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The iPad maker is leading a subtle change in the tech industry which has one
simple goal: getting consumers to buy more.
When the head of Apple strode on to stage at the California Theater on Tuesday
evening the expectant crowd whooped and cheered. It was a similar albeit more
low key reception at Pier 57 in New York City on Thursday, when the head of
Microsoft appeared.
The tail end of October has been dominated by the Big Two launches: Apple s
iPad Mini and Microsoft Windows 8 and Surface tablet. Complete with banked
photographers and ecstatic press scrums trying to get a glimpse of the latest
model , they felt as much like fashion shows as product launches.
But that should come as no surprise. It is all part of a shift in technology
that has gradually moved away from an emphasis on utility to today s holy
trinity of look, feel and lifestyle. A shift pioneered by Apple but
increasingly championed by all tech firms, it takes its cues from fashion,
positioning tablets, computers and software as cultural beacons: stamps that
immediately say who you are or, rather, who you aspire to be. If anything
proves just how far technology is ingrained in our lives, it is this.
Yet what s most significant about this move is not what it tells us about Apple
or Microsoft or any other technology firm, but what it tells us about
ourselves.
Everyone think different
For most people, a modern tablet computer or operating system is a minor
miracle of excess, able comfortably to accomplish every daily digital task
demanded of it. But what we merely do is no longer the key factor. Far more
significant is the way that owning and using these objects makes us feel:
status, self-expression and how we would like to be perceived by others.
It is something that is subtly and repeatedly emphasised by tech firms. The
rhetoric around the iPad mini is familiar enough, with official descriptions
emphasizing its beauty, fluidity and tactile intimacy of experience. Even
Microsoft, though, are now playing the same game for all it's worth, with the
public presentation of Windows 8 coming across as an attempt to out-Apple
Apple.
According to Microsoft s product guide, Windows has been reimagined to focus
on your life. The beautiful, fast, and fluid design is perfect for a range of
hardware... it s smooth, intuitive, and gives you instant access... And so on.
What s on offer is a kind of technological sublime, promising not only the
ultimate lifestyle accessory, but a place where the experience of living itself
can be perfected.
The move from technology manufacturer to fashion label has helped Apple become
the world s most valuable company. More than anyone, it has defined the
increasingly image-conscious space within which digital technologies try to
position themselves. Think of its 1984 advert for the first Macintosh or its
Think Different campaign of 1997, which emphasised that buying into a
technology immediately bought you membership of a cultural elite. This worked
well, but what really gave it a kick was when gadgets left the office and
appeared on the high street. With mobile phones and MP3 players, people were
able to show off just how different they were all the time by simply popping a
million identical pairs of white headphones into their ear.
Today, Apple had completed its transition from a technology company into a
lifestyle brand: something that comes complete with apparent media privileges.
As Alexis Madrigal, editor of the Atlantic tech noted when Apple showed its
latest commercial: Gotta say: that's a damn good iPad Mini commercial.
Luckily, the press does all the work of explaining the thing, so Apple can just
brand.
The conveniences of a compliant technology press are not to be underestimated.
But there is a still more significant aspect to being a lifestyle brand within
the digital space, closely related to something I call emotional obsolescence:
the point at which a purchase stops imparting the gratification it first
afforded.
The promise that novelty and beauty can bring happiness and status is hardly a
new feature of consumerism. Yet this sentiment, imported from the realms of
brands and fashion, has arrived among digital technologies in a particularly
intense and intensely lucrative form.
Never satisfied
As the author (and fellow BBC Future columnist) Matt Novak noted on Twitter
when Apple introduced its fourth generation iPad on Tuesday: the real story
here is that Apple shortened its planned obsolescence cycle to 6 months.
Aiming to achieve a revolutionary technical breakthrough several times a year
is an impossible business plan. Fuelling a frenzy of public feeling at the same
interval, however, is eminently possible.
Hence the heady ecstasy of the modern product launch and the fact that the
best generator of technological profit margins in 2012 isn t features or value
for money, but the very fact that there is another model out there which is
newer and different. It is an emotional experience that money most certainly
can buy.
It s also a seductive, dangerous game to play. Can one company continue to
dominate perceptions of quality, cool and desire? Microsoft, Samsung, Google
and many others are betting not. Will consumers continue to buy into shorter
lifespans and incremental changes to products? Only time will tell.
To my mind, though, what ultimately differentiates digital technologies from
fashion and other forms of consumption is the nature of the promise being sold
and of the emotional obsolescence being rammed down purchasers throats. The
notion of shoes and clothes making you a better person is one kind of fiction,
and a powerful one at that. But with interactive media, what s being promised
is a lifestyle in a far more literal sense: a complete system for expressing
yourself in the world, not to mention regularly topping up the premium status
of this existence with purchases.
Similarly, an operating system that works the way you do as Microsoft puts
it makes a powerful appeal to our sense of self. It may also offer a
magnificent user experience. Yet it begs the question: if this is so great, why
should I keep on seeking something better?
One answer is that this seeking is just another part of how we work: never
satisfied, seeking perfection in continual motion away from the present. And
while this isn t the whole story, it is a large part of the vision of lifestyle
and humanity that the freshest crop of product launches are selling.
There s an important warning in all this. As MIT professor Sherry Turkle puts
it, in her recent book Alone Together, Technology is seductive when what it
offers meets our human vulnerabilities. More than ever, we need to make sure
we know what we're really signing up for when we plug into these new seductive
lifestyles. Buy and enjoy by all means. But remember: few things are more
perfectly engineered to fade over time than seduction.