If You’re Going to Do Something, Do It Well.

At least, that’s what I think Apple’s motto is these days, even if it failed a couple of times in the past. Recently though they’ve had a string of hits, and one can’t help but be drawn into that myth. The iPad has to live up to this.

But: i…Pad? Are you serious? Did some geniuses in the marketing department get totally trashed one night when trying to decide a name and go, “wait wait I know it you guys, I have it… the iPad. It’s like the iPod, only it’s a pad! Am I a genius or what!”?

No, somewhat akin to the naming of the Jesus Phone, creativity only extended so far. Something which apparently caught them by surprise was the near instant sanitary ‘pad’ jokes that appeared on Twitter instantly.

I mean, I know I’m being petty when I say this, but even the word shapes of iPad and iPod are pretty damn similar; you would think they would do something which differentiated it immediately.

The iPad is a bit out there. It’s definitely not a phone, it’s not your average music player, and it’s not a computer by a long shot.

It’s not a tumor!

The thing is, phones everyone can understand that they are limited. Until the Blackberry and the iPhone, pretty much everyone just expected their phone to be able to do calls well, and SMS was a bonus, because who wanted to stab the 7 key four times for the letter s? (seriously: S is not that uncommon a letter!)

Some are calling this a gigantic iPod touch, but it’s not that either. While I’m sure it’ll play music well and be the best touchable music interface out there, just because of the size of the screen and Apple’s expertise in designing user interfaces, but that still doesn’t make it practical as a portable music device.

It doesn’t work as a phone, and I don’t think much more can be said there: it hasn’t got phone capabilities, I haven’t heard any mention of a mic, and there’s no video camera to enable a sweet ultraportable video conference/chat device. Just imagine for a second how sweet that would be.

And finally: it’s definitely, definitely not a computer… even though it does all these computer-like things.

Yes, it’s got all the underpinnings of a computer, but it’s one that’s permanently stuck in Kiosk mode, locked down and unable to perform general-purpose tasks on demand. This was acceptable on an iPhone or an iPod, because their primary purpose was Something Else, something other than Being a Computer, and the limitations of hardware were accepted.

Uh, Well, What is it good for?

An iPod is to play music on the go, an iPhone is to make calls. Everything else those two devices do is a fringe benefit.

The iPad doesn’t have a distinct independent purpose – its features are a “But wait, there’s more,” list. Its essential function appears to be to consume content, a convenient and highly portable device to feast on the latest from what I’m going to refer to collectively as Big Content.

While I’d quite happily have a 10 paragraph screed on the evils of Big Content and Apple’s 800-pound gorilla behaviour with these guys on board, here’s a simple way to put it: iBooks is currently US-only.

While Amazon will happily accept my credit card details and international shipping address for a hard form of a book, and ship it free if I spend enough, Apple and the publishers have determined, negotiated, planned, connived to deny an electronic copy, which costs next to naught to copy and “ship” instantly, will not be available here in Australia.

The point of that little example is to illustrate how the content distributors are dictating terms of use – of how and where and when a particular production is viewed, read or heard by a consumer. So much for the freedom of the internet abstracting away location and distance, or the idea that information wants to be free.

And it may be a long bow to draw here, but the difference between the Apple iPad and Hewlett-Packard’s recently announced Slate, or Lenovo’s dockable-touchscreen concept, is that the iPad is locked down and limited to an Apple-controlled sandbox; Apple dictates terms, what applications are available to install, what purposes the system will be used for and how the system can be extended. The HP Slate is a true computer; the iPad is a piece of consumer electronics.

But is that really such a bad thing?

No, it’s not. But there’s an asterisk there.

No, because it works for some, even most people. It works for the average consumer, who just wants the device to work, do some fun stuff, and be above all things easy to use.  Apple understands that, and they deliver – consistently, constantly. The consumer doesn’t want to see a buffering message or a loading screen when they go to play a song on their iPod, they just want it to play like a CD player would, or a cassette deck once did. Apple understands, and by locking down the iPad, gosh darnit, they deliver.

