The iPad Follows Rule #1 of Technology

If you ask a tech type where the future of computing lies he/she will start spouting off about the cloud and seamless integration with all the devices you use. Your fridge will call the disinterested repair guy before it breaks down,  it will also tweet when it is seriously low on bacon so you can have groceries delivered to your house. Your fridge is banal, soon your liver, notified by a Wi Fi implanted chip, will crawl out of your mouth and punch you in the face when you've had enough to drink for a particular evening.

The notion that technology will solve all your problems sooner or later is a persistent one. So persistent you have to wonder if those folks are really engaging in predictions or talking out loud in the hope that saying something will make it so. If you suspect that the supposed predictions are more fantasy than reality, you'll ask a smarter techie about the future.

That person, the smarter techie, will say they have no idea what the future holds but faster internet speeds are a certainty, cheaper computers are a certainty and increased storage is a certainty. Beyond those broad predictions, they'll abstain because actually figuring out what that might mean is next to impossible. Who could foresee Twitter? Who could foresee Facebook? Could the awfulness that is MySpace have been predicted? What people will do with the technology, the smart techies will tell you, is impossible to divine.

The smart techies are right as far as they go. Increased computing power, increased bandwidth, opens up a world of possibilities. And what people will do with the advances is unknowable. It is a bit like looking at an aquarium full of frogs and guessing which one will jump next. You know, sooner or later, all the frogs will head to the pile of dead crickets in the corner but predicting which frog will get there first is impossible.

That said, the smart techies are as befuddled as the hopeful tech types. The smart techies are hoping for something new and cool to come along, while the hopeful techies are hoping for something to satisfy their geek needs. Both groups overlook the most obvious thing that is going to happen: Everything is going to get easier.

It would be a fool's errand to argue that everything gets easier over time, the notion simply isn't true. 

Let us go with a basic technology. How basic? Let's use fire. Back before there was TV or even right wing talk radio there was fire. You're thinking that you don't use fire very often today, that it is an antiquated technology. That's wrong, you use fire all the time. Lighting at night with your fancy econo bulbs is fire, when you turn on your electric stove you're using fire. Drive your car? Definitely fire. Pop a few caps in someone? That is fire and firing. Shave with an electric razor? Not really fire but it should be noted that dousing your beard with lighter fluid and giving it a spark results in a close shave and moderate scarring (not recommended).

In the olden times, fire was a bitch goddess. You couldn't make it, you could barely control it, but you really wanted it. Sure it might burn down the village, but wasn't that a good deal? People loved the charred sticks that fire produced because it made spear tips harder and cave wall drawing possible. 

With the advent of the industrial revolution, everyone wanted fire when they wanted it. So matches were invented. It was a good business, sure you had the ailments faced by the factory workers, but if you were making matches in the early 1800s you were making money.

It can't get much easier than dragging a stick across a rough surface. But it wasn't easy enough. People wanted fire that didn't rely on sticks. Those wishes begat, after some time, the Zippo lighter. While the Zippo was easy to use it had a drawback. You had to replace flints and fuel. Who has that kind of time?

Zippos fell to Bic Lighters. The diposable lighter good for a thousand flames, cheap and easy. How easy? Bics made fire making, once a skill, so simple that even a child could use one. Since no one wants to be shown up by a two year old when trying to set something aflame lighters are now child resistant. Fire was once the bailiwick of the specialized, but relentless technological innovation made fire so easy to use they had to go back and make it arbitrarily more difficult.

Which brings us back to the iPad. For everything the iPad doesn't do there is something it does more easily than a netbook or a laptop. The iPad isn't about replacing a computer for people who already love computers or even about killing the Kindle. The iPad is about making the things everyone wants to do dead simple. To assure yourself that the iPad is the computer for everyone else grab an iPhone and a 3 year old. After wiping off the peanut butter and jelly get the kid to fire up the pretty flower app. Then challenge the tyke to drill into the application folder on your Mac and open Mia Math. You'll see the allure of the iPad within seconds.