On Netbooks, the iPad, and Ubiquitous Computing

In late 2007, Asus launched the first volley in what may prove to be a revolution of computing.  The Eee PC, as they called it, seems to be a homogenizing device.  What started as “a cheap, utilitiarian subnotebook running a specialized Linux distribution” would, in a matter of months, evolve into “a cheap, capably-powered subnotebook running Windows XP”.  The difference was subtle, perhaps, but it was important.

The hardware upgrades — esp. the introduction of Intel’s 1.6 GHz Atom CPU — would elevate the device from being a modern tinker toy for hackers to being a legitimate low-end hardware platform for anyone who just needs a basic laptop for checking their email, surfing the web, and littering Facebook with Farmville updates.

This low-end platform would come to be known as the “netbook” (a portmanteau of “internet” and “notebook”).  It’s a smaller than the average notebook or laptop, it has ridiculous battery life (6-8 hours or more, in most cases), it’s both cheap (referring to its components and build quality) and affordable (referring to its retail price), and it’s enough of a computer that most folks can do most of the things that they want to do most of the time.

Until last summer, however, I’d never actually given the netbook a fair shake.  For me, it was always the bicycle companion to my sports car.  I recognized its value and usefulness, but didn’t necessarily want or need one.

Then, after her five-year-old iBook finally bit the dust, Doni (my nerdy cousin-in-law and blogger extraordinaire) traded a collection of gift cards and cash for a shiny new Eee PC 1000 HD.  It featured a 900 MHz Intel CPU, a 10″ widescreen LCD (up from the then-standard 9″ displays), a 160 GB hard drive (in a world where an 8 GB flash drive was standard), and 1 GB of RAM.  She asked me if I thought it would be “good enough” get her to the end of the year, when she’d buy a new MacBook.  I gave her a few caveats, but the consensus was that it would be mostly sufficient.

Then, over the next three or four months, something happened.  She didn’t complain about the crippled hardware, the small screen, the tiny keyboard, or even the fact that it ran Windows XP.  Instead, it mostly did what she wanted it to do.  It didn’t gracefully handle CPU-intensive tasks (like photo or video editing), nor did it play well with HD video content, but it did just about everything else she needed from it.

For me, though, it would’ve been a deal-breaker.  I do a lot of highly processor-intensive stuff on a fairly regular basis, so having something that chokes on a 15-megapixel JPG is simply not an option.

During that time, I came across Joey Devilla’s “Fast Food, Apple Pies, and Why Netbooks Suck“.  His conclusion, as you might surmise, was pretty predictable:

Netbooks, as a blend of the worst of both mobile and laptop worlds, will be a transitional technology; at best, they’ll enjoy a brief heyday similar to that of the fax machine.

The people are going with smartphones, and as developers, you should be following them.

This is a sentiment with which I mostly agreed, so I didn’t really give it much thought.

It’s also the sort of conclusion that Google reinforced — perhaps inadvertently — with their introduction of Google Chrome OS, which returns us to the dumb-terminals-and-mainframes idea that the network is the computer.  Google is building a system where all of your data resides on an internet server, somewhere in the cloud, and you just need a low-cost way to access that information.  For them, the netbook appears to be the most obvious solution.

When Doni had finally scraped enough pennies together to spring for a new MacBook, I offered to buy the netbook from her.  I needed a small Windows client for a few tasks, but I also wanted to take Google’s new OS for a spin on target hardware instead of using a virtual machine on my Mac.

Then, several weeks ago, I was fortunate enough to find Jeff Atwood’s “A Democracy of Netbooks” in my RSS queue.  The core of his argument is pretty compelling:

Netbooks are the endpoint of four decades of computing — the final, ubiquitous manifestation of “A PC on every desk and in every home”. But netbooks are more than just PCs. If the internet is the ultimate force of democratization in the world, then netbooks are the instrument by which that democracy will be achieved.

No monthly fees and contracts.