The big asterisk is that the iPad, in the form that it is sold, is not a general purpose computer, not the revolutionary tablet that everyone was waiting for from Apple. While Steve Jobs might be out to make the consumer electronics industry in His image – one button ought to be enough for anybody – there are plenty of people out there who would have killed for a couple of USB ports, the ability to multitask (you already have the gestures to switch apps on Mac!) and the freedom to install whatever you wanted, and hang the battery life or ultra-slim profile.

These are the people who resign themselves to a Slate, despite the lesser beauty. These are the people who bought UMPCs when Microsoft pushed the Origami concept. These are the people who tinker with Linux on weekends.

These are the creatives, once a group that was Apple’s near-exclusive domain. The people who create the content aren’t looking at the iPad as a revolutionary device because it’s too locked down, too constrained by decisions made to sacrifice complexity for wider consumer appeal. Oh sure, there will be Apps That Can Do That, but the apps are constrained by the programmer’s imagination, so the truly creative will have to articulate their vision to a programmer before they can create with their imagination.

And that is why the iPad isn’t getting universal adulation; in creating the iPad, Apple came close to an ideal device – light, instantly portable, beautiful form-factor, and quite clearly capable of doing quite a lot – but they locked it down in an effort to appeal with simplicity, and in doing so have missed the bar that was set.

War is Peace. Freedom is Slavery. Ignorance is Strength.

So I’d say Apple is creating something here which hasn’t really existed before, and will likely succeed in its own right, simply because it’s useful for doing quite a lot. The market for content consumption is vastly bigger than that for content creators, and I genuinely hope this device succeeds.

But… there will be those that find ways around the limitations placed on it, and there will be those that continue to hold a candle for the One True Tablet, awaiting the true coming of their messiah. And there will be those challenged by it, those who feel they must lift their game to compete, and hopefully those will find their edge in being general purpose.

The iPad may or may not quite suit your needs for now, but the only way to know if you’ll find it meeting your needs is to ask yourself: am I happy to consume content, or do I want to produce it too?

Supporting Material

• Mark Pilgrim tackles this from a true hacker’s perspective in Tinkerer’s Sunset
• Hitler embodies it better than anyone in this video.
• Scott Adams (Dilbert Man) goes in twice, picking up on the creativity angle, and the general lack of comparable products for Apple to excel against.
• Adam Pash of Lifehacker agrees too: “To say that “either a device is user friendly or it’s open” is a false dichotomy.”
• Steve Frank mentions the Pareto principle (80/20 rule), arguing that the iPad represents the next step to the “new world” of computing and that it’ll address 80% of users’ needs.
• Over on O’Reilly, Jim Stogdill compares the iPad to the Prius, noting how ‘tinkerability’ as it were has gone down in cars, and it was inevitable computers would follow the same pattern, but also highlight’s Apple’s control of the app landscape.

The Complaints Choir of Chicago

What a great idea!

“The price you pay is always wrong. If you sell then by definition you are lowest price in the market. If you buy, then your bid is the highest… [P]rice is what you pay while value is what you hope and pray for.”

That… is just depressing to think of. And why you have to take emotion out of major purchase decisions.

The Pentagon has responded… by deciding to screen all United States defence services for staff who are unstable and potentially violent.

Pause for effect.

You’re looking for people who are potentially violent… in the Army.

(sauce)

In some respects this now makes the site look much like any Wordpress site on the iPhone, especially since Wordpress.com has this plugin installed & enabled by default, but the benefit of the design and additional functionality is well worth the trade-off of appearance.

