Always On How the iPhone Unlocked the Anything Anytime Anywhere Future And Locked Us In

March 20, 2011 - PRLog -- It’s Friday evening, and as usual I’m meeting somefriends, John and Rana, for dinner at 6. In a text message, John suggestsAlborz, a Persian place I’ve never been to, located in Pac Heights. The clockstrikes 5:45 as I step into the elevator and launch the app Magic Taxi. I tapthe “Book ride” button, and the app says to expect a cab to pick me up at Wiredheadquarters in about three minutes. The driver’s name is “Raj S.” and theestimated cost of the fare is $12.

The light turns green, and we reach Van Ness andSutter.

On my iPhone I punch in a $3 tip for Raj and press the“Pay” button, and I hear my receipt printing from the cab’s machine. “Well, hey—Ican’t say I agree with you for the most part—and I’d argue with you if we hadmore time—but what you say about what we lose is pretty intriguing. I just needto think about it some more.” http://www.batterylaptoppower.com/dell/latitude-d620.htm

“That’s absurd bullshit,” hesays. John, a forty-one-year-old iPhone software developer, has never beengentle with his words. “There are plenty of Amish who use cellphones, sothey’re fucking hypocrites.”

I chuckle. “Clearly he’s generalizing, and if the cabride were thirty minutes longer the conversation would’ve been less silly. Butwhat we lose—that other side of the coin is certainly worth pondering on more, isn’tit?”

Indeed, for the months following that night, I spenthours and hours conversing with friends and technologists on the topic of whatwe gain and what we lose in the iPhone future. As a technology news reporterfor Wired’s website, every day I write a story about how the iPhone, and thetechnologies inspired by it, are changing our world. But why stop there? It’sfairly obvious what the iPhone and always-on gadgets can do today. The far morefascinating question is, what does it all mean going forward? How will thisphenomenon change society and business? What will our world look like in a fewyears? And perhaps even more importantly, how is this revolution reshaping eachof us individually?

It turns out the pros are about as fascinating as thecons are disturbing. The iPhone introduced the App Store, an experience whereyou can instantly download and use new apps that add to the device’scapabilities. With the tap of a download button, your iPhone can become a flute,a medical device, a high-definition radio, a guitar tuner, a police radioscanner and 150,000 other “things.” With the iPhone and the App Store, Appleunlocked what I call the anything,

anytime ,anywhere future, which has far-reachingimplications for everything. If we have accessible data everywhere, the way welearn in classrooms, treat medicine, fight crime, report the news and dobusiness are all going to have to transform.

For individuals, the iPhone is turning humans intoalways-on, all-knowing beings. Even without medical training, a person with aniPhone can use a first aid app to learn to treat a victim’s injuries in anurgent situation. (A near-death earthquake victim in Haiti, as a matter of fact,used a medical iPhone app to treat his wounds and, ultimately, survive.) Withthe same device, he or she can use a real-time traffic monitoring app to findthe quickest route to a destination. Data has become so intimately woven intoour lives that it’s enhancing the way we engage with physical reality. Finally,the physical and digital worlds are coalescing to turn us into the all-knowing,always-connected beings we’ve always dreamed to be. And it took just one“phone” to push the industry in this direction.

And in the world of business, the benefits forconsumers are fairly obvious. The iPhone changed our standards for what weexpect from technology, and businesses are being forced to give us more for ourmoney. We don’t want seven pieces of hardware to perform seven different tasks;we want a single gadget capable of doing anything-anytime-anywhere. Soon, itwill be impossible for manufacturers to sell single-function gadgets lacking aninternet connection, because they’ll soon be made obsolete . And duly, a largenumber of companies and industries find themselves threatened, because nearlyany dedicated single-use product can easily be replaced by a downloadable app.
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But as ideal as it may sound to have anything-anytime-anywhere,it’s particularly concerning that Apple—a company famously obsessed withcontrol—is leading this revolution. Apple not only controls the manufacturingof the iPhone hardware; the company also oversees everything that appears inits App Store. Apple approves, rejects or retroactively pulls any apps it sopleases. It’s almost as if Microsoft not only sold you Windows, but also ownedevery computer and every store in which it was sold, and controlled everydeveloper that wished to sell software for the computer. That sets a troublingprecedent of censorship, which can stifle innovation and fosters conformity. Astechnology becomes more intimately woven into our lives, the implications of asingle point of control over our digital experiences are threatening creativefreedom.

On top of that, we must also consider what we give up asindividuals in exchange for the incredible perks of anything-anytime-anywhere. Inevitably,the more we immerse our personal lives into digital media, we give up privacy. Businessesmaking apps have more information about our personal lives than ever before. Also,the application of basic civil rights is not keeping up with the rapid pace ofhigh technology: Police officers, for example, have the legal right to snatchour phones and look through all our personal information without question.

Furthermore, after repeatedly sending text messagesand e-mails in between checking Facebook and hopping on phone calls, it’sworthwhile to look in the mirror and ask ourselves, “What is the i in iPhone?”That is, how am I changing as a result of being bombarded with all this data? (Iactually found myself asking this question a lot while writing this book, holedup in my office in front of a computer for a year.) Are we really gettingstupider, like Raj suggests? The answer turns out to be much more complicatedthan Raj thinks.

Make no mistake: All the aforementioned implicationsgo far above and beyond the iPhone. Everybody is copying Apple’s closed, verticalbusiness model in hopes of replicating the success of the iPhone. Every majorsmartphone maker has rolled out iPhone clones and app store alternatives oftheir own, and their fundamentals (i.e., vertical control) are mostly the same.Apple’s influence is even seeping outside the smartphone market. TV makers arealready sellingweb-connected televisions, including app stores, and Ford willsoon ship cars with app stores, too—all with the common goal of trappingconsumers inside their product lines. Thanks http://www.batterylaptoppower.com/dell/latitude-d830.htm

to the iPhone, the future of business is lookingshockingly vertical. Our products will enable us to do more than they ever havebefore, as their capabilities will be expandable with the tap of a Downloadbutton. But there are consequences:  censorship,digital conformity, and loss of freedom and privacy apply.

Clearly, the future of anything-anytime-anywhere isunavoidable, because it’s impacting every facet of our lives, and it’s aterrifyingly beautiful and exciting time to live. In an era where printedletters seem hopelessly limited when pitted against billions of minds postingon the internet, this book is merely my attempt to paint a realistic portraitof our future, with the help of some of the most intelligent technologythinkers, innovators and researchers I’ve interviewed throughout my career. Letus explore together what it means to be always on.

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