Friday, April 9, 2010

Departure from running

I just finished reading an article on the new iPad and then a follow up article on the death of the book. A couple of years ago I remember there being a similar series of stories on the death of the CD and the iPod and iTunes. It prompted me to write a post on a now deleted blog and I guess I feel obliged to write again about this.

The post that I did before was about the death of the CD at the hands of iTunes and the mp3. I am a huge fan of albums and CDs. There is something about just putting on an album and letting it play all the way through and just listening to it. Not on shuffle. Not as background noise. But to simply sit down, listen to it, and let it engulf you. And if you play it on a decent stereo, the sound quality (noticably bass) is so much better than that of an mp3. How can we allow the CD and the album to die? There is such an experience to be had that we are losing.

But then I started looking at my CD collection and noticing its sheer size. The amount of CDs, the cases, and the liner notes. All of this...material. And it dawned on me. I need to try and embrace the mp3 not for the convenience factor but rather the environmental impact it can have.

I think the same argument can be made about books and ereaders. There is definitely an experience that is to be had flipping the pages of a book. The smell of a book store or a library. Even the black smudges that get on your fingers from reading a newspaper. But think of all of the trees that have been harvested over the years to bring us this. Are the words any different just because they come on a screen relative to a leaf of paper?

All this being said-I don't know if I will be looking at getting an iPad. Yes it is cool and pretty and can be a fine vessle for all that I mentioned above. But I am not so sure that I want to sail down this river in the exact fashion that Steve Jobs tells me to. Apple makes great products, don't get me wrong on that, but they are not open by any stretch of the imagination. If I want a laptop/netbook replacement I think I am going to want something that can surf the entire web, not just the Flash free portions. And if I want to download pictures onto my tablet, I don't want to have to go back to my computer to sync them on. And if Apple's history is any indication, it will be quite some time before they open their products up to this. I would like some choice as to where I buy my books and songs from. So I think I will hold off on getting a tablet.

It should be noted that I wrote this post on my iPhone. I never said I wasn't a hypocrite. More running posts to come; just felt like writing my thought down. Until next time, run friendly.


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

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