But before I do that… I have finished reading the book. And it is good. Later parts – indeed, parts that start to get discussed here – of the book are a… little more gripping, shall we say, and the idea of stopping after 6 chapters was blown out of the water. So here’s a few extra chapters of action from Randland…

Chapter 19 – 28

• Tuon and the Seanchan give me the utter shits. The level of ritual and formality in that society, it’s a wonder their army can do anything for all the bowing and scraping they must do to those “above their station”.
  • … on the other hand, we’re finally seeing the White-Tower-gets-hit-by-Seanchan prophecy come together, and in a reasonably sensible way (i.e. Seanchan don’t have to magically conquer everything between where they are now to TV.
• MAAAAAAAAT! Mat is back!
  • Yay!
  • This makes me Happy.
  • Apparently there’s a bunch of people out there unhappy with Mat’s new funny bone. I say bollocks, I love a character who can say “Saidared,” and cause raised eyebrows. Freaking brilliant.
  • Err, nothing much happens when he’s first introduced, save a mention of Ogier that reminds me how long it’s been since we’ve seen Loial or other Ogier…
• Perrin and Faile re-appear but do nothing but angst. Time to get a move on!
• Semi is freed by Shaidar Haran, and then goes nutso on Rand…
• … fucking him up good and proper…
• … and now he’s done what?! Well, Semi is out of the picture at least.
• I suppose you could see this coming if you were reading the right hints, but that doesn’t make it any better.
  • Yes that’s right, I won’t spoil exactly what he did here, because this really is one of the most powerful scenes in the book.
  • In terms of Rand’s character, this is a major Fuck. moment… in terms of the book, it’s a logical progression.
• Rand promptly tells Cadsuane he’s sick of her and that he “will kill her the next time he sees her face.” Minor cheer for comeuppance for most uppity Aes Sedai character ever.
• Gawyn reaches the Rebel camp, gets sat down by Bryne
  • While he’s wandering in he discovers the Aes Sedai who was stripped of the shawl amongst the washer women, and they bring her to the Aes Sedai later.
  • You’ve got to wonder though, with a camp full of Aes Sedai keen on signing up whoever they can get to the novice book why they didn’t ‘feel’ this lady already, and why it took Gawyn to discover her?
• Sheriam is going to get pwnd.
• Egwene manages to be a prisoner with dignity, and is still in a position of influence. This bodes well for her fight.
• Avi finally, finally gets the guts up to ask why she’s being forced to do useless stuff. The reason? Wise Ones don’t get pushed around by nobody.
  • And how do you instil that lesson? By, uh, pushing around the apprentices until they push back. Uh, good learning strategy that.
• Mat chapter again! Mat wanders into a small town for supplies. Hmm, any bells being rung re a certain Perrin-in-a-small-town scenario?
• Here’s why: The townsfolk turn into madmen by night, ripping each other limb from limb. But! They wake safe in their beds the next morning. Bubbles of EVIIIILLLL.
• No I still don’t know why we’re being shown these sequences proving the existence of bubbles of evil dammit.

And so we get to the thick of the book, and the plot is definitely in gear in more than one spot – Egwene is past the point of no return, and Rand appears to be approaching his own quite rapidly. Tune in next week to find out more!

Anyway, the looks on people’s faces when they see me reading is priceless.

Also one particular advantage of having such a large book is that others who are also interested can spot it a mile away. Already I’ve found someone at work interest, someone at a random food court, etc – and it’s always fun to discuss the series and see everyone’s take on things.

Enough blathering! Onwards!

Part the Third: Chapters 13 – 18

Well well well. I really did speak too soon on the topic of plot threads not moving at a sufficiently hurried pace, because suddenly things have kicked up a notch.

I hesitate to add “relatively,” because I know one of the hallmarks of the Wheel of Time has, since probably the third or maybe fourth book, extensive and detailed descriptions of characters and situations, to the point where you could easily construct some of the outfits the characters wear down to their very embroidery.

I guess the high-water mark for the pace was in book 1, when the characters and threads were simple and tightly bound together – indeed, it was about a third of the way into the book before we got a perspective on things other than Rand himself, when the party was separated.

In some ways the complaints of a lack of speed boils down to that comparison – the complex story doesn’t move as fast as the simple story the series started with. A comment in here indicates that at least one major plotline has only moved two or three months since The Path of Daggers, which was released four books and, oh, ELEVEN YEARS AGO.

