Why the iPad May Be Apple’s Most Culturally Significant Product Yet

Though I have a keen interest in technology, I don’t typically write about it here. I like to write primarily about intellectual, spiritual, and personal issues close to my heart. Most technology news seems trivial in comparison to our calling as Christians and as human beings.

However, there is no denying that technology is becoming more and more influential in our current culture, and shapes the way we think, the way we interact, and even our spirituality, and thus deserves a place in this blog. I will start with some thoughts on Apple’s announcement of the iPad.

There has been a lot of scoffing of the hype surrounding Apple events, but there is no denying that Apple is the most prominent leader in personal technology at the present time.  Some people may remember that Apple was the first company to successfully popularize the graphical user interface, meaning that instead of manipulating the computer with code, users could manipulate the computer visually.  Apple is also largely responsible for the digital music revolution through the incredible success of the iPod and the iTunes store.  And then not too long ago the iPhone completely revolutionized smartphones, making us a people capable of carrying internet capable pocket-sized computers with us at all times.  Largely because of Apple, graphical user interfaces, digital music, and smartphones are a ubiquitous part of our culture. So when Apple releases a new product, we shouldn’t take it lightly.

I’ll admit, when the iPad first came out I was a bit baffled. It’s not powerful enough to replace a primary computer, and it’s lacks the portability of an iPhone or iPod touch. As far as I could tell, it didn’t seem like much more than a fabulously elegant, meticulously designed, but ultimately trivial novelty luxury item with a name that lends itself to crude jokes.

I’ve had some time to ponder it, and I think I have an idea what Apple might be up to. I think that the primary market Apple is hoping to revolutionize is books. The ebook industry seems much like the mp3 and smartphone industry before it. There are ebook readers on the market, but they have not achieved widespread popularity. The iPad could change that. Unlike the Kindle or Nook, it has a touch screen, which would make interaction with books (such as highlighting, taking notes, etc.) feel natural. It is also just far more visually appealing, better designed, more technologically advanced, and has the Apple brand behind it. On top of all this, Apple will be releasing its own online bookstore (iBooks). Apple isn’t the first to have its own online bookstore and will certainly not be the last, but it may be the first to truly popularize the idea.

If Apple succeeds, the effect on our culture could be stunning. Apple has changed the way we listened to music, it may very well change the way we read books. Because you can process so many different types of media on the same device, the lines between books, newspapers, magazines, websites, and other types of media will be eliminated. Books will no longer be confined to static, permanent paper pages; we may see the birth of an entirely new genera of multimedia books designed for full-color touch screens. It may completely redefine how books are created, purchased, and consumed.

Will Apple have the monopoly on such devices? No, you can bet that other companies will follow Apple’s lead if the iPad is successful. But the bottom line is this– if Apple succeeds, the book may fully transition into the digital age. It’s impossible to say for certain whether the introduction of the iPad will truly brings us to the edge of such a monumental cultural shift, but it’s starting to look like it. Christians take note.

PS. To anybody who says the iPad is going to fail because it lacks x number of features, see below video.

For more information:

iPad website (beware: the Steve Jobs Reality Distortion Field (RDF) is particularly strong here)

The iPad isn’t a third device, but a third revolution by Dan Moren

Currently:

… watching North by Northwest

… watching Public Enemies

… beta testing Monvee

Prayer for Adulthood

God of Heaven and Earth,

As I slowly but surely leave behind childhood and enter into adulthood, let me take a moment to fulfill my purpose, to worship and praise and delight in you.  I begin by thanking you for the simple but profound fact of my existence.  I would not be here if it weren’t for the guiding of your hand throughout the course of history leading to the event of my birth.  Let me regard the profound gift of existence with awe and wonder, and let me not take the gift of life lightly.

I thank you for the earthly parents you have given to me, but I recognize now that ultimately it was you who raised me.  Thank you for the people and events you have used to shape me, with both gentleness and severity.  Thank you for the joys of friendship, pleasure, and knowledge; and for sustaining and teaching me through my moments of pain, anguish, grief, discouragement, and shame.  Thank you ultimately for illuminating in my heart the empty and hopeless state of my condition and freeing me from the bondage of my sin through the love and forgiveness poured out in the blood of your son Jesus on the cross, thus rescuing my existence from futility.  Let me always come to you with the humility of a child, knowing that in all things I am only ever a receiver from you, and that my love more than my service is what you desire from me.

