system. It _can_ mean that but usually the ideas or perspectives contained in the book or article change the ideas or perspectives of the reader. Reading _can_ be pure consumption, for sure, but that describes a specific type of reading. One could argue that buying a physical copy and tossing it after you're done is the act of consumption. But then the consumption really concerns only the physical medium, not the content. Am I splitting hairs? I'm not sure, to be honest, but I feel the more people talk about reading as something "for passive users to consume", the more it narrows the industry perspective on what transmitting ideas between people means or could mean.
- astine 15y ago
  "Am I splitting hairs?" You are, but let me split them further. Any expense can be classified as either a capital expense or a consumptive one. Expenses classified as one can usually, with a few logical contortions, also be classified as the other. For example, food is the classical consumptive expense, but one could also treat it as an investment as food keeps one alive (and healthy hopefully) and allows one to work in the future. I think that the same can be said about reading here. If you buy a book, it's an expense, and if you read it, you've "consumed" it. Sure you can read it again or someone else can read it, but it's still a consumer good. I think what people mean here is that devices like this and the iPad are not generally geared to the production of works and more to their consumption. What I mean is, while reading a book on the Amazon Kindle might be an investment in your own mind and future, the Kindle doesn't enable one to author his own books. The web however, does enable one to put up his own webpage or blog (if you can figure it out.) I think this is what people are talking about here. It has to do with our place in the economics of the thing.
_debug_ 15y ago
Apple has not brought us anywhere in particular : people have always been that passive. The iPad's popularity is because of the lack of a keyboard for these 95% of the population. For folks like you and me, it is despite the lack of a keyboard.

ugh 15y ago

Whut? I just happily browsed the web, listened to podcasts, checked my RSS feeds and flicked through my Twitter stream for six hours during a train ride on my iPad. All tasks for which the iPad – or more general the tablet form factor – is ideal. I think your argument is incoherent.

