By Ted Leonsis
Karl Marx said: “The more sophisticated the machine, the more barbaric the worker.”
I had one of those ”Aha” moments last week. I was at an airport and went through security. I had an iPod with Bose headphones; a cell phone; a Treo to do AOL email; a Kindle to read; and a Sony laptop with wireless modem. I had five chargers with me. When I checked into my hotel room, I ended up using three different sockets to recharge my devices. My briefcase weighs a ton. My doctor believes this is how I got tennis elbow from carrying my bag with my left arm.
I now have to check my three offices for voicemail messages; my Caps account for email; my AOL account for email; my Facebook account for email; I get messages on AIM and on Facebook; and I get messages on my cell phone.
What have we done to ourselves?
None of this was supposed to happen, you understand. Read the trade magazines of a dozen years ago and all the talk is about ”integration — how diverse components and applications were going to converge into new universal controllers, multi-function devices and web sites so complete in their offerings that you would never feel the need to leave them. Certainly, the notion of integration of experiences was in the back of our minds when Steve Case and I were forging a vision of America On-Line.
What we all forgot was what might be called “the stereo component rule”. Indeed, the example was right before us in our music systems. That industry too went through its fits of integration – some of you may remember the big record player-amplifier-tuner-cassette player monstrosities sold at places like Sears – only to see those eras each time blown apart by specialization. Sophisticated people bought their stereo components separately, and being trend-setters, the rest of the world followed — to the point where cost, form factor, and complexity drove the majority of buyers back towards integrated products. That too was a reminder that integration and top performance are almost always incompatible, as are specialization and practicality.And so here I find myself, as I suppose do many of you.
As a technology industry veteran and proud Road Warrior, I set very high performance standards on my tools — too high for any one-size-fits-all solution. And so my shoulder and elbow ache, and I find myself spending my first half-hour in any new hotel room crawling around the floor looking for wall plugs.Of course, all of this can’t go on forever. Certainly the iPhone suggests that we may be once again heading into an age of device integration. That gives me hope. But I also know that there will always be new discrete devices with unique applications and superior performance that I just won’t be able to live without. Moreover, there is no way that the current infrastructure, which by its very nature is slower to adapt, will ever be able to keep up. And that means that someday in my future, in some aging hotel room, I will finally run out of available plugs — and have to choose between the lamps and my toys — er, tools. And I already know that I will wind up sitting in the dark, staring at tiny, glowing displays.
Ted Leonsis is a long-time AOL executive and owner of the NHL’s Washington Capitals. After surviving an airplane crash landing in 1983, he drafted a list of 101 things to do in life and has completed many of the tasks including producing movies and owning a sports franchise.
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1. Pajamas Media » He Who Has the Most Toys Wins?:[...] Read the full post here… [...]
Aug 2, 2008 - 1:30 am 2. CR:There’s no need to drag around all of those devices. I can do all the same things you do, and more, with only two devices. Your iPod, Treo, cell phone, and Kindle can be replaced by a single Windows Mobile 6 Pro device. Why carry all those specialty devices around when multifunction devices are available? An iPod is just a digital Walkman - it plays music and maybe videos depending on the version. My HTC Mogul plays video, music and video games, has full internet and email, wifi, infrared, bluetooth, cell phone and data, a full qwerty keyboard, and lots of applications like MS Office. I can access remote networks and stream internet content as well as providing access to my media from servers at my home and office. I can access my full media library of nearly a Terabyte; an iPod will never have that much storage. When I travel, all I need is a single charger for my laptop since my Mogul can charge itself with a USB port. It also works great as a wireless modem for my laptop and it’s faster and more secure than public networks.
I can also write my own software with the Windows Mobile SDK and Visual Studio. Good luck trying that with any of your devices. Try the newest generation of mobile devices - you’ll be glad you did.
Aug 2, 2008 - 4:55 am 3. Ken Leebow:Ted, you ask the question: “What have we done to ourselves?” Wrong question, it should be “What have I done to myself.”
1. Simplify
2. Do you really need all those devices
3. Take the advice of the book titled: “Turn it off”
And on a different note, Snagfilms is a great site, however, you need to make the interface and some of the sites operations simpler.
Aug 2, 2008 - 5:02 am 4. Don in LA:For a few years I tried the one size fits all. A Pocket PC teathered to a cellphone, (I used the cellphone as a modem). With a keyboard I could travel for up to 3 days with out needing a PC, and if you were careful the PPC and the phone could use the same mini-USB charger. I still think that this is the best option, but gave up on it, the new -phones made teathering harder and harder.
Now, 1, Notebook, a personel cellphone, a work cellphone (T-mobile MDA) and a MS-Zune (Better sound quality then the iPOD) I charge them all off the Notebook at the end of the day, leaving me with only one charger.
I feel like a walking electronics store when I go through security at an airport!
Aug 2, 2008 - 7:12 am 5. Concerned Citizen:Ted, start carrying camera gear and you’ll bloat even more. The solution I’ve found is to carry less clothing. I’m down to half a small suitcase for a month in developing countries — I wash the clothes in the sink every third night (it helps if you’re in a warm dry climate). Who needs lots of clothing when you have state-of-the-art digital camera gear. I also have found power adaptors that are like a Swiss Army Knife, one adaptor fits 5 or 6 different plugs. The extra batteries, chargers, micro hard drives, etc. all together weigh a ton and I haven’t found a way to bring back professional results without them.
Of course, when you get to more remote places, you don’t need to worry about internet, but you still need to charge your laptop. Most of the other stuff you’re carrying is worthless in these kinds of places (I leave my cell phone at home). The generator schedule (if it is working) becomes paramount.
Nothing is more pleasurable than recording a cell phone greeting telling people NOT to leave a message. It’s amazing how the world goes on without us.
Aug 2, 2008 - 8:43 am 6. Fidel, MD:Pick one phone number and have your other phone voicemails forward to it. Use the treo for email and data transportation. Get one universal charger, and charge everything with it.
Aug 2, 2008 - 12:46 pm 7. Don in LA:You know there will be a time when we CAN have one device. When battery life becomes what we were all promised. I carry more then one device as much to extend the usefullness and adress the fears of a unit running dry as I do almost anything else. Watching a movie on a cross contry flight will drain any current smartphone. The only option is to carry more then one device (Like a seperate phone) Don’t even suggest a 2nd battery they are more of a hastle then they appear.
Aug 3, 2008 - 4:44 pm 8. Mary in LA:May I respectfully suggest an iPhone?
Aug 6, 2008 - 2:38 pm