Here’s a turbo-post on something that just happened. Get ready.
So about an hour ago, I was sitting on my bed in my homestay-house, reading a book (The Social Animal by David Brooks, by the way - I can’t tell you how hooked I am), when suddenly a boy appeared in my doorway. His name was Mohammed (of course), and he’s the nephew of my homestay mother, who is apparently watching him and his sister, Hadija, for the evening. They didn’t quite know what to make of me (I’ll bet they didn’t expect to see some big white dude reading an electronic book on a bed tonight), and I was really into my book, so I let them rummage around my room for a bit.
Eventually, they settle on my laptop (no surprise - the thing looks like a metal spaceship). Laughing to myself, I open it and fire up PhotoBooth, and they squeal when they see their faces contorted, blown up, and squeezed down on the screen. We had some fun messing around with the different filters (see the photo above), but one thing struck me about the experience.
I figured that neither of them had had much experience with a computer before, much less a new(ish) laptop. So, imagine my surprise when Mohammed, ignoring the keyboard out in front of him, started grabbing and reaching for the screen. He’d arrange his face for a photo, then try and tap the big red shutter button in the window. I wasn’t sure how to explain the computational abstraction that is the mouse/cursor combo - he was just confused as to why touching something didn’t make it do something.
Anyhow, I thought this interaction was pretty funny (eventually, he ascertained that touching the screen does nothing, that touching the trackpad makes the little black arrow move, and that, for some reason, the little triangle shapes on the keyboard make Kanye West sing). But it also just gave me a perfect example of why I think (along with the rest of the world, apparently) that tablets like the iPad are absolutely the future of computing.
Had I shown Mohammed and Hadija PhotoBooth on an iPad, I’d bet I could have just sat back and watched while they touched, dragged, and manipulated the image with their fingers, not having to deal with any abstraction whatsoever. It’s that sort of intuitive computing that I’d say will be the norm in five or so years.
And I think, under that new status quo, what traditionally has been thought of as “computing” and who traditionally has been thought of as a “computer user” will both undergo a fundamental change.
Isn’t that exciting?
