Posted on 07/04/2007 10:25:42 PM PDT by Swordmaker
BURLINGAME, CALIF. - What do mobile phone geeks call their useless, deactivated handhelds? Bricks.
But enterprising new owners of Apple (nasdaq: AAPL - news - people )'s iPhone have discovered that even if they remove the tiny activation card from their new toy, it’s still far more useful than a paperweight. Instead of a phone, it becomes a Web-browsing device with a big, beautiful screen--and a vision of what's next for personal computers.
For Apple, it's a round trip. The company's Newton kick started the idea of mobile computing in 1993 before morphing into a limited "personal digital assistant." Now the iPhone and its product-line descendents offer a glimpse of what's to come--a world of small, elegant machines allowing users to take true, full-featured Internet access with them anywhere.
It's already happening. Hackers that embrace this side of the iPhone can eventually shed their $60 to $220 per-month, two-year contract with AT&T (nyse: T - news - people ), and continue to use their iPhones for unlimited e-mail and Web access over WiFi, as well as for playing music and movies. The Unofficial Apple Weblog is calling this strategy the "sixth-generation iPod."
None of this pleases AT&T, but the fact remains that the iPhone functions well as an attractive Web-browsing tablet as long as the user remains in range of a WiFi hotspot.
Ironically, AT&T is enabling that, as well. The company said Tuesday that subscribers to its high-speed DSL Internet service at home or work will get free access to 10,000 WiFi hotspots across the country in McDonald's restaurants, Barnes & Noble stores, UPS stores, coffee shops and airports. For non-subscribers, access to the ubiquitous hot spots costs $8 a day.
Why would consumers pay $600 for an iPhone only to deactivate it and use it as an Internet tablet and media player? Well, not many will. But for those that do, the iPhone-as-tablet will look attractive, if a bit pricey (typical of Apple’s computers) when compared with similar products on the market.
Reactions to Palm's (nasdaq: PALM - news - people ) $500 Foleo, announced on May 30 (see "Palm Opens Up"), which the company describes as the future of mobile computing, have been mixed. It has a nice, laptop-like keyboard unlike the iPhone, but it's bigger, has little media storage space or playback software, and far less sex appeal.
Neither has Nokia's (nyse: NOK - news - people ) $400 N800 tablet taken the market by storm. It remains a cult favorite among fans of the open-source operating system Linux, but, like Apple’s 1990s-era Newton, the N800 has thus far failed to capture the mainstream.
Various over-priced models of the Microsoft-envisioned Ultra Mobile PC devices have hit the market in the past year, from companies like Samsung, Asus and OQO. So far, that Windows computing platform has fared little better than the tablet PC, which was introduced in late 2002. Tablets currently make up only a tiny fraction of all laptop sales.
All of these products fail the crucial "pocket" test--they’re just too big to be carried conveniently. Until now, the trouble with a tiny computer has been the squint-inducing tiny screen, along with hard-to-place buttons. But the iPhone’s giant touch screen takes a crack at solving those problems (and, so far, won’t crack in the pocket).
When Apple Chief Executive Steve Jobs launches new iPods in time for the holiday-buying season, we may see a non-phone iPhone. And if, as software developers are hoping, Apple loosens its grip on the device’s operating system, we may soon see more ways in which the device can be used as a true mobile computer.
Some developers are already trying, even though Apple has restricted them to using only the Safari browser as their canvas. Top on their list of desirable creations? A version of eBay's (nasdaq: EBAY - news - people ) Skype software that allows voice calls over WiFi, and turns the iPhone back into a phone for free. Mountain View, Calif., and Luxembourg-based start-up Jajah is nearly there, announcing this week its "Free Your iPhone" campaign for making 3-cents-per-minute International calls via the company’s mobile Web site.
Invention of the Personal Computer... 1977.
Publication of L. Neal Smith's first SF work, The Probability Broach... 1981
Time Magazine names the Personal Computer Person of the Year... January 3, 1983
Your original assertion: "L. Neil Smith predicted the internet a decade and a half before the public knew what a personal computer was".
That's false hyperbole, Dead. Admit it.