In my adult life, I pray that the momentum of my heart will not be driven by passion for the pleasures of money or power or sensuality, but that the driving force and motivation of my life be the quest for the joy of your favor.  I pray that you give me realistic and practical sensibilities, but that you would guard my spirit from the decay that comes from seeking after treasure that rusts rather than the only life-giving force in this world– your eternal love.  Rather than being enslaved to my possessions, let me enslave my possessions in the service of you.

Lord, to love you is to obey you, so I pray for the wisdom and courage to follow your lead.  Give me the wisdom to discern your will and disarm my attempts to justify disobedience, and then give me the courage to boldly do good, trusting in your power.  Strengthen me with the sword of your Word; teach me to ingest Scripture until it has saturated every cell of my soul, so that my mind and heart live and breathe truth.  Allow me to neither underestimate nor overestimate the enemy.  I pray that I will not be naive about the extent of evil in this world and the depravity of the human heart, but let me always retain the confidence that evil is utterly powerless to oppose your will.

In my thinking, make me thorough, subtle, broad, and rigorous.  Help me to fully understand and appreciate the weight of many viewpoints, so that I can defend my own with integrity and power.  Lord, guide my thinking and creativity toward the things that matter to your heart, and protect me from getting caught up in misguided intellectual dead ends.  Give me a broad perspective that I may feel your creative delight in every sphere of knowledge and wisdom.  In my intellectual pursuits, lead me to a greater understanding of your nature and character, and protect me from falsehoods and lies.

Let me also be a deep feeler.  Let me laugh, dance, and shout vigorously and unashamedly for the good in this world, and weep and mourn for its evil.  Teach me to be apathetic about the things that seem so important in this world but are in reality meaningless, and passionate about the eternally important things that the world overlooks.  Expose in my heart areas where I feel wrongly, where I laugh at things that make you weep and weep at things that make you glad.  Let my quest for knowledge be closely tied to my emotions, so that the deepening of my knowledge also increases the intensity of my affections.  Let me always seek to feel your joy, your peace, your love, your wrath, and your sorrow as deeply as you feel them.

In my relationships, teach me to treat every person as distinct, valued, and loved by you, and yet bearers of the scars of sin.  Give me deep wisdom and insight into the hearts of those I come into contact with, and help me to love them with depth and authenticity and courage.  Teach me to use my relationships in the highest possible cause– to point others toward you.  Teach me through others– help me to recognize and value reproach and correction and encouragement regardless of its source.  Teach me to look for the spark of the divine in all people, and to catch glimpses of you in all people.  Let the power of my love be drawn from your passion for humanity, and make me a living display of your character.

Lord, I am weak.  As long as I am in this earthly body I am locked in a battle for my own soul, a battle against discouragement, self-pity, distrust of you, envy, pride, temptation, and apathy.  Help me to grow into this prayer in the days ahead.  In my inevitable failures, teach me your forgiveness and your mercy, and teach me humility.  Prepare me even now for the trials ahead, so that when disappointments and tragedy come my way, I may be quick to turn them into opportunities to bring you praise.  Give me the gift of accurate self-knowledge, that I may be saved from inadvertently dishonoring your name.  Remind me often of eternity and of death, so I might feel the weight and urgency of this life.   My adulthood, my passion, my love, is yours forever.

I pray these things in the power of the name of Jesus Christ,

Amen

Currently:
… Reading Women and Christianity Volume II by Malone.  Thought it was a really good, well written book.
… Reading The Road to Naum by Mike Moberg.  This is the autobiographical account written by the pastor of the church SBIC-San Francisco is partnering with.
… Watching Star Trek.
… Watching Chuck Seasons 1 and 2
… Reading Nicomachean Ethics by Aristotle
… Reading A First Look at Communication Theory by Griffin
… Reading Church History Volume I by Everett Fergusen
… Reading Readings in World Christian History by John Coakley and Andrea Sterk
… Reading The Golden Legend by Jacobus di Voragine
… Reading The Summa Theologica by Thomas Aquinas (not the whole thing, not quite that ambitious yet)
… Reading Ethical Theory: Classical and Contemporary Readings by Louis P. Pojman
… Watching Flight of the Conchords Season 2
… Watching Avatar
… Listening to Portable Sounds by TobyMac (it’s got me feeling so fly!)
… Watching Lawrence of Arabia
… Watching Sherlock Holmes
… Watching Gran Torino
… Watching Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
… Spending some quality time with my girlfriend Sarah Morris for the first time since the summer (she’s been away on Europe Semester).
… Celebrating 21 years of life

Thanksgiving

I really like Thanksgiving.  I find it amazing and inspiring that we as a people have set aside a day to give thanks, even if the cynic in me reminds me we can’t help but follow our one day of gratefulness with a day of unabashed displays of greed.  It stirs in me a deep sense of hope because I think of all the holidays we celebrate, Thanksgiving is the one that remains stubbornly Christian.  This might not seem obvious at first glance.  It’s not a day designed to commemorate a particular religious event, and it hasn’t caused nearly as much controversy as more obviously Christian holidays like Christmas.  Thanksgiving is far more subtle.