abstractbill 15y ago
All the things you just listed are forms of consumption, not production. The argument seems coherent enough to me. I'm not entirely convinced about the "centralized authority" part, but the "tools for consumption advancing faster than tools for production" seems true (and inevitable).
- ugh 15y ago
  Improving consumption doesn’t imply much about creation. So what if consumption is easier? Does that mean less people will create something? Why? Creating something doesn’t get harder because consumption gets easier. I don’t see the causal connection. (That central authority bullshit is just patent nonsense.) Oh, and our tools for creation still are rapidly improving. Prices for computers have gone nothing but down. People are today able to buy a great PC and a tablet for the same price of a PC ten years ago. Software has become hugely more accessible, hardware has become so much more capable. Creating stuff was never – never – as easy as it is today. We are living in a golden age of content creation and in a golden of content consumption. Tablets will help with that, not hinder.
  - orangecat 15y ago
    Creating something doesn’t get harder because consumption gets easier. You're absolutely right that there's no necessary dichotomy, but in practice that's what's happening. The iPad could be an awesome platform for a Squeak-like development environment where you create and program a bunch of objects and have them interact with each other. But Apple won't allow such an app in their store which makes it unavailable to the large majority of users, and if they had their way jailbreaking your iPad to run it would be a federal crime. Oh, and our tools for creation still are rapidly improving. Prices for computers have gone nothing but down. People are today able to buy a great PC and a tablet for the same price of a PC ten years ago. That's true, today. But if tablets replace PCs for most people as many are predicting, PC prices will go up substantially: partly due to reduced economies of scale, and partly because reducing the market to professionals and geeks will allow more price discrimination.
    - ugh 15y ago
      Apple is not the only company in the world. Tablets will improve. You predictions of doom are way overblown.
    - griftah 15y ago
      Programming is not a content creation.
      - Karunamon 15y ago
        The hell it isn't.
rryan 15y ago
You seem to have misunderstood. joebadmo was saying that the post-PC era seems to be more about content consumption than content production. You responded in the negative by saying you spent 6 hours consuming content, which doesn't make much sense because that would be anecdotal evidence in favor of joebadmo's argument.
- ugh 15y ago
  We're going back to something more like the broadcast television model, where a more or less centralized authority produces the content for passive users to consume. That’s the sentence I was responding to. Central authority bullshit and all.
joebadmo 15y ago
You just listed four activites that are consumptive in nature. What was the last thing you produced on your iPad? Not just that, but even the way you use it is not the optimized-for case, I think. Apple wants to optimize you buying music, movies, books, etc. through iTunes and iBooks. Amazon is continuing this trend. Yes, the post-PC devices will continue to allow you to participate in the Web, necessarily, but they will privilege consumption over production, and centralized broadcast models over decentralized peer-to-peer ones. Because that's where the money is. In contrast, the native Web on PCs is more read-write by nature. And Web technologies are making production increasingly easier.
- ugh 15y ago
  Yes, I do that stuff. I have always done it. I now do it on a more appropriate device. It’s consumption and it’s fun. Not something to scoff at. (Mine was more a response to the central authority bullshit which is obvious nonsense.) It doesn’t matter what I did or did not produce with the iPad. Computers are cheap, software is cheap, creation was never as easy as it is today. We are living in a golden age of content creation but content creation is not for everyone. So what.
  - joebadmo 15y ago
    Creation is much easier today, it's true. And for a while, it looked like the old model of a few rich broadcasting/production companies making things for the rest of us to sit at home and passivel consume was going away, replaced by a model where we all have the means to produce better and better stuff, where merit, originality, expressiveness, communication were rewarded more than the means to invest the necessary capital. It looked like livejournal, flickr, deviantart - the blogging revolution - was empowering a generation to turn off the television and engage in an active, participatory way in a global conversation. Not that passive consumption is inherently evil. I just was imagining a world where the power of creation is more evenly distributed. I'm a little sad to see that trend start to reverse. I agree that creation isn't for everyone. But the available tools have an effect. They encourage or discourage in subtle ways. The iPad's software keyboard imposes just a slight amount of friction on inputting text. That has an effect. It matters, to some however small degree, and it aggregates with every other way that Apple optimizes consumption over production. On centralized authority: again, the way you are consuming content is not the case Apple is optimizing for. They have allowed it, but their most sanctioned way is for you to buy content from their partners through their distribution channels. It's not a complete restriction, but an optimization of a certain model through UI. TFA's description of the new Kindle seems to follow, and, indeed, to go farther down this path. Meta: Not that I'm particularly offended, but why take such an abrasive tone? "Central authority bullshit," "obvious nonsense"? Do you simply not consider it a possibility that you didn't fully understand what I was trying to say, either because I communicated it poorly or because it doesn't align with your preconceived notions? I'm actually quite happy to be having this discussion, as it's one I've tried to have many times, but never got much uptake. But, why start with such a dismissive tone? I've seen so many threads start with mild, mutual abrasiveness and spiral quickly into full-out flamewar. Why take a step down that path? Is it so hard to be overtly civil? Honest question.
peterbraden 15y ago
I think your reply exemplifies his argument - you used an ipod to 'consume' media for si hours, rather than creating, which older computers may have been better suited for.
- ugh 15y ago
  Wha? If I want to create I can. It’s never been as easy as today. You are creating a false dichotomy. The content I was consuming on my iPad – and that was my point – did not come from a central authority (no more than before when I consumed on my Laptop) and it’s enabled by the cheap tools available for content creation today. I was listening to one awesome podcast by a guy who made podcasting his job and survives (extremely successfully) from donations alone. I was browsing awesome webcomics from people who would never had a chance to make their comics accessible to as many people as they can today. I was reading awesome Harry Potter fan fiction and tales from a lawyer doing his job. All not possible only a decade (maybe two in some cases) ago. We are living in a golden ago of content creation. To be worried about tablets in that context is – sorry – crazy.
  - varunsrin 15y ago
    Was the podcast created by a guy on a iPad? How about the webcomic, do you think it was done in the iPad / Android version photoshop? Was the HP fan fiction typed on a tablet keyboard? The point the OP is trying to make is not that tablets discourage production of content at a higher level. It's that companies are spending a lot of money improving consumption device /software , instead of creative devices/software It's that there is more money is creating consumption devices, and most of the R&D is going into creating better and better consumption devices, with less focus on creation better tools for production. This is however a natural state of the free market - creating consumer-oriented consumption devices is suddenly a lot more profitable than creating devices targeted and production of content, and therefore that is where we are seeing the most innovation/investment right now.
    - ugh 15y ago
      No it wasn’t. The iPad is the wrong tool for creating that stuff. But it is awesome for consumption. Argh. This is sooooo frustrating. Why does everyone believe that it’s either the iPad or nothing? That just doesn’t make any sense at all. I don’t get it.

