iPhones and $100 laptops – Innovation is alive and well and looking toward a bright future

Apple finally announced its long awaited “iPhone” today. To tell the truth it’s a pretty snazzy gadget. Although many have attempted to accomplish similar technological convergence, Apple, as so often before, seem to have anticipated users’ needs and wishes to create something that is new, usable and desirable, and in so doing they may be once again leading a pardigm shift in how we use technology. This last point is what I think is most significant about the iPhone. It reminds us that we have not, nor should we assume to have, come up with the ultimate design for technology and the way we use it. Yet, there’s always a persistent group that considers divergence from current computing paradigms, such as Microsoft’s Office suite, a valid criticism against new technology. As delivery of the OLPC’s (One Laptop Per Child) “$100 laptop” nears, the project has received a lot of criticism on exactly this point, ex. “It doesn’t look like anything that’s being used in the business or computing world today, therefore it’s misleading, and at worst, useless.” I have a few responses to such criticisms and Apple’s bold new venture proves my point(s) in so many ways:
1. Given that the OLPC laptop is intended for young children, how do these critics know what computer use in computing and business is going to look like when the laptop users enter these fields? I’ve been using computers for over 25 years and have not witnessed the kind of consistency that these critics seem to expect from computers in the future.
2. The OLPC laptop is to be delivered to young people in many areas where computing is relatively new. Is it unreasonable that these new users, coming from a very different background, will be able to point out to more complacent longtime computer users different and better ways to accomplish tasks? Remember, it was Heddy Lamarr (actress) and George Antheil (musician) who came up with the idea of “frequency hopping”, on which modern mobile telephone technology is based. They didn’t hook up with experienced engineers until they started going through the patenting process.
3. Why do these critics think that OLPC laptop users will want to use the technology to do what they themselves have done with it for the past half century? Computers are not collections of software, even though that’s how most of us use them today. Computers are essentially workbenches for creating tools to do whatever a creative mind can come up with and young people tend to have very creative minds.