The fact is that the public KNEW before Smith published anything, what a personal computer was. It certainly knew before 1993.
No matter how much you dance, your dancing is not going to make your assertion true.
I have debated this case with you without ever insulting you... however, you take every opportunity to impugn me. I am done with you.
If you don’t mind, I would like to join your discussion of the Internet and prescience.
As you correctly demonstrate, there is a long list of literary works where the computer is featured prior to it’s physical reality.
But when it comes to the Internet and visionary works - William Gibson has no peer.
Let us not forget Mr. Gibson’s world of the early 1980’s.
DARPANet was still used primarily for military purposes, and most writers, (myself included) used typewriters
Yet he transported us to a different time - where one could be a console cowboy with his own personal cyberspace interface.
Prophesy or vision his strange dark future unfolds and finds us all here tonight.
$0.02
Nelson gave a talk at Google a few months ago - Transclusion: Fixing Electronic Literature
I am really not arguing with Dead Corpse that Science Fiction writers have not predicted many technological advances we appreciate today. They've actually done a remarkable job. . . but usually put their "outlandish" devices farther into the future than we actually develop them.
My main thesis is that the ubiquitous personal computer as a stand-alone, self-contained, processor + storage with integral terminal for input/output was something that was not truly predicted by Science Fiction. Science Fiction writers postulated small single user terminals that connected to a large computer shared with other users... but somehow failed to see that Personal Computers would become integral with modern life as they have.
This thesis has been the subject of several talks and papers that were presented by Science Fiction authors... noting that the future is always different that we can imagine.
Science Fiction of the 60's and early 70's usually had manual calculation of things like astrogation and orbital mechanics... or calculations by terminal connection to a ground based computer.
The personal computer is an artifact of the Space Race because of urgent the need to miniaturize electronic components to minimize the cost of lifting them into space. In this instance, development of new technology preceded the visionaries of SciFi. It was only in Science Fiction contemporary with the development of personal computers do we see the introduction of the personal computer in SciFi. Prior to that, Terminals accessing large computers were the norm.
Dead Corpse and I are actually pretty much in agreement... we just differ on some details... such as when the public was aware of personal computers.
Now, if he could just learn to debate without insulting the other debaters.
However, they really didn't start doing that until the development of the Personal Computer... It was only in the late '70s that writers such as Algis Budrys, Vernor Vinge, William Gibson, and, yes, L. Neil Smith, started writing about the possibilities of what could be done with these new, fun devices that had been invented just a year or so before and were becoming more and more available.
The serial single connection Bulletin Board Systems (BBS) of server based information and intercommunications were appearing and hinting at what could be done. Some enterprising BBS sysops got several phone lines and modems and arranged for more than one connection at a time to their servers. This resulted in chatting... and shared gaming. All done on personal microcomputers.
Precursors of the Internet were already appearing in 1978... including email and tech support from Infoplex which in 1980 added chat functions with a CB Simulator and evolved into Compuserve.
Noting the growing popularity of home computing, they started thinking about and incorporating many of these evolving technologies into their writing and extrapolating, looking for "What kind of things will we do in the future with these things besides play game, do word processing, and storing recipes?" Most of these writers had friends, if not themselves, who had experience with Arpanet and Usenet and their shared information databases and discussion boards. They started adding two and two and getting quite a bit more than four.
But all of this did not really start in SciFi until the Personal Computer was available.
Read an article from MIT's Technological Review that I just posted on FreeRepublic.
On Science Fiction - How it influences the imaginations of technologists.
“...the future is always different that we can imagine.”
Indeed
I will leave the nuances of the personal computer debate to those who feel the passion.
My only observation is that my mind is communicating with your mind on a fourth-diminsional intersection in cyberspace.
Prisoners are being executed in China and their organs sold for bargain basement prices to rich foreigners.
Attacks on the structure of the Internet are commonplace and, in some instances, possibly perpetrated by sovereign nations.
Corporate control of Internet portals, traffic and information has grown substantially.
And not a bit of this strange world is new or unique - for we were shown it in astonishing detail in 1984.
For most, predicting the future is a hit and miss affair - but for Mr. Gibson it was, apparently, a gift.
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