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iPad
Cautionary
Tale
The arrival of the iPad,
and the apparent dawn
of tablet computing,
brings us closer to the
promise of Internet
everywhere, delivered
by gadgets no bigger
than a paperback.
But, as many critics have noted, there are
a few major issues with the iPad’s design,
operation and philosophy. Some of these
so-called features set us on a dangerous
path to a future of closed computing, espe-
cially as other companies rush to emulate
Apple’s almost guaranteed success.
First, the good stuff. As anyone who’s
played with the thing knows, the iPad
delivers a more intimate, immersive and
fun experience than any computing device
before it. While surfing the web, you get
to hold it in the palm in your hand, swipe
it, zoom in on it and so on. It provides a
breathtaking but passive consumer experi-
ence; Apple wants you to “surf without
thinking.” However, many of our experi-
ences on the Web are about more than
surfing: we share, we remix, we speak out
and we interact, but this notion of the
digital consumer as equal part producer
is conspicuously absent in Apple’s iPad
drumbeat.
Make no mistake: The iPad is first and
foremost a consumer product. It’s an
excellent device for facilitating digital con-
sumption, and it greatly shortens the dis-
tance between your wallet and a multitude
of online services. While it makes those
experiences easier and infinitely more
elegant than what we’ve seen on the Web,
the danger is that the process is too easy.
Could the next generation of digital
natives grow up thinking that this is the
way the Web works? That it’s not for
expressing our creativity, not for partici-
pating in civil society, but for plucking
things off digital shelves with the greatest
of ease and plugging in headphones? The
iPad turns the Internet into as much of a
“walled garden” as AOL did back in the
dial-up era.
This walled garden approach — and the
implications of building the most closed
computing device in history — affects
more than consumers. The opening of the
iPhone OS to third-party applications cre-
ated a new industry of micro-developers,
who created tens of thousands of apps
for the device. Some of them even made a
living at it.
But a recent change to Apple’s devel-
oper agreement cuts developers off at the
knees, requiring them to use proprietary
tools to develop applications for Apple. If
they want to create the same application
for the Android platform, they’ll have to
start again from scratch. This is a flat-out
anti-competitive practice that discounts
the talents and independence of app devel-
opers and ultimately decreases the value of
their work. What incentive do developers
have to build their app in an open manner
that could work elegantly on a variety of
devices and operating systems?
The reality is that the iPad is
the new TV.
Of course, Apple can do what it wants:
It’s selling proprietary software and hard-
ware and a proprietary platform. However,
actions like these show that Apple’s influ-
ence stretches far beyond its own market
and is limiting the openness of other
platforms as well.
The reality is that the iPad is the new TV.
In Apple’s parlance, “video” means mov-
ies, TV shows, images and music videos. It
means passively viewing content. Mean-
while, video for the rest of us has come to
mean editing, mashing up and remixing.
The iPad lets you hold the video in your
hand, but no cutting: Apple doesn’t even
trust you with the safety scissors.
Then there are the very real business
conflicts of interest. Apple and The New
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York Times are working together to pro-
mote the iPad; Dan Gillmor has raised
questions about the ethics of such an
agreement: “By appearing on stage at the
Apple event and by launching an iPad app
that the Times wants to monetize in every
possible way — an app from which Apple
will likely make money as well — the Times
is becoming more of a business partner
with a company it covers incessantly.”
You can buy content, but you
can’t share it, you can’t mark
it up, you can’t remix it. You
can develop for it, but only if
you develop for only the iPad
and iPhone. You can download
apps, but only Apple-approved
apps. The iPad is quite possibly
the ultimate permission-
culture digital device.
Given this new relationship between the
paper of record and one of the premier
hardware and software producers in the
country, do you think any junior New York
Times reporter wants to write a critique of
Apple’s iPad?
We can soon expect that every major
news outlet will have its own iPad app
and thus depend heavily on Apple for
a large share of its digital revenue. As
Steve Jobs has shown, the line between
software developer and media tycoon is
increasingly blurred, and this marriage
is a troubled one: When distribution gets
in bed with content, we’ve got problems.
And what are the terms of service for other
news apps? Does Apple retain the right to
pull them if they find any particular one
objectionable?
Apple is playing a greater — and increas-
ingly uncomfortable — role in the future
of press freedom, whether we like it or not.
You can buy content, but you can’t share
it, you can’t mark it up, you can’t remix
it. You can develop for it, but only if you
develop for only the iPad and iPhone.
