We like to hack things, to take them apart to understand how they work, recombine their elements, improve them and add new ones, some of which we’ve built from scratch. We hack all kinds of things–computers, cars, food, networks, governments, music and so on.
We hack some things that we don’t own (like open-source software) and many things we do. Once we buy something we consider it ours to hack, and we don’t need or seek anyone’s permission to do so. Nobody can dictate where, how or what we hack, particularly when we’re not breaking any laws.
Our work is profoundly beneficial; it’s a big source of creative destruction in the economy and society. We turn out innovations much better and faster than big sleepy incumbents do, and we also keep them on their feet. They might not like us, but they can’t stop us; we’ll either hack their wares or turn out better ones. So we don’t need to play nice with them, and don’t have any interest in doing so.
Entities that welcome us are, in the not-too-long-run, going to outperform those that don’t, because we bring so much energy and generate so much innovation.
McAfee writes, “The sustained and rampant success of the iCosystem directly challenges core aspects of this ethos. It calls into question the idea that maximum innovation results from maximum autonomy, which has become almost an article of faith in some quarters. Millions of users and the iCosystem are teaming up to behave in ways that upset some geeks’ ideas about the way the world works, or how it should. Hyperbole, vitriol, contempt and alarmism are all-too-common reactions when this happens. We’d be better served by thoughtful reconsideration of how technology-based innovation occurs, and how it can best be encouraged.”
Read more in the full article here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Fred Mertz” for the heads up.]
All those geeks who are offended by the iPad should just not buy one. Is that really so hard to understand?
Geeks like us make up a very small percentage of the computing community. Read my article. It sums it up nicely -RC
http://bit.ly/bhhcf2
or Published thru MDN:
http://bit.ly/cmXiFF
Maybe the iPad does so well because [wait for it…] it wasn’t made by [wait for it…]
hacks
Maximum autonomy leads to chaos, in the extreme. Chaos can be a potent driver of innovation. But that may come at the expense of general pain and discomfort until the chaos settles down.
The argument over the Apple mobile strategy appears to hinge on whether or not the autonomy is “built into” the ecosystem of products. Lacking the benefits of the coupled system of computers/Mac OS X, mobile devices/iOS, iTunes/App Store, and retail stores, competitors to Apple have to find something to tout, so they tout “openness” as it that, in itself, is a virtue to everyone. It may be a virtue to hackers, but it can be anathema to the general public when it leads to confusion, version incompatibilities, and security vulnerabilities.
Although Apple’s approach has been highly successful, it is just one of many possible approaches. There is no need to attack it in order to justify an alternative approach. The drive to undermine Apple’s ecosystem is driven by desperation and greed, not on any altruistic motives with respect to consumers. If other approaches, such as Android, are superior, then they should be able to stand on their own.
I have embraced Apple because I am the anti-geek.
Apple lets you do what you want to do on a computer.
Not worry about spyware, viruses, Office verification, Windows verification, Office crashing, blue screen of death, no battery life,
Dell’s and HP’s customer disservice.
Geeks are: anyone who weighs less than 95 lbs, or over 300 lbs. Wears really ugly glasses, has bad acne and worse teeth. Smells like Red bull and Marlboro Reds. They have a stupid unwavering love for all things Windows, UBUTU or whatever OS they can hack and control to search for the latest pictures of Ugly Betty nude. I hate all things GEEK and the Geek Squad SUCKS BALLS.
Apple is the anti-geek and thats why they hate them…
Funny thing is the vast majority of “geeks” are just people waiting for someone (with real cred) to hack a device and post the instructions online. I know SOOO many of these self professed geek hackers that are absolutely USELESS at doing it themselves, yet they call themselves geeks? Tell you what, until YOU hack/crack something AND post the instructions on how to do it (having it verified by peers) you have NO right calling yourself a geek.
Are these the same geeks that created Windows?
I have another theory. They don’t like that Apple gives us software we can actually understand. They don’t like that they can’t get in the middle and confuse us wi their geekspeak.
Everyday I use my iPad more and my home computer less.
I guess I am not a geek after all.
This first time I read this I agreed 100%. Upon reading it a second time and watching my wife interact with her own iPad my judgment on the matter has changed. I now agree 200%.
Energy alone gets us nowhere. Directed energy can move mountains.
The days of a lone inventor in his workshop are over. These days it takes a diverse team with a wide range of skills (from software to hardware, arts to process) with a common vision, to create the complex products we want for the future.
Maybe I’m missing something (wouldn’t be the first time)… but how does this culture not exist within the Apple community? Sure, it might not be as big a percentage… but it is a fairly large number of geeks who have jailbroken (or hacked as the article states) since day one on the iPhone and similarly on the iPad. I’m not saying that they’re generating “so much innovation”… certainly they are not. But to say that Apple and Mac fans are not geeks or hackers does a bit of disservice to those of us that are thinking past the product release notes and trying to push our technology to the edge.
… the facts. We geeks like, nay, REVEL in, control. We know how to mount and dismount a “drive” by entering a CLI command via the Terminal program – just one example out of many. OSX and Linux let us do these things, if we choose, while Windows does not.
OSX also lets us do things the easy way, without much thought and without wending our way through menu after menu. Windows – and Linux – do not.