No gatekeepers.

Nobody telling you what you can and can’t do with your hardware, or on their network.

To dismiss netbooks as like laptops, but lamer is to completely miss the importance of this pivotal moment in computing — when pervasive internet and the mass production of inexpensive portable computers finally intersected. I’m talking about unlimited access to the complete sum of human knowledge, and free, unfettered communication with anyone on earth. For everyone.

In 134 words, my entire perspective on the netbook platform had been changed.

Suddenly, I was looking at netbooks with less of an expectation as to what they could do for me, but more with regard to what they could do for everyone else. Most people don’t need to render hours upon hours of video files, sort through tens of thousands of photographs, manage a library of 8,000+ songs, or host a 4-way video conference.  In other words, I realized that I am the exception.

It’s a good thing, too, because Apple would introduce the iPad by the end of the month.  Steve Jobs is unrelenting his argument against netbooks, but I would argue that the iPad is effectively Apple’s take on the netbook idea.  They’re reinforcing the bicycle analogy, and the idea of “a computer on every desk and in every home”, but they’re doing it their own way.  That’s what they do.

(Notice that I didn’t say “a Mac on every desk”.  Apple appears to be quite content to be a luxury company, selling luxury devices, catering to a smaller market, and maintaining wider profit margins.)

Before the debut presentation had even concluded, I was reading critical reviews of the device.  I’ve already addressed some of the most common criticisms (here and here), so I won’t go into that again.

Then, over the next few weeks, something remarkable happened.  More people started to “get it”.

John Gruber:

Used to be that to drive a car, you, the driver, needed to operate a clutch pedal and gear shifter and manually change gears for the transmission as you accelerated and decelerated. Then came the automatic transmission. With an automatic, the transmission is entirely abstracted away. The clutch is gone. To go faster, you just press harder on the gas pedal.

That’s where Apple is taking computing. A car with an automatic transmission still shifts gears; the driver just doesn’t need to know about it. A computer running iPhone OS still has a hierarchical file system; the user just never sees it.

That’s not to say there aren’t trade-offs involved. Car enthusiasts (and genuine experts like race car drivers) still drive cars with manual transmissions. They offer more control; they’re more efficient. But the vast majority of cars sold today are automatics. So too it’ll be with computers. Eventually, the vast majority will be like the iPad in terms of the degree to which the underlying computer is abstracted away. Manual computers, like the Mac and Windows PCs, will slowly shift from the standard to the niche, something of interest only to experts and enthusiasts and developers.

Minimal Mac:

You know what is not being accessed in [the] future?

Files. Folders. Desktop.

You know what is being used?

Images. Video. Data.

Welcome to the future.

Neven Mrgan:

A detail from the iPad keynote: Steve demos the Mail application and he puts it in horizontal mode. Oh, look, an Inbox list pops in. Neat.

And I think, hmmm I wonder if you can resize that splitter, making the source list wider. Its a tiny target, so it would be hard to grab…

And then I realize: you can’t resize it.

And a bright light did shine upon my liberated face and a voice did whisper a thunder: You’re free. Free of pointless preferences and finger-baiting adjustments.

Rob Foster:

The third conversation came from a completely unexpected source. I have a good friend and neighbor who works remodeling houses and who reluctantly agreed to have me design a website for his company after being pressured by his family. I don’t know anyone else who hates computers more. He has refused to get an email address. He doesn’t use his mobile phone to do anything other than make a call. And he often mocks me anytime I even mention computers. I want to make it perfectly clear that I’m not exaggerating his attitude. At all.

He stopped by my house the day of the keynote to talk about his new website and when he walked in I happened to have some iPad photos open on my laptop. He asked me what they were about and I casually described the new Apple “tablet” that had just been released. I didn’t spend a lot of time on it considering his historical lack of interest in computers. He asked me a couple of questions and then we discussed his site.