beaumartinez 15y ago

> our tools for consumption are advancing at a significantly greater rate than our tools for production Our tools for production have advanced as far as they can—what major changes have the desktop and laptop PC had over the last five years?

chc 15y ago
There are countless times over the past several thousand years when you could have said that, but our tools for production have managed to get a bit better since 2000 BC.
zinkem 15y ago
Production isn't limited to what you can and can't do with a desktop PC... I think what OP is suggesting is that we should be using computers to help people actively build more stuff, as using them to aid in passive consumption of things others have made.
joebadmo 15y ago
That's part of my point. The R&D is going into optimizing consumption instead of enabling production. I think there's still room for making it easier for people to produce expressive content. I don't think I'm necessarily imaginative enough to think of many, or the best, but I've started to try.[0] I think some people, particularly those working on Web stuff, are also trying. But I think web software is only one vector. Other vectors include: hardware, operating systems, native applications. [0]: http://blog.byjoemoon.com/post/9325300749/a-different-kind-of-gui http://blog.byjoemoon.com/post/9325300749/a-different-kind-o...
- niklas_a 15y ago
  I think it seems you have decided on this view and regardless of all the evidence of the contrary you are sticking with it..
- 9999 15y ago
  In terms of desktop publishing you might be right, but I think we've seen amazing strides in the realms of audio and video production in the past ten years. It's now possible to buy cameras and audio recording gear for pennies on the dollar of what you used to pay for tools with similar capabilities. Meanwhile the software side of things has advanced just as rapidly... For example, I had to do some noise reduction on some audio recordings a couple of weeks ago and what used to take hours to do in early iterations of Protools now only takes a few clicks in Adobe's Audition (and probably in the latest version of protools too...). Photoshop, Illustrator, Flash... All of these tools have advanced considerably in the last few years, much less the last decade. Tablets have any number of interesting productivity software being developed for them (innovative word processors spring immediately to mind), but developers are severely limited by the hardware capabilities of those platforms... Obviously we won't see a full fledged version of Photoshop or Final Cut written for a tablet for many years to come, but I think we might see that eventually.

chc 15y ago

Can you explain how a tablet-form Kindle is more centralized and passive than one with physical keys? I don't follow.

joebadmo 15y ago
Not more than the old kindle, but more than the old model of computing, PCs with dedicated input.
- Hawramani 15y ago
  To me things haven't really changed. The non-techy users never made good use of the freedoms of the PC-era, so to them their environment was just as restricted as the Kindle or iPad environment. As for the geeks, things haven't changed either. We find ways to open up the devices and get the freedoms we want.
  - joebadmo 15y ago
    I agree with you on the extreme ends of the spectrum. But there are plenty of people in the middle who can be encouraged in either direction by the way we construct our tools. I think the explosion of content on the web, or Web 2.0, is all the evidence you need.
    - chc 15y ago
      The iPad has also had an explosion of content. Why is that not all the evidence you need?
      - joebadmo 15y ago
        Could you elaborate on that? Do you mean apps? Or some other kind of content? I'm not quite following what you mean.
        chc 15y ago

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jccodez 15y ago

This whole thread is a great discussion. Commenting so I can come back and read the replies. I agree with many points regarding content creation vs. content consumption and the lines drawn between the two. I do believe the tablet is a great consumption device and that is a major function in the consumer market as well as business (even more so for business based on my experience with my software)

