The Perfect iPhone App

Well, it will not be perfect, because there is not enough time to fully develop the app in the time frame of the course, especially getting off to the slow start that I have had. So how about a solid iPhone App. A solid app is quite possible, learn the fundamentals, piece together the code, work on the interface, tweak it a little and voila, a solid app that is useful to me and hopefully a few others.

So let’s start with inspiration – what would make a good application… I listed some of my needs through the course of a day. I drive multiple vehicles, work a full time job and am self employed, so tracking business mileage is a concern. I still use the old pen and Adams brand Vehicle Mileage Logs. An app that is with me each time I fuel, drive, park that is easily downloaded to Quickbooks/Turbotax instead of transferring my chicken scratches to an Excel table would be helpful… but if I would spend a few dollars there are already several available with pretty high reviews.

Next thought, I am at TTUHSC and helping someone track a PO and its myriad of payments over the last year, I refer them to the Weblink Document Imaging server, they download exactly what they need to resolve the question. An interface to hit those millions of images would be relatively easy to coordinate with the existing API calls … but then there is the secondary level of security to get past, the good old eRaider log in. Okay, I already have shim worked out that we can bypass that security, always logging in using my username and password regardless of what computer I am starting from, just by using a special access… but I don’t think audit services would be too thrilled with that kind of backdoor access being used by even one or two people, much less the many that might try out this application… I check the active connections and there are currently 323 people logged into TTUHSC document Imaging, only 24 of them from desktop connections, and the remaining 299 from the web service. Of those, how many would actually want to work while walking down the hallway to their next stop… okay there may only be about 10 people who would really appreciate this application, but it would still be a good one to work up at a later time. Information Technology tells me that an iPhone compatible eRaider protocol is just a few months away from reality. Until then I will continue to use the iPhone Remote Desktop and hit that way.

Thought number three – hopefully all the Mac Users (PC version also recently released) out there are familiar with a great application from Objective Development called Little Snitch, the reverse firewall program. This monitors exactly what information is being broadcast from your computer. A firewall regulates what comes in, this regulates what goes out. Much more information is being sent than most people realize – so wouldn’t a Little Snitch for the iPhone be a great idea? I could see whether any of these apps had initiated tracking features, who was watching my Safari searches, whether any of the networks I attached to were logging data, etc. I started talking to one of my employees, who has already coded several iPhone apps and asked about feasibility of such a program. He offered to write it for me, anticipated several months with cooperation from Objective Development and at least a year without cooperation (working on it sporadically). If it would take him that long, the possibility of me completing the task is minuscule.

Back to the drawing board – I’m talking with my son at lunch last Saturday and I mention this project. How about something to accompany what Rich Rice was talking about in working with dissertations; tracking reading lists, due dates, project milestones, things like that? What would be a logical ancillary application for pedagogy of some sort in the general field of English? The sage advice of the youngster echoed through the nearly empty upstairs dining room at Spanky’s, “Think simpler, think student apps.” Makes sense, how specific do I want to be?

Parts of speech identifier, sample sentence, highlight each word, select part of speech from dropdown menu… can’t be too tough. Eventually expand so that they can copy/paste in their own more complex sentences, how do you tell if they selected the correct element? What kind of matrix would be required to do that… h’mmm still doable, but how interesting would that be? Gears spinning a little faster, thinking within a more doable scope. I’m no longer planning on being featured app on Lifehack, just something that a teacher would say, ‘This might help’ to a student. What about just a simple algebraic grade calculator? I have x assignments at even weight, already completed four of them, what’s my average? Let’s change the weighting… include due dates and nice descriptions and maybe room for relevant notes regarding each assignment. This could be a good application. Started doing a little research – did not want to look at what was already out there because I assume it already exists, but until I work out some of my basic elements, I don’t want to be influenced by somebody else’s product.

More later … but at least I think I have a project that I can build by myself! I may sound like a third grader – but I know some of my limitations. Bigger and better things will come in the future, but for now I just need to get one app under my belt, figure out how things work, become registered and devote enough time to this project to complete it to my expectations.

The Rhodesian Stranger, Sections and Reprise

The final chapter is an obviously humorous rendition (parody?) on Plato's Phaedrus, where Socrates demonstrates the superiority of rhetorical thinking/speaking skills over the written speech.