In amongst these chapters though, roughly a third of the way (chapter-wise) into the book too, it’s clear now that the story is getting a head of steam. I suppose the timeline isn’t as important as the events that take place, so it’s starting to get to a faster schedule. So let’s see what’s happened:

• Gawyn finally learns that he’s fighting against his own one-true-love in supporting the Tower Aes Sedai (TAS), though he still assumes Egwene is being sock-puppetted and it’s up to him to do some rescuin’.
• We also learn here that the TAS have the Travelling trick, and they’re using it actively. Which spells a relatively quick end to be coming to the siege.
• Cadsuane knows how to hide stuff! Put it in a box with a One Power burglar alarm! Hmm, this is going to go well.
• Confirmed: Rand is linked to Moridin.
• Avi’s unexplained punishments are getting annoying to me too, not just the character. This whole ji’e'toh thing is beyond what is necessary now… can someone explain it?!
• Egwene finally has her show-down with Elaida, though perhaps not in the way expected.
  • Fuck yes.
  • Egwene can see a bigger picture, and she’s making an effort to try to show that to others. Elaida on the other hand appears to be getting pettier and pettier. This alone makes Egwene a better Amyrlin, which starts to become evident when…
  • The showdown finally comes when Elaida attempts to humiliate and show her dominance of Egwene in front of 5 Sitters. Egwene naturally doesn’t even give a glimpse of giving in, drawing Elaida’s ire and finally the confrontation we all knew was coming plays out in a dramatic and conclusive way.
  • This is one of the most brilliant scenes so far, at least in the book if not the series. The tension ratchets up and up, and you can vividly imagine the setting in your head as it takes place.
  • I wondered for a moment whether this was RJ or Sanderson writing, but there’s something distinct about it and if Sanderson touched it, it wasn’t so it was obvious or distinct from RJ’s style.
  • At the end of this chapter, things are looking pretty damn bleak for the girls outside….
• Cadsuane finds the key to getting Semi to talk is humiliation and treating her without reverence: giving her a good spanking.
  • Not much is said about how much/what exactly, if anything, she reveals, however.
• Word is out to the rebel (Salidar) Aes Sedai (SAS) that the TAS have travelling. This is going to cause… issues.

The story is starting to move; I still think at times it’s got an ability to wander off on dead-ends, but you get the feeling alongside the characters that the end times are coming, and soon.

The other thing I like about this book particularly is that the perspectives are kept relevant: there’s no page or two of different perspectives on the same event, or of minor characters wandering in the background to establish that the world has complex plots: we know this by now. Tight focus is Good.

Ed note: If I’m perfectly honest, I’ve actually finished the book already and this is going back over it to see how much I can remember. Bits may be a little blurry, and I may resort to a re-read to sort it out.

Thought so. So for those who haven’t read the Wheel of Time, you … might not want to read the next, oh, 6 or 7 posts about this. On the other hand, if you’re looking to draw yourself into an epic fantasy series, you might want to go down to the library and borrow The Eye of the World.  (or if you’re looking to get into an epic fantasy series that’s not endless, go borrow Magician by Raymond E. Feist. And stop reading after Shards of a Broken Crown.)

Side note: so, so very glad we don’t get the American cover for The Gathering Storm in Australia. That just looks awful.

Ahem. Enough of the chitter-chatter. More below the cut!

Part the Second: Chapters 7 – 12

Ok, we’re into Book Proper now, and… ok, some plot threads have started to move, though not necessarily at the pace I’d like it to. There’s also a major sticking point: I’m coming at this book relatively fresh – I haven’t done a re-read to build up to it, barring reading a few of Leigh Butler’s Much Awesome Re-read at Tor – so I feel like I should be reasonably tolerant of some of the recurrent parts of the book, but it’s just not happening.

What I’m specifically picking up on is the constant reminders of “bubbles of evil” and how they are affecting everyone; how food is spoiling and the general malaise that lies across the land. I mean, yes, these things are all necessary to set the scene and show how on edge everyone is, but this doesn’t seem to have had a material affect on the plotline recently, unlike for example the bubble of evil way back in The Shadow Rising.

