Apple had their big iPhone event last week with several new product launches. Nothing came out that had me jonesing for new tech, and this got me thinking about my excitement around technology in general.
My first foray into smart phones was a Palm Treo. This was before wifi, so I used to download news from the web onto the phone each morning so that I could read it on my Treo at work on my breaks. The handwriting with the stylus was weird but it felt so futuristic that I didn’t care.
I loved this phone but damned if it wasn't FAT.
My next big buy was a Nokia N80. I was beyond excited with that phone, and paid a pretty penny to get it. For its time, it had an amazing camera. It was also able to browse the web, something I thought was akin to magic at the time. I recall photo blogging being nascent and exciting back then. The idea that you could snap a photo anywhere and then post it to Flickr, your blog (if you were technically capable of building) or whatever service you wanted to, was amazing.
I have no idea why I was angry in this pic. Phone too small maybe?
Technology kept advancing and phones, and tech in general, just kept cranking out new and more amazing features. Not everything was useful but it was COOL. And damned if I didn’t want to play with it all. Computers were also changing, with laptops becoming the norm. They just kept slimming down while simultaneously improving power and capabilities. My first MacBook Pro felt like the future.
I was part of a small group of tech fiends here in LA called TuttleLA. We would gather at coffee shops, each of us bringing our latest gadgets, ready to gush about the new things we could do. We were building things like photo blogs, vblogs, websites, and all manner of web goofiness. This is back when the web was cool, nerdy, individualistic and full of possibilities. Web standards? PSHHH.
TuttleLA peeps and me, surrounded by our nerd gadgets in 2010.
Flash forward to modern times, and launches like Apple’s event this week just feel like another item in my RSS news feed. And oh yes, I am still using RSS to this day. It still feels somewhat magical. What happened in the last 5 years that has made us all so bored with new advancements? Even incremental advancements are worthy of praise when they expand and enhance our abilities to communicate or create.
Maybe this constant advancement has just been at such a constant rate that we’re all becoming numb to it. That’s really unfortunate, because there’s a lot of amazing things happening across the tech world. I think some excitement is due, and recognition of the work involved.
I want to be excited again, like I was with early tech.