When it comes to technology, I’m pretty conservative. Don’t get me wrong, I love playing with new toys. Gadgets, gizmos, applications, web services – send them to my door and keep them coming. I’m always on the lookout for the next big thing, the next game-changing service, the next new toy. But when it actually lands, honestly, I very rarely end up using it past the point it stops being shiny and fun.
Even if it’s great, I have a perpetual fear of finding something wonderful, coming to rely on it and then having it suddenly disappear on me overnight. Usually I end up sticking with what I’ve already got, last year’s model or not.
Web services in particular often strike me as more potential trouble than they’re worth. Even today, far too many launch off the back of a bag of venture capital money and no real plan, and it all too often seems that ‘success’ is defined as ‘not having to do this any more’. Even when it’s not, they’re all too often damned both coming and going.
When they’re small, they’re unreliable and potentially transitory. When they’re launched or swallowed up by a whale with a Google/Yahoo/Microsoft brand burned into its blubber, their days instantly feel numbered. Remember when those high-powered acquisitions were seen as a good thing for a service’s users? How long ago those days seem now…
The fear isn’t just about the web though, but everything I use on a regular basis. I’ve never used an ergonomic keyboard, because I fear getting attached to it, not being able to adjust back if the company comes up with a better idea, and not even being able to get the same experience elsewhere due to those pesky patents getting in the way. I’m reluctant to become too attached to my phone in case it breaks, or to have anything on my PC I can’t afford to lose should a helicopter swinging a giant electromagnet suddenly fly over my house for some reason. Sure, it’s unlikely, but what if?
Products that manage to break through this paranoia are few and far between. The basic thing that separates them from the crowd is simple – whether or not something appeals to me on an intellectual level, or an emotional one. If it’s only the former, as with a new device that has excellent specifications for its price point when compared to other products on the market, it’s in trouble. I may appreciate it, but if I don’t love it, I’m not going to take a chance on it. If it’s something that makes me want to scream and shout – in a good way, obviously – I’ll be too busy wondering how I ever lived without it to worry about the future. A bit like finding true love, except geekier, and even a copy of Scrivener has no interest in snuggling. Not so far, anyway.
Such emotional responses are few and far between though. Apple excels at them, as did Amazon when it released the Kindle 2 – not simply producing a great piece of kit, but one that made it clear that the people who made it understood reading instead of just engineering. Coming from another company, I’d be worried hearing about the LCD-based Kindle Fire tablet - marking the end of e-ink and being able to read in the sun.
Instead, I’m relatively confident that neither will be going anywhere for a good long while, not to mention that as a content provider rather than a dedicated hardware manufacturer, Amazon will be incredibly careful about not shutting me out of anything I’ve bought. I may regret that naivety in 20 years or so, when I suddenly find I can’t go back and re-read fine novels like our own Gary Marshall’s self-published comedy-thriller Coffin Dodgers (99p on Amazon, proceeds going towards the pint of Coke he now owes me), but even then, I’m pretty sure there will be – cough – a few ways around any DRM/availability problems.
But which tools have managed to impress me enough to earn a permanent slot on my Quick Start bar/in my travel bag? Glad you asked. Scrivener for writing, Photoshop for image editing, Google Apps for mail and calendars, WordPress for my website, Flickr for photos – at least until Yahoo finally implodes – Spotify for music, my iPad for computing on the go, my Kindle for reading pretty much everywhere.
Anything that wants to replace one of them has to not only offer an improvement, but make me question how I ever made do with such prehistoric rubbish in the first place. It sounds like a challenge, but until this year, Microsoft Word was my writing tool and I’d never bought an eBook. Every year, there’s at least one thing I can’t resist. I can’t wait to see what’s next.
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