This includes the one in Chapter 11, which seems to be there primarily to demonstrate Rand is going visibly nuts under the pressure, and that Aviendha is Good at Channelling. But we still haven’t found out why it is that she is being punished, other than for not ‘learning quickly enough’. Similarly, there’s one in Chapter 6 that does little, other than demonstrate how helpless Aes Sedai are in the face of these too. But I get the feeling we knew this already.

That aside, I do like how the pace is slowly building. In these six chapters, we learn:

• Rand has a Plan for Arad Doman
• The sky is pretty grey.
• Siuan still meets with Egwene in T’A'R weekly
• Siuan is head-over-heels for Bryne, to the point where she will trek across the camp to help wash his shirts.
  • Which Bryne appreciates because she’s so damn good at it.
  • About frigging time we had a reasonable romantic plot in this damn story.
• Bryne has some measure of insight, possibly what makes him such a good general.
• Perrin has mixed feelings for Faile.
  • Are we seriously back to this again?
• Perrin doesn’t want to be a lord.
  • Are we seriously back to this again?!
• Mat is Around. Somewhere, but Rand & Perrin aren’t interested in seeing the swirly colours.
  • I’m tempted just to skip ahead to the Mat chapters.
• There are a whole lot of armies with a whole lot of men running around Randland.
  • It’s about to get a whole lot more hectic since so many of them have channellers who know how to make gateways.
  • Instantaneous troop transport! What could go wrong now?
• Bubbles of evil congregate around Rand. Like we’ve known for something like, oh, 9 books? Yeesh.
• Egwene is finally! making some headway in the Tower.
• She also finally gets to meet the Black Ajah Hunting Society, staring down much more senior women in order to assert her authority as alternative Amrylin.
  • It appears to be working too, with some coming for “hypothetical” advice.
• And that would appear to be that for these 6 chapters… yeah.

It really doesn’t feel like much has happened – I’m guessing I need to be more flexible with these posts, leaving it for more logical plot points instead of exactly 6 chapters, though I’ll attempt to keep it to a manageable length before I forget key points myself. The pace is picking up, which is a Good Thing.

That said, having gotten impatient, I’ve looked ahead at some spoilers, and they do look good – I just need a chance to get to those pages!

When I heard Robert Jordan had died, I gave up on the idea of ever getting a satisfying conclusion to the Wheel of Time series. Here was an author who had stretched and stretched a story over 11 meaty volumes, one which apparently at the start had only been destined for 3 books, but due to burgeoning sales managed to get extended. Every book introduced new characters, new plot threads, and somewhere around book 7, I found myself thinking I should only ever pick up new series when they’ve already been finished or the author is dead and I know there’s no more coming.

Jordan promised the readers a conclusion in one book, A Memory of Light, and he said he was damned if he wouldn’t deliver. Well, fate caught up with him first and so his series was doomed to be left with an unfinished story, the remainder of his notes locked away for all we knew. So now we find ourselves with an author who has passed away, and yet the series continues… because there’s a demand out there for this damn story to be finished.

Naturally, with sales to be had, the publishers hired on another author, and so Brian Sanderson was picked to fill the shoes of the indomitable Jordan. Sanderson got to writing… and writing… and writing. It turns out he’s either even worse than Jordan at concocting a quick conclusion, his editor is just as bad at chopping unnecessary bits (not surprising given it’s Jordan’s editor, his wife), or they’re all out for a quick buck.

Maybe all of the above, because what we have now is not one final volume, which would end the series on an appropriate 12 book note, but rather 3 final “volumes” of A Memory of Light, the first of which is The Gathering Storm. I don’t want to complain at the prospect of having more reading material, but lordy, this thing is heavy enough already. Coming 4 years after Knife of Dreams, tGS isn’t so much a book as an old-fashioned tome. I can only imagine what this will be like when bound in smaller paperback format. And what has me worried is that this is only volume 1 of 3 of the final book – and by gods, will it be hefty when finished.