First of all, Thanksgiving is less easily subverted by the culture because it is not a celebration of an event, it is a celebration of a simple idea– that we should take a day to count our blessings.  Second, Thanksgiving is powerful because expressions of gratitude and thankfulness assume that there is someone to be thankful to.  Whenever a family sitting around this veritable feast go around and express their gratitude for their friends, their family, their health, and their money, it begs the question– who are you thanking?  It seems to me that on this day it is not impossible, but very difficult to celebrate it without the recognition that most of our good fortune is not our own doing.  We had no power over where we were born, what time we were born, what species we’d be born as, to whom we’d be born, and we had no power to control the vast majority of other peoples’ actions that have benefitted us in some way.

We often place on God the burden of all our troubles and misfortune, but today, on this day, I believe we are reminded to attribute to him our blessings as well.  On this day we remember that we are ever only receivers from God, never givers.  Because of this, I believe it is on Thanksgiving that we as a people are closest to God and the spirit of the gospel.  And that’s something worth feasting over.

Currently:
… watching a Westmont performance of The Bald Soprano by Eugene Ionesco.  It was intellectually interesting, but I can’t say I really liked it.
… coming within two points of winning the intramural volleyball tournament.  We’ll get it next year!
… giving a lecture on the Pelagian controversy… as Dr. Vander Laan
… performing at Westmont’s Fall Concert.  Not too late to sign up for our Christmas Festival!
… reading St. Anselm’s Cur Deus Homo
… writing a paper on the Euthyphro Dilemma (is a command good because God commands it, or does God command it because it is good?)
… listening to Switchfoot’s Hello Hurricane and Phil Wickham’s Heaven and Earth.  I recommend them (in that order)
… watching Chuck.  Love it, really fun show.
… rejoicing that I worship a joyful God

The End of the Affair

A passage from Graham Greene’s novel The End of the Affair.

I went back home and again I tried to settle to my book. Always I find when I begin to write there is one character who obstinately will not come alive. There is nothing psychologically false about him, but he sticks, he has to be pushed around, words have to be found for him, all the technical skill I have acquired through the laborious years have to be employed in making him appear alive to my readers. Sometimes I get a sour satisfaction when a reviewer praises him as the best-drawn character in the story: if he has not been drawn he has certainly been dragged. He lies heavily on my mind whenever I start to work like an ill-digested meal on the stomach, robbing me of the pleasure of creation in any scene where he is present. He never does the unexpected thing, he never surprises me, he never takes charge. Every other character helps, he only hinders.

And yet one cannot do without him. I can imagine a God feeling in just that way about some of us. The saints, one would suppose, in a sense create themselves. They come alive. They are capable of the surprising act or word. They stand outside the plot, unconditioned by it. But we have to be pushed around. We have the obstinacy of nonexistence. We are inextricably bound to the plot, and wearily God forces us, here and there, according to his intention, characters without poetry, without free will, whose only importance is that somewhere, at some time, we help to furnish the scene in which a living character moves and speaks, providing perhaps the saints with the opportunities for their free will.

Currently:
… reading The End of the Affair by Graham Greene
… reflecting on the past five years

An Evaluation

Friends,

What did you think about today?

Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things. (Phil 4:8)

What did you say today?

The good person out of the good treasure of his heart produces good, and the evil person out of his evil treasure produces evil, for out of the abundance of the heart his mouth speaks. (Luke 6:45)

What did you do today?

But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves. For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man who looks intently at his natural face in a mirror. For he looks at himself and goes away and at once forgets what he was like. But the one who looks into the perfect law, the law of liberty, and perseveres, being no hearer who forgets but a doer who acts, he will be blessed in his doing. (James 1:21-25)

The end of the matter.

Repent therefore, and turn again, that your sins may be blotted out, that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord, and that he may send the Christ appointed for you, Jesus (Acts 3:18-20)

Currently:
… reading The Republic by Plato
… reading The Symposium by Plato
… reading The Enchiridion of Faith, Hope, and Love by Augustine