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Apples and Oranges

January 29, 2010 | RSS | EMAIL | PRINT | 2 COMMENTS

Waxy points to a nice essay about the iPad. The whole thing is worth a read, as it highlights many of the reasons that so many people have been down on the device, but what really got me was this quote:

Is a stick shift better than an automatic? No. Is an automatic better than a stick? No. This misses the point. A better question: Is a road full of drivers not distracted by the arcane inner workings of their vehicle safer? It's likely. And that has a value. Possibly a value that outweighs the value offered by a stick shift if we aggregate it across everyone in the world who drives.

I often try to explain this same idea to people when it comes to different modes of communication. You can't say email is better than a face-to-face conversation because they're just so different. Sure, face-to-face is much higher fidelity, but flying to Japan for a two minute face-to-face conversation asking a friend to send back my copy of some book they borrowed hardly seems like the best use of anyone's time (not to mention environmental impact).

The saying "it's like comparing apples and oranges" didn't become a cliche because there was no truth. Comparing two things that are totally different doesn't really get anyone anywhere. (No pun intended by the apple thing, by the way.)

via Waxy.org // Tags: apple, culture, ipad, technology


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COMMENTS

1Chandler

This is true of all essentializing moves no? Arguing about essences and "intrinsic properties" rather than purposes I think always ends up in the same place. The questions "better for what, for whom, to do what?" get pushed aside in an attempt to find some absolute; but it always just ends in retrenching the same ideas. In other words it is fine to compare apples to oranges, if your goal is to make an apple pie, a brown betty, orange juice, or a screwdriver.

That's part of the problem though with the rest of the piece. He sets up a false dichotomy of old and new, but doesn't talk really about what people want to do in either paradigm, or more importantly, about the consequences of the affordances provided by each. The "new" as he calls it unquestionably encourages consumption over production. This isn't to say that you need to have terminal to "really" use a computer, but as soon as that "small percentage of them are interested in “what makes this thing tick?”" they are told, "You gotta pay $100 a year and have ANOTHER device to find out" a large percentage of that small percentage is going to shrug their shoulders and move along. I see it every time a student wants to write an iphone app and toss it on their ipod touch, a little closing off of curiosity and possibility. And that, essentially, sucks.

January 29, 2010

2Ian Sohn

"it's like comparing apples and oranges" always rubbed me the wrong way. In the grand scheme of things, apples and oranges are pretty similar.

there's some deep friday sh*t for you.

ian

February 5, 2010