Sue Halpern makes a point
I'm obsessed with because I mark up my books so much:
"One of the guilty pleasures of an actual, ink-on-paper book is the
possibility of marking it up--underlining salient passages, making notes in the
margins, dog-earing a page. While it's true that some electronic book platforms
for the iPad allow highlighting (it even looks like you've used a fat neon
yellow or blue or orange marker), and a few--most notably Kindle and Barnes and
Noble but not iBooks--allow you to type notes, they barely take advantage of
being digital. It is not possible to "capture" your notes and highlights, to
organize, compile, arrange, or to print them out. Until there is a seamless way
to do this, marginalia will remain sequestered in the margins, and the promise
of electronic books will be unrealized"
It's strange, given that the power of the iPhone and iPad is that they allow
their users to make applications and find cool new ways to manipulate content.
That's what I think is behind the new iPhone 4's promise of video. I know
nothing about how Apple makes, markets or designs their products but I can't
imagine that they really think there is a huge use case for people using the
cameras to hold video chats. There are business uses, of course, but won't most
people want to chat the old way, where you don't have to worry about your hair
and makeup?
It seems like the kind of non-evolution
you'd expect from Radio Shack which is always giving you special additions to
gadgets that you don't want--an alarm clock with built-in nail file. But with
Apple won't people find some nutty way to use the camera technology that will
be extremely viral and sweep the nation? Twitter meets chatroulette?
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