sgns 15y ago
Yeah! What's easily missed too is that the 'free creativity and production for all' ethos on the web – all the good stuff that got us here! - so far largely missed out on financing for most of the traditional cultural sectors. Much of what is most highly valued in our cultures has been woefully underfinanced for our entire lives. The iPad/app model – positioned between all these previously-existing devices and media/content like books/mags/+ – at least makes a start for a venue, a potentially enormously widely available venue, for content producers where they can be discovered – consumed/networked and get paid for their work by a simply enormous audience. This is not necessarily at all a boon for central distribution in the sense of the old massmedia institutions! I'd say that Apple having a lock on it – to the extent that Apple IS the central distribution channel, even if Amazon's tablet is just around the corner! – is not as important as that they provide a relatively 'flat' market for distribution – as I perceive them to do right now. To my understanding, they're basically running their stores at break-even. With Amazon coming into the picture, it's about to become SO interesting – there will be so many different business models: sellers of Gadgets, Content and Ads! EDIT: typos

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spa942 15y ago

I don't buy the idea that tablets are getting more optimised for consumption. Just take a look at the app store to see the huge amount of music production software available, some of it replacing music $500+ hardware for $30. And even with its approval process, I find the app store a bad example of the cathedral model considering how all app makers are treated equally. Sure, you have to buy an external keyboard to write longer content on the new tablets, but if the post-PC era happens, I find it hard to believe that content creators will be stopped by that. Time will tell, of course.

OWaz 15y ago

If you don't mind would you elaborate on what type of content you meant when you said: "centralized authority produces the content for passive users to consume". When I think of content the first thing that comes to mind is stuff like image editing (Photoshop, LR3,Aperture etc) and video editing because those are two realms I spend my free time in. I didn't get what you meant by your statement so that's why I asked. And just to be clear I do believe that tablets are aimed at content consumption and not so much content creation, and I believe that to be a good thing. Why? Well people don't need a $2000 laptop to surf the web and check email.

joebadmo 15y ago
I was referring to big studios producing expensive movies, tv shows, albums, music videos, book, and magazines.

siglesias 15y ago

Two factors have led to the perception that tablets are "consumption" devices. 1) A tablet is a computer you can hold. Books and magazines have over time become optimized for holding (see size and weight) precisely due to the ergonomics of reading. Thus one would expect that tablets, which can store a vast number of books and magazines, would be "optimized" for such content. 2) Due to (1) it makes sense to trade power for battery life and thus iPad-era tablets use ARM processors. Word processors, music editors, video editors do exist for tablets and each has full privileges to have any interface it wants by assuming the full screen. Over time that software will get more powerful as these low-power processors advance. It can't be argued that iOS itself hinders content creation, but it can be argued that slow processors do. Time will take care of this. Also I don't see consumption--by which you mean reading--to be a bad thing to do with a computer. Amazon's stated purpose for the Kindle is to enable every book in every language ever printed to be available in under a minute. That's an extraordinary vision if you think about it, and we're getting there very quickly. Hardly a step backwards.

joebadmo 15y ago
You're right that it's certainly a step forward for consumption. What I meant is that it's a step backward for what I saw as the trend toward a world in which the power to create things is more evenly distributed. Don't get me wrong, I have a kindle, and I love it. But it's not just optimized for reading, it's optimized for reading content that's distributed through a centrally maintained distribution channel. (And while Amazon is trying to wrest control of that channel from the traditional publishers, it's a transfer of power from one central authority to another.) Which is why I appreciate tools like Readability's 'send to kindle' bookmarklet so much: it lets me read content from the bazaar more easily. But. Even then, I had to jump through hoops and the formatting isn't great. In short, it's not optimized. Furthermore, while on the web on a PC I can read a blog post and then immediately comment, share, or respond in a blog post of my own, on my kindle I can't do any of that. I have to put my own system in place to even remember to do it later. In other words, the Kindle optimizes my consumption experience at the expense of my production experience in a way that's sort of profound in a way that I acutely feel is a step backward.
- 15y ago

