A Thousand Songs in Your Pocket
Hard autumn. Not much feels important next to the news, and tech news least of all. But two things shipped last week and I keep thinking about them. Windows XP — fine, it is Windows, it will be on every office desk by spring. And a little white box from Apple called the iPod. A thousand songs. In your pocket.
I held one at the store for maybe four minutes. There is no keyboard. There are barely any buttons. It is a hard drive with a wheel on it, and it does exactly one thing — and somehow it is the most computer-like object I have touched all year.
Here is what I mean. Everything I build at work assumes a desk, a chair, a trained user, and a manual. This thing assumes none of that. It assumes a person on a sidewalk with four minutes of patience. If software is going there — and I think software is going there — my whole job changes shape.
XP will make more money this year. The white box is the future, though. Write that down.