So, it is with this trepidation… that I rushed down to the book store and picked it up, and have been reluctant to put down since yesterday. And it is with some assumed knowledge that I assume you are coming into this, because I know for sure it’ll make little enough sense to anyone else. And if you really do care, there’s a jump to click through:

Part the First: Prologue, Chapters 1 – 6

A quick refresher: when we left Randland at the end of Knife of Dreams, Rand had just managed to lose a hand in one of the most anti-climactic scenes of the series yet, and captured Semirhage as almost a fiat accompli. Egwene, captured at the end of Crossroads of Twilight, was getting regular spankings in the Tower but was beginning to turn into something of a S&M addict from all appearances. Perrin had just managed to save his wife, captured somewhere in the mists of book 7 or 8 or something like that, and Mat, having raised merry hell with the Seanchan in the south, was apparently on his way to rescue Moiraine (finally!) from the Finn. For more details, check the Wikipedia page for KoD.

So where do we find ourselves at page 120? Well, in no particular order…

• Some random people we didn’t know or care about decide to leave their farms and go north to fight.
• Some random people we don’t care about are fighting the Seanchan in Arad Doman.
  • Like they have been since book 2.
• Rand is fucking about in Arad Doman somewhere with 8,000 Saladeans and an unknown number of Aiel.
  • He refuses to torture the master torturer of the Forsaken because she’s a woman.
  • Australia says No, Rand, but for the love of plot, will you just get this over and done with?
  • No-one believes Rand cleaned the taint, and he’s getting a little bitter about that now, ok? (and so am I: that was book 9. These people need to build a bridge.)
• Egwene is still inside the Tower, still getting spanked.
  • The corridors are moving in mysterious ways.
  • Like they have been for the last three books.
  • Oh and Elaida is a little power mad.
  • Like we’ve known… forever.
• Aviendha still loves Rand.
  • But baby did a bad bad thing, and is being punished. But she doesn’t know what, and can’t ask because that would be shameful.
• Gawyn is confused.
• Elayne is apparently secure in Caemlyn and expanding her territory – why now?!
• “The Prophet” Masema is dead.
  • And his rabid followers.
  • Dead dead dead.
  • DEAD.
  • FINALLY.
  • For real.
  • And he didn’t talk about duty being heavier than geography, or mothers welcoming him home.
  • It was in fact one of the shortest, sharpest scenes in the series.
  • Faile killed him. Now time for her to kick some more ass and take names.
  • He’s dead! Yay!
• The Forsaken, the wunderkind taken to pieces by the Wonderkids of Emond’s Field, are down to but a few who are plotting and conniving amongst themselves while apparently also attempting to capture (but not kill!) Rand.
  • Seriously, has a small country town ever in any plot universe produced so many Uberheroes? Whoever these kids’ midwives where clearly knew what they were doing. It’s a wonder the village didn’t have a little band of marauding toddlers who took over the local area at least. Did they have an orgy with Superman for all these damn kids born around the same time to be kicking so much backside all over the world?
  • Pardon the detour.
  • Graendal apparently likes her pretties.
  • Like we’ve known for the last, oh, 6 books.
  • And while she doesn’t appear to have gotten off her fat ass at all, apparently she’s done something to get the nod of the DO.
  • Moridin is sinister.
  • Like we’ve… ok ok you get the point.

So… other than seeing Masema (finally! finally!) killed off, we’ve gotten just about nowhere.

Yes, that bodes… well. I’m hoping this is because Jordan wrote these chapters, and no editor wanted to touch that legacy or something. I’m hoping to get to the point where Sanderson’s vision starts to show through, because it’s certainly not moving at anything faster than glacial. That or Sanderson has adopted Jordan’s vision for the plot quite literally, and is being just as wordy (oh dear god) in an attempt to stay true to the spirit of the plot. Why he couldn’t stay true to the spirit of the first book is beyond me.

What I want to say to Sanderson right now is to start winding in the plot threads and non-core characters being shoved off the scene. No more new Forsaken, no more new nobility introduced, no more new redshirts. Kill off the redshirts you’ve got around already and get the fuck on with it. Yes, we have 750,000 words to go and two more books to sell, but the only reason you’re getting a chance right now is because it’s the first of the new co-written novels. For all that you’ve told us repeatedly that the “The ending is brilliant!”, we want to read it sooner rather than later.

And will someone hire a goddamn editor!?