nigham 15y ago

A step backward is hardly the way I'd put it. Consumption-related technology as well as production related technologies are improving dramatically; we perceive the pace of consumption technology as being faster because consumption technology is far more applicable, and affects more users, and so it's more on the news. This is not a problem, there have always been more readers than writers, movie watchers than movie producers, software users than software creators. There isn't too much discussion when there's a new version of Photoshop, or VIM, or Django, or Wordpress, or countless other technologies (e.g. http://www.asciiflow.com/ http://www.asciiflow.com/) and platforms that help with content creation. One reason I read HN is that these items usually make it here. It's easier to create content now than at any time in the past. How many people built software before iOS and Android? A few folks scattered across huge companies that either built consumer products or provided services for those companies. Today, iOS has half a million apps -- somebody produced them. Arguably the 'consumption-only' device that you think has taken us a step backward has given tens of thousands of people incentive to produce something. Amazon's vision is for authors to be able to self-publish without going through the hassle of publishers, giving more incentive for people to produce. Whereas making movies was once a task for multibillion dollar studios, Youtube has enabled something like the Khan Academy to start earning money by producing content. You cannot have better and better consumption oriented devices in a vacuum. Someone has to produce what the masses are consuming.

estel 15y ago
With respect to app development, which has been incredible in how widespread it's become, it's possible it's just an extension of what the Web started: incredible democratisation of creation.
- sgns 15y ago
  Great point! Illustrates just how we're still living with the implications of just how the first extremely undemocratic reality of 'code as content' – first encapsulated in program devlopment, then going through a slight democratization route regarding computer usage through the Macintosh, and moving on through the html web – still is playing out. One can at least see that the path-to-market of content has been democratized with the web over time… and the App stores/'App paradigm' are also helpful in making it possible for more to program. I think a big part of our dilemmas have had to do with how isolated and abstract programming and development have been compared to mainstream society. A relative 'mainstreaming' of programming is still an incredible thought – yet it is happening right now! Whatever happens to our present jobs, I can't help but think that the infusion of new programming talent is about to create a new reality – a wave that could lift a great number of us – given appropriate channels for us all to contribute so much more than regular business logic programming - and us people practicing and getting ready to catch it! (over the top eh? :)

swlkr 15y ago

I totally agree with this.

blrgeek 15y ago

Think of the post-PC tablets as replacing TVs/books/browsers/iPods in time spent consuming content. Content consumption devices (aka radio, TV, books, mp3 players) have not had a significant advance in decades. The browser was the first new conduit that moved people away from these devices. These people used a PC, but merely as a content consumption device, NOT as a content creation device! Now tablets - which are mostly hardware for browsers, becoming more so with 'cloud' services - are becoming personal content consumption devices. As long as there's a browser, it's a window to the world of content - not just the central authority's content. For so long producers have wanted to have a powerful computing device in every hand. Now that day is closer!

HSO 15y ago

I'm growing more and more irritated by the classification of "reading" as "consumption". Consumption is usually defined as a sink of goods (as opposed to "investment" or "production"). Reading per se, however, does not result in anything vanishing from the system. It _can_ mean that but usually the ideas or perspectives contained in the book or article change the ideas or perspectives of the reader. Reading _can_ be pure consumption, for sure, but that describes a specific type of reading. One could argue that buying a physical copy and tossing it after you're done is the act of consumption. But then the consumption really concerns only the physical medium, not the content. Am I splitting hairs? I'm not sure, to be honest, but I feel the more people talk about reading as something "for passive users to consume", the more it narrows the industry perspective on what transmitting ideas between people means or could mean.

astine 15y ago
"Am I splitting hairs?" You are, but let me split them further. Any expense can be classified as either a capital expense or a consumptive one. Expenses classified as one can usually, with a few logical contortions, also be classified as the other. For example, food is the classical consumptive expense, but one could also treat it as an investment as food keeps one alive (and healthy hopefully) and allows one to work in the future. I think that the same can be said about reading here. If you buy a book, it's an expense, and if you read it, you've "consumed" it. Sure you can read it again or someone else can read it, but it's still a consumer good. I think what people mean here is that devices like this and the iPad are not generally geared to the production of works and more to their consumption. What I mean is, while reading a book on the Amazon Kindle might be an investment in your own mind and future, the Kindle doesn't enable one to author his own books. The web however, does enable one to put up his own webpage or blog (if you can figure it out.) I think this is what people are talking about here. It has to do with our place in the economics of the thing.

_debug_ 15y ago

Apple has not brought us anywhere in particular : people have always been that passive. The iPad's popularity is because of the lack of a keyboard for these 95% of the population. For folks like you and me, it is despite the lack of a keyboard.