Note to Self: Chips Are Out, Apps Are In

When you're a tech columnist like me, you'd better be writing about whatever hot technologies are sweeping the nation, or forget it. As I wrote about last month, the current public consciousness has shifted from dumb to dumber. So my writing essay after essay about new instructions within the x86 chip would get me zero readers. Nobody cares about chips now. Apps are where it's at.

The mobile platform has taken over the mindshare of the public at large, so we writers and publishers need to be laser-focused on these apps and the phones that run them—mainly the iPhone and also Android phones from Motorola and others. RIM is trying to get into the act, and Nokia is out on a limb trying to do its own thing.

From this emerged the anomaly called the iPad. This whole idea was easy to condemn from the get-go. Time after time, pads have been attempted yet have never been popular. All have failed. So Apple pulls a fast one and takes two newer ideas and marries them to create the iPad. First it throws out the previous concepts regarding the tablet computer. No stylus, no handwriting recognition, no notepad qualities. Instead, it takes the iPhone and combines that with the Kindle, a pure e-book reader. Voila! The iPad.

This is actually a completely new model for a pad. It cannot be compared to the attempts of the past to popularize this physical style of platform. This is some serious fodder for writers and publishers. It's actually more interesting than the app- Phone because it is so weird. You cannot talk about this idea enough as far as the readers are concerned. And the phenomenal skyrocketing sales prove the point as the device becomes the fastest selling consumer electronics device ever.

As this device sells by the millions right out of the chute, one must recall the early days of the original ground-breaking Macintosh computer. The hoped-for goal back in 1984 was to try and sell 100,000 Macs in 90 days. Apple barely made it (if at all). Times have indeed changed. So if mobile apps and the iPad are the two hot topics for the next year or so, what else is out there?

There is the Internet and its gatekeeper, Google. This appears to be the only company working the Net that is doing anything interesting or noteworthy—not good. Microsoft has been marginalized and tries to get attention for Bing when it should be keeping people interested in desktop computing somehow. I'm not sure how to do this either, but Microsoft should be trying to figure it out. But it doesn't seem to care, despite the fact that this is the way it makes make most of its money.

So let's face it, unless something comes along sooner than later, all you'll be reading about is Apple, Google, Pad computing, app-phones, and not much else. Yeah, there will be the occasional story about an AMD chip with a funny name, or IBM thinking about cloud computing, or Larry Ellison of Oracle buying the new Lexus supercar.

The slate of articles sounds boring, and it is. But there is a benefit, too. Because the line-up is weak, writers and analysts will look elsewhere for human interest. And this falls right into the lap of laws, regulations and the effect of technology on the public-at-large. This means discussions of harmful effects, privacy, learning, computers in schools, computers and terrorism, automotive adop tion, tracking, surveillance, and on and on.

You can worry yourself sick about the paucity of interesting tech stories that do not involve an iPhone app, but there will be plenty to discuss, but it has now moved to the "big picture."

I've begun to notice this transition from nerd talk to serious debate over technology and society beginning a few years back. While a good gizmo with a picture attached will always get some attention, talking about how you may be getting screwed by technological trends seems to be more and more interesting to a wider and more diverse group of readers.

While tech mavens like myself could effortlessly ride out these trends by deconstructing the code-name conventions employed by Intel (I have done this a lot over the years), nowadays nobody cares. The usefulness of the barcode readers on the app-Phones, now that's worth discussing! But writing about how technology allows people to easily snoop on your TV-viewing habits might be even more interesting. Perhaps this is the age of the practical; we've had enough of geek talk. Hello iPad, let me smudge your screen. Are you spying on me, iPad? Hmmm...interesting.