I am a tech junkie. I have seven computers (despite the fact that there’s only four of us living here). There’s six TVs, three satellite radio receivers, four DVD players, and we each have our own Nintendo DSi. Two PSPs as well.
I am sure this impresses no one on the Crack Team, and may even be laughable to some. The Crack Team contains many savvy enthusiasts that most would find to be eccentric. I disagree with this assertion. I’d like to think we are NORMAL while everyone else falls below the mark as far as tech goes.
I’ll explain with an example.
My wife is the head Veterinary Technician at a 24 hour animal emergency hospital. She knows things about medicine I will never know, and she is definitely smarter than any other woman I’ve been with.
That said, she is a complete fucking idiot when it comes to tech. Although she has come a long way since she’s been with me, she will never get to our level.
True story – When I met her, she thought that the computers main ‘body’ or case was called the “modem.” It took a long time for her to stop calling it that. Whenever she had a problem, she would confuse the hell out of me by saying that she turned the modem on, but saw nothing on the screen.
This is just one example of many.
Just the other week, I had to show her where the “search” function was on her Rhapsody account. It’s not as if they hide these things on purpose. If anything they WANT you to easily search through their catalog. Boom, there it is right on top. You scrolled down too quickly.
This kind of stuff happens frequently and not just with Rhapsody. She’ll download something, but can’t find where it went even though she CHOSE it’s download location.
I can tell when it’s time to help her before she even asks. She’ll be at her laptop, then she’ll start huffing and shaking her head. Finally she’ll say something like “I hate computers.”
and I think I know why.
Two reasons:
One: The majority of tech software and hardware is designed FOR tech people. This is why the few tech companies that CATER to the lesser-savvy majority, are so successful. It’s true! Companies with great products are far more successful when they dumb-down their interface.
Take Google for example. The king of online search. Why is this so? They aren’t the oldest.
Lets look at their main page. (Do not sign in)
Note how basic it is! Sure it’s not flashy, but as far as functionality goes, 99.9% of users can use this page without instruction.
Now let’s look at Yahoo, a veteran search provider. I admit I use Yahoo frequently despite Google’s popularity. However it’s easy to see why most don’t. It’s interface is complicated when placed next to Google’s. There are many viewing options, and even if you want the most basic layout, you must go through some steps to get there and have your setting saved, which of coarse is only available if you remain signed in on your own computer.
It’s this simple: Users and customers don’t like to think. They don’t have time! They want something basic that works with no effort and there’s plenty of companies who thrive off of this.
Apple understands this all too well.
The iPod is not the first disk-free player, yet they capitalize on design and interface so well, that many of Apple’s sheep THINK they invented the mobile media device.
The same goes for the iPhone.
My first PDA-phone was the Samsung SCH-i700 I got back in 2003 (which was nowhere near the first PDA-phone hybrid).
Utilizing a mobile version of Windows, it was amazing. It had a swiveling camera, memory card slot, 3.5 inch touch screen, played MP3s and movies, and connected to my computer for file transfers and backup. It even had a true 3D pool game that I played for hours a day. I was so happy with this device, that I showed it off to everyone I knew.
Fast forward to 2007. I’ve been through two more PDA-phones by this point, my favorite being the HTC 6700 which came with a built-in joystick which was GREAT for gaming, but still a serious PDA to it’s core.
Suddenly people are coming up to me and showing off their new iPhone with the “first ever touch screen” with camera and music player built in.
Excuse me? Did I miss something here? What’s new about this? The CAPACITIVE touchscreen is new, although most had no idea what that even meant.
I grabbed their iPhone and was less than impressed. Although I can see why teens would like this device. It was fun, easy to use… but a little “basic” for me. It was like holding a cartoon in my hand. As opposed to my PDA-phones which were like holding a mini-computer. And even today I still prefer resistive touchscreens for the precision you only get with a stylus, plus the ability to use anything to manipulate the screen. IE fingers, pens, toothpicks, whatever.
Not to mention how HORRIBLY slow the internet was on the iPhone with AT&T. All I wanted to do was show someone what a Bird-of-Paradise flower looked like. I’m not exaggerating when I say it took 30 minutes to accomplish. Pages loaded so slowly, that I would have to put the phone down, do something else, and come back to check the progress. I’m reminded of those Commodore 64 days where you’d have to load a program with the tape player by pressing PLAY and then go outside to skate for a while before checking back to see if we could play Joust yet. Also the iPhone had a tendency to disconnect from it’s data service, which means you had to reconnect and start browsing online from scratch, NOT from where you left off.
