This is a post I’ve been meaning to write for the last four weeks and it’s why I linked to so many different iPad 2 reviews in the same timeframe. The issue I had is each review offered a slightly different take on the iPad 2 consisting of 90% “only tech people would understand” followed by 10% of raw advice for normal people deciding on whether to buy an iPad 2 or not.
Here’s something I’m noticing more and more is that the simplest devices can be understood by normal technology users. Apple has done a phenomenal job simplifying the experience of their ecosystem but it still takes a geek to break things down and geeks simply think differently than everyone else. We want to figure out how this works and in how many ways and what doesn’t work so we can report back to our uber geeky friends saying, “Hey, look what I figured out!” That’s fine but then we try to convey that excitement to normal people and they could care less.
When writing, I get super geeky and sometimes try to put in things that normal users would understand. I also have this slight curve of my outlook on technology that hates change, hates touch, hates anything that feels like a step back even if it makes the system better for new users. That extra pessimistic take on anything shiny and new keeps my articles slightly more “why you shouldn’t buy this” and less about “why this is the greatest invention ever.”
I can’t help but feel like what we write in the blogosphere really only caters to us and not them. How are my thoughts on a specific camera readable by anyone that’s not a photographer? I write at the level that is my understanding of photography and having owned multiple devices and used cameras for a few years now. Someone in Best Buy that googles the review of a camera they want to buy will read my piece and turn their head sideways only buying what the guy in a blue shirt recommends.
Who out there is writing for the rest of us, the us that don’t get technology and have no clue that the iPad toggle switch was for orientation lock and then turned into a mute lock in OS 4.1 and then was reverted in 4.3 with an option? Multiple posts were written about that but who outside of our bubble really cares?
I found this article today which really brought things home for me of an article that people outside of our circle can read and truly understand.
The iPad is 99% more open than any other computer
It was linked to by John Gruber, it was short and it wasn’t full of tech jargon. Well done and understandable by the rest of us.
I’m not going to read posts that cater to everyone else but I wish a publication would exist for those people. I guess bookshelf periodicals like Mac:Life and Macworld magazine do that to a degree because their readers are casual and don’t mind that it’s news from last month but with a better analysis where your rank on TechMeme is based on how fast you got your post out. I guess they fill that need for the rest of us. I just don’t really see too many blogs doing that.
Then again, why would I? Those blogs aren’t for me.