Three days later, he called me and the following exchange ensued. “Dude, I think I want to get one of those Apple tablets for my business.” “Really?” I said. “Yeah, I went and looked at them and they seem really easy to use. I think it would work great for showing potential customers my work and for doing bids on.” I was completely speechless.

All of this serves to reinforce this idea that the iPad and the netbook both provide a means by which to establish ubiquitous presence for personal computing.  I think that we’re on the verge of a revolution in personal computing, no different from the invention of the integrated microprocessor and the introduction of the original Mac in 1984.

The iPad and the netbook, however, each offer distinctively different theories on where we’ll be as the dust settles.  The netbook seeks to miniaturize the experience, whereas the iPad is trying to strip it down to the essentials and completely redefine it.  Which is the better case?

Until last week, I wasn’t sure that I necessarily leaned one way or the other.  Then, about two weeks ago, Google and ReadWriteWeb demonstrated just how much I take my technical understandings for granted.

Basically, for whatever reason, “facebook login” is a common search for Google.  On this day, however, an article on ReadWriteWeb showed up as the first hit for that search.  Then, instead of using critical thinking or deductive reasoning to find the correct search result, people just clicked on the first result, found the Facebook logo, and logged in.  Mike Melanson did a post-mortem from his perspective.

Compounding this problem, perhaps, is the way some of the address bars work in some of today’s web browers.  In Firefox and Chrome, for example, typing a non-URL string (ex. “facebook login”) into the address bar invisibly does a Google search, “I’m Feeling Lucky”-style, and delivers you to the first result on the list.

For some of us, hilarity ensued.  For others, it was a shocking example of just how bad things have gotten for the typical user.  Ed Finkler wrote one of the best problem summaries I’ve read.  This is the money quote, but you really should read the whole thing:

As a Nerdy Power User, I am well-versed in how to navigate a multitasking interface, and for the most part I understand how and why it works the way it does. I, in fact, enjoy learning about the intricacies of these kinds of systems. [...]

What I’ve learned from interacting with most computer users, though, is that they do not give a rat’s ass about how computers work. They want to accomplish certain tasks, and will do this in the way that is most sensible and direct for them. And the way they end up accomplishing these tasks within the multitasking window motif is typically not the way I would do it. [...]

When folks need an elevator, we should give them an elevator, not an airplane. We’ve been giving them airplanes for 30 years, and then laughing at them for being too stupid to fly them right.

There are a ton of great responses to this piece, but I think that Jono DiCarlo captured my reaction:

The idea of navigating by URL is so fundamental to how the Web works that it’s hard to imagine abstracting it away. More than that, trying to abstract it away is dangerous. Imagine someone who doesn’t understand URLs clicking on a link in a phishing attack that takes them to a fake PayPal or whatever. If they don’t know to look at the URL, how are they going to have any idea that they’re not on the real PayPal?

People using the Web without understanding URLs are quite literally putting themselves in danger, just as if they went out driving on the road without understanding how to read road signs.

I’m not suggesting that we make people take a driver’s test or earn a license before they’re allowed to use the Web. I’m not sure what solution to this is, but I know it involves doing a better job of educating people. Maybe Firefox could do more to teach first-time users what URLs are and why they should pay attention to them.

If there was ever something like a video-game tutorial level for the Internet, then reading URLs surely ought to be one of the skills that the “player” needs to master before moving on.

Then, as I was driving to work the other day, I realized something:  This won’t be a problem on the iPad.  If a user wants to use Facebook, he launches the Facebook app.  This logging-in-to-the-wrong-page problem is effectively solved on the iPad because, for the most part, it doesn’t exist.  The Facebook app is the single most-downloaded application on the iPhone.

So, I suppose that the question stands.  Assuming that we’re on a path toward “a computer on every desk and in every home”, and that either the iPad or the netbook will be the means to that end, which is the better solution?

Quite honestly, I don’t know, but I don’t think that they can peacefully coexist.