The experience was FAR from what the commercials showed, although I’m sure the latest generation iPhone is far better even though it took years for the device to live up to the original hype.
But again, Apple did it right. Commercials, commercials, commercials, and a simple interface designed for the masses.
I am NOT in any way ridiculing anyone on the team if they happen to own an iPhone. If I had extra money, I might own one too. It’s a fun device with many uses. However I am turned off by the lack of customization when compared to a windows based device.
As with any PDA, to get some interesting hacks out of the iPhone you must unlock the firmware. However on the iPhone, if you “jailbreak” the device for expanded uses, you run the risk of being banned from the app community and other Apple services.
HTC on the other hand could give a rats ass what you do with their phones. It’s at your own risk. Play all you want.
Back at the end of 2007, I had a HTC 6800 which had a hidden GPS chip installed for future research. It was not meant for public use, but thanks to the underground/mod community, users were able to reflash the stock ROM with a GPS enabled one. So basically, I had a PDA-Phone with true GPS (actual satellite link) WAY before this was even marketed as a standard feature in other phones. In fact, the iPhone didn’t get true GPS until 2009.
Why is this? Simple. The GPS feature in my 6800 back in 2007 was not without flaws. The device took about 2 minutes to get a solid position lock, and it would only update your position once every ten seconds, which is an eternity when you are driving.
It took about a month of further tweaking to get the GPS to a solid usable state.
So you see why these kind of features take so long to reach the community. Customers want things to work flawlessly, straight out of the box. Which is great, but the downfall for such reliability is that once these kinds of features are released, they are far from cutting-edge anymore.
Now back to my point. Companies that commercialize well, and distribute a product or feature with 3rd grade usability, will be successful.
And now the second reason why the majority are not tech-junkies:
They aren’t given enough time.
Technology upgrades far faster than it needs to.
Unfortunately, consumers demand products to be faster, smaller, and more eco-friendly without knowing why. The only real gain for them is to SAY they own the fastest, smallest, and cleanest product, when the reality is; they haven’t gotten full use out of the existing product yet.
What there needs to be is a final exam. Most don’t enter 4th grade without graduating 3rd. So why buy iKewl 2.0 when you barely understand the functions of iKewl 1.0? It’s because they aren’t given much choice. Suddenly you can’t find iKewl 1.0 anymore. Commercials brainwash you to the point where you feel you can’t exist without iKewl 2.0, and anyone still using iKewl 1.0 is a fucking loser.
Thankfully, this is where we fit in. As anyone who reads Dilbert knows, just as there’s a few people who easily understand advanced math, and others who can quickly pick up a foreign language, there are some people who just get technology. I don’t believe it’s something that can be taught. either you have it or you don’t.
I took three years of Spanish in high-school, yet still, I barely understand anything past the Taco Bell menu. Although I could learn the language, it would require a lot of time and energy that I don’t have. My brain is just not wired to pick this stuff up as easily as others do.
But when it comes to electronics….
This is embarrassing, but I’m going to tell you this anyway in hopes that someone else may feel the same way or at least get a laugh out of this. (Comedy comes before pride):
When I open a new box to something electrical for the first time…. like a new laptop for example. I am much like an animal with a fresh kill. I don’t want to be crowded. GET AWAY! grrrr. I’ll show you later, after I’m done looking it over.
I even smell the item. I’m serious. New electronics have a certain smell, much like the new-car-smell which doesn’t last long, but fills me with a sense of – “oooh good things are going to happen!”
In my house the rule is, it doesn’t matter what the item is or who it’s for. If it has a power button,… I am the first to open it. I don’t care if it’s a freaking vacuum cleaner, my wife ordered. I must be the one to open it, play with all the accessories,…. and of coarse smell it.
Before you laugh, you must consider it from my viewpoint. Chances are, I am the one who needs to put it together anyway, teach others how to use it correctly, not to mention the one who must deal with it if it breaks or has missing parts. It’s best for me to “test drive” the item first to insure the user can’t blame anything on factory defects.
So back to the point. Soon The crack Team will get their hands on a portable teleportation device. It will be great. We can just appear on the East Coast for a nice dinner in New York, then (swoosh) right back to California! Practically for free! (The machine will use no more power than a fridge).
But of coarse, two years after that, the Apple iZoom will come out. It will only have a range of 100 miles, and teleport sites must be Apple approved or it wont work. BUT it will come in many nifty colors with an incredibility easy to operate, one-button interface.
Zoom away!