You can download apps, but only Apple-
approved apps. The iPad is quite possibly
the ultimate permission-culture digital
device.
And then there’s the hardware. There
haven’t been too many positive reviews of
the on-screen keyboard; you can hardly
even type on it. Despite the inclusion of
neat-looking iWork apps, our guess is
you’re not going to write much more than
a tweet with it. Creating a document on
the iPad is a quick way to arthritis. Don’t
expect to crank out your annual report or
your thesis on this thing.
The iPad is old media wrapped in a shiny
new package. As Cory Doctorow {http://bit.
ly/blI2J9} puts it, {the iPad’s arrival “feels
like the second coming of the CD-ROM
‘revolution’ in which ‘content’ people
proclaimed that they were going to remake
media by producing expensive (to make
and to buy) products.”
The device gives you easy access to
predetermined “hits” like The New York
Times best-sellers list, blockbuster Hol-
lywood movies and the Billboard Top 40.
We’re likely to see millions of songs sold
in record time when a million iPad users
can make the purchase with a swipe of the
finger. This is fine — but it’s the dying gasp
of the cultural curators of old, and it might
just keep people hooked on their swill for
another generation if this is how the tablet
world goes.
The approach is reminiscent of
something Clay Shirky recently wrote, a
quip from his upcoming book, Cognitive
Surplus, about the old media industry:
http://bit.ly/adLc2j
“Institutions will try to preserve the
problem to which they are the solution.”
Ironically, Apple — the maker of some
of the best computing hardware on the
planet — has now turned to propping up
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Apple’s iPad cuts off the long tail
of the Internet and lets it wither
in the sun until a new one grows
back in its image.
big, old media as its business model. Once
again, independent publications of all
stripes are getting left in the dust as they
work to design iPad apps that may or may
not be accepted into the app store.
The Web has come so far in becoming a
great leveler, yet still has a long way to go.
The open Internet has led to the produc-
tion of gobs and gobs of the “little m”
media content that Brian Reich is always
talking about. But do you think the app for
your little blog is going to do well pitted
against The New York Times app? If you
believe in the principle of Net Neutrality
(and we hope you do), this confluence of
gatekeeping power and media alliances
should worry you. Apple’s iPad cuts off the
long tail of the Internet and lets it wither
in the sun until a new one grows back in its
image.
There’s something to be said for
elegance and expediency, but life
is messy and it’s good that way.
The political implications are astound-
ing. Consider editorial cartoonist Mark
Fiore, whose satires of public figures made
him the first online-only journalist to win a
Pulitzer. He wants to take his work to every
online platform he can, including devices
like the iPhone and the iPad. But Apple
rejected his iPhone app, claiming that
since his work “ridicules public figures,” it
violated Apple’s developer license agree-
ment. (Steve Jobs has since called this
decision a “mistake” and restored his app,
but only after Fiore won the Pulitzer and
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Apple took a beating in the press.)
As the iPad and iPhone become the
primary platforms for getting online, the
question of who gets to decide which apps
— and therefore, which content — make
the grade becomes more fraught with dan-
ger and conflict.
When Apple says that the iPad “defines
our vision, our sense of what’s next,” it
means it. There’s something to be said for
elegance and expediency, but life is messy
and it’s good that way. That mess is what
made the Internet so interesting in the
first place.
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Neal Bastek oversees Free Press (www.
freepress.net) Web sites and assists with
outreach campaigns and other online
communication efforts. Prior to joining
Free Press, Neal was the senior online
communications director at Metropolitan
Group, a full-service creative and strategic
communications firm dedicated to serving
clients with a social purpose. Neal has
several years of experience producing Web
sites and other online tools for nonprofit
organizations. He holds a master’s degree
in English with a focus on online commu-
nication from Colorado State University
and is an adjunct faculty member at the
University of Oregon’s Applied Information
Management graduate program.
Josh Levy develops and implements
Internet-based campaigns, programs and
projects to encourage online activism and
support Free Press’ (www.freepress.net)
advocacy, fundraising and public educa-
tion initiatives. Before joining Free Press,
Josh was managing editor of Change.org,
a social action network where he super-
vised the launch of more than a dozen
issue-based blogs and oversaw online
organizing and advocacy campaigns.
He previously worked as an associate
editor for techPresident.com and Personal
Democracy Forum, and was an adjunct
lecturer in media studies at Hunter
College in New York City. Josh holds a B.A.
in English and religion from the University
of Vermont and an M.F.A. in Integrated
Media Arts from Hunter College.