And then there’s iOS. No CLI at all. Not even much in the way of menu choices. No expertise allowed, much less valued! Rumor has it there will be multi-user options soonish, and possibly even (easy as it would be to accomplish) a user-enabled file structure. Still not much by way of a way to show off our skills.
bdb, that isn’t the answer. Well, it could be … but isn’t. Just because I’m offended by the iPad’s limitations does not mean it couldn’t have a place in my life. Just, not as my “computer”. I’ve been wanting something like an iPad since Star Trek (TOS) was in it’s first season. (a lithe blond ensign would be nice, too) It’s interesting that the v1.0 iPad, lacking as it is, offers so much more than that original PADD that I’ve been lusting after did. ;^)
Who are they talking to…all the geeks I know love it.
More speculation passing as journalism…
I loved my iPad before I started using iPhone 4 with retina display. Now I can’t look at my ipad’s screen without having a feeling of it being already obsolete and soo antiquated-looking in comparison. Ugh
A friend of mine from high school insists on building his own computer and refuses to use an Apple machine because he couldn’t swap parts in and out – without paying a small fortune (in his eyes) for a tower. And yet, of my closest friends, he’s the one who has the most problems with his machine: sound cards not working, network issues, microphone issues, etc. What good is having a device you have “complete control” over, when you can’t really control it? Apple’s devices, from Macs to iPhones, do exactly what you want them to do when you want them to do it.
Antonym…
I am a geek… I have been building PC computers for 20 years…
I have also always enjoyed the Mac experience in computing. there remains an aura around it.
My work horse is PC.
I have iPhones, iPod Touch, iPad and MBP unibody 2010…
Embrace them! All of them!
Geeks are people who balance their low self esteem with a superiority complex based on the fact they know technology inside and out. But now, tech is so easy to use(in the iCosystem), you don’t have to be a geek anymore to work it to it’s full potential. This makes the geek trump card invalid, leaving them with nothing but pimples and linux and pop tarts.
Their “benefit/contribution” to the world is no longer valid, pointing to a future where there are no more people in distress who bow to your knowledge to help them set up their internet connection. Stop being a geek, and if you are truly talented, become a developer/technician/engineer/programmer and join the cause to make tech as easy and beneficial for the whole world as possible!
Not just the iPad, but the iPhone, Mac and even the iPod. In particular the Mac thou. People like to think that they are special, and by others not depending on them for fixing stuff or getting stuff to work, they seem relegated to obsolesces. The iPad foments this insecurity among the geeks.
What a load of crap! these geek have not innovated anything. Most of them still live in their parents house rent free because they work for a minimal wage. Well time to be an adult and prove yourself after all you’re know in that 35 to 45 age group.
@ why argue …
I’m with you on this subject and yes also a lithe not necessarily blond female ensign to go with would certainly be very nice too, esp if she works in sick bay! On the subject of Star Trek, don’t forget the screens in Star Trek have been supplied by Apple for years to include all the movies and next generation/voyager/deep space 9 Tv series. Not that they actually do anything but look good hmm…
If you read the first paragraph where Andrew McAfee (surely must be pseudonym) states (hubris) that what he wrote was the best reason he could find for negative matters relating to the iCosystem of Apple, Inc and the iPad then in my opinion, if that really is the best, why worry as then it seems there must be a whole lot more positive reactions to the iCosystem than what he found.
Still overall the article is a poor excuse for not liking the iPad as I am certain that some geeks somewhere have ‘hacked’ the iPad in some way or another, even taking it physically apart to see what is inside and how all the components are laid out, etc.
As for me and the iPad, which I don’t have as yet, I’m waiting for iPad 2.0. This has been my personal policy for years, I waited until the iPhone 3GS before buying my first iPhone and yes I will buy the iPhone4 as soon as funds allow. I ran OS9 on my computers until OSX Jaguar. Oh and just in case I am now running OSX Snow Leopard on an Intel Mac Pro.
Geeks have no taste. They like beautiful things, iDevices, females, but know they can’t ever possess them, so they hate them instead.
It’s this perceived *ethos* that keeps MSFT in business in the corporate and enterprise IT.
Very few people, geeks or otherwise, actually hack something on a computer and improve it. They may want to change the behavior of a couple of items so that it suits their particular usage habits, not that it actually improves the device’s usage for most users. Many hacks are just overclocking for some added gamer speed, which, if it were such a good idea, the manufacturer would have set the processor at that speed in the first place.
@Jay You nailed it. The era of difficult computing is ending, and those who get their self-esteem from knowing arcane fixes for problems that shouldn’t exist are wailing …. And Apple is their sworn enemy.
It’s all far simpler than Fortune suggests. Geeks are threatened because one doesn’t have to be a geek to derive maximum benefit from Apple’s products. Geeks one claim to superiority over the rest of us is gone. We don’t need geeks to show us how to use it. Geeks have no way to measure their cred by showing off who can hack what in the coolest way. The playing field is level. Making computers work (at the geek level) should be nothing more than a job, not a lifestyle.
I would also add that the vast number of iOS developers with truly creative apps puts the lie to the argument that innovation is not possible within Apple’s ecosystem. If anything Apple has enabled far more innovation than the geek community has on its own.