The stranger makes use of yet another meaning of the pod - in this case the seed pod - for planting, harvesting and consuming these pods which represented speech.

I am not in full agreement with the Stranger's inference that everything written is diluted to the general public and was therefore trivial and unimportant (although I would use the same argument when discussing political correctness in writing), while the spoken word was directed to the immediate audience and therefore more specific, meaningful and important. This was an enjoyable dialogue and an ideal way for a philosopher to interject a myriad of questions in his reader's minds.

Regarding the sections of the book, iPod and Philosophy; iCon of an ePoch, Object, Thought, Image, Community and Action - it was only after I had begun reading the book that I realized how well thought out these divisions were. The iPod is multifaceted and thoughts about it, philosophy regarding it, action possible with it and results expected of it cover a broad spectrum and generate additional questions in retrospect.

Object began with the familiar archival device, its appearance and obvious use. Thought progressed to ancillary uses, creative approaches, and reasoning and objectivity towards the users of the device which led to Image with the whiteness article and Hickey's article which relates well with the Born Digital book (with the exception that Born Digital differentiates between the generation and the population specifically because of the worldwide differences and inequities of opportunity).

Community and Action dealt with larger realms of expression, interactivity and purpose, each section builds on the other and presents some unique views concerning the iPod specifically and technology in general.

Eighteenth Chapter … Marc Lombardo, "Is the Podcast a Public Sphere Institution?"

This chapter ends with "If the podcast can limit its fragmentary and isolative aspects and continue to resist its integration into the corporate media structure, it may provide a valuable resource for the creation of a socially-transformative public sphere" (page 228).

This seems counter intuitive to the reason I see podcasts as being successful. Poscasts must remain fragmentary and isolative to avoid being too broad based and too corporate/advertising media controlled to be effective.

Another point (page 223), "While the increased connectivity of these devices seems a logical next step, it may well compromise the personal aspect of the iPod that attracted people in the first place and that served as the basis for the podcast's mode of reception." Wow - caught me off balance there - I really had assumed throughout the whole book that the increased connectivity of the iPhone was just a natural extension of the iPod and everyone appreciated it. Lombardo actually lays the foundations for a good point here however, in that the untraceable, disconnectedness of listening/viewing a podcast may be one of its most important characteristics. Maybe not in the USA today, but possibly in China, Iran or even the Philippines this may matter much more than I would have presumed before reading this chapter.

Seventeenth Chapter … Regina Arnold, “Podcrastination”

Hey – I liked this one. Not only was the title unique and appropriate, but the article had citations and structure and the uninhibited nature of Regina Arnold’s writing was refreshing. She called Neil Postman a grumpy man and Theodor Adorno a known sourpuss (she would probably be equally unflattering in her analysis of some of my cynical postings).

We are enslaved, “we are tools of our tools,” and there is a depersonalization that has become evident through use of mobile devices. Arnold defines Podcrastination as “the voluntary suspension of one’s engagement with reality.” Even though we reason that by time shifting tasks by using automated processes, we have attained a certain degree of freedom, we are actually ever more enslaved because we have become dependent upon that time shifting to make it through the day.

I had not considered the etymology of the term ‘podcast’ as she describes it, to a specific group, like a pod of whales, rather than to the world at large, a broadcast. I would really enjoy the opportunity to discuss her vision of the podcast that can provide a platform for a more participatory culture. She discusses text messaging and smart mobs but is convinced that the automatically downloadable aspect of the podcast is superior. Apparently this was written before the real emergence of Twitter, which takes the convenience and accessibility of a simple text message and combines it with the directed auto-downloading features touted by Arnold.

Arnold saw iTunesU as a potential overthrower of the social order, but it has had less of an impact than was predicted and she says that there is evidence that we will never use the “conventional consciousness industry” for any enlightening purpose but I think that is starting to emerge. A follow up article or interview would be interesting.

Sixteenth Chapter … Librivox Volunteers, “Quantitative and Qualitative Change”

Very interesting transcript of an on-air interview, beginning with the “free-as-in-speech” metaphor verses the “free-as-in-beer” concept. I have an interest in the intellectual property debate and Wittkower’s position that copyright rules create an artificial monopoly and are based upon outdated technology makes sense.

Competition has improved technology and the method of communication and publishing is so different today from what it was say two hundred years ago that the same rules no longer apply. It no longer takes a massive amount of labor and substantial capital to produce mass quantities of printed material. The average Westerner (nice that Wittkower differentiates from the average worker) can publish an original work in a matter of seconds and mass distribute around the globe equally fast with no significant additional capital for each subsequent transmission. Once she has purchased the original communications device and connected to a transmission protocol service purchasing dies, paper, typesetting, ink, transportation and related printing costs are optional.
The question seems to be that since her losses are smaller than they would have been had she spent a year’s productivity preparing the document for print only to have the market seized by larger printer who could undercut the price and duplicate the content without paying her anything, have her rights been infringed upon less?

Regarding the “semi-commitment” attitude that lowers the bar for entry into things that interest you, it has positive and negative points. I assume everybody has heard the one about the chicken and the hog who were discussing honoring the farmer with a quality breakfast … the chicken thought she was making a major contribution by providing the eggs until she realized what the hog had to do to provide bacon. There is a place for both ham and eggs. This article is a few minutes and ding, it is off and published. The author who dedicates years of extensive research and hones each and every phrase to perfection should be awarded more substantial rights -but how can the works be differentiated and is it ever "right" to have a sliding scale of justice? Who decides using what criteria?

The conversation shifts to Robert D. Putnam’s “Bowling Alone” book and the decrease in involvement with social and non-political organizations and its effect upon neighborhoods. Technology has provided a personal isolationism and a general movement away from a dictated culture. The ensuing discussion of consumerism, illegal art, commercial gain, ownership and public domain was interesting but non-conclusive. Ownership, privacy, community, action and justice ask complex questions and there are no simple answers, especially in a capitalistic based society that values individual thought, labor and at least pays lip service to protecting individual rights.

Fifteenth Chapter … Matthew Dewey, “The Shins Really Will Change Your Life”

This article is reminiscent of the Blobject article in Chapter Two in that it states that “in the iPod there has been a perfect mix or harmony of function and design” (page 181). The John Dewey quote under the iAsthetics heading was intriguing; the experiences which result in a “consummation and not a cessation” are so much more fulfilling and meaningful. They can produce new understanding and direction as Mathew Dewey mentions.

How this results in, or is opposed to John Dewey’s (confusing having an author quote someone more famous with same last name – makes you wonder if they are related?) Participatory Democracy is obtuse reasoning. Interesting points but the aesthetic experience, legal ramifications and “new” were somewhat convoluted and difficult for me to follow.

“The beauty of an iPhone is ….” Would make an interesting piece, similar to Preston Wilcox’s “White Is …” mentioned in Chapter Nine, how many possibilities could be envisioned (and how out of date would it be by the time it was printed?)

Fourteenth Chapter … Ruud Kaulingfreks and Samantha Warren, “Mobile Clubbing: iPod, Solitude, and Community”

This chapter reminded me of Richard Brautigan and his ‘there is nothing worse than being alone except wishing you were’ philosophy (may be too old for any of the readers of this blog) expanding to the “Being in common has nothing to do with communion” (page 176) and Jean-Luc Nancy’s inoperative communities where we combine solitude with some vague sense of passive community.

I have trouble associating with the “shared purpose” of the entertainment only/personal expression/rebellious nature form of expression mobile clubbing concept, but the flashmob and social justice gatherings are of more interest to me, but they go significantly beyond the iPod and into other personal communication devices.

Thirteenth Chapter … Joseph C. Pitt, “Don’t Talk To Me”

“The spontaneity of the social has disappeared and the silence of the anthropoid now rules.” If only it were true! Is this supposed to be some sort of ‘Planet of the Apes’ type comparison? Maybe a year ago (but probably not) iPod had decreased aural communication, but with the arrival of the multitude of web accessible handheld devices the explosive increase in the number of communications in Facebook, Twitter and other social networking sites is “deafening.” The amount of noise and useless chatter can overwhelm the “important” messages (define as what matters to me rather than what matters to you). Seriously, few people care what Actress A ate for lunch or where Personality B is driving at this moment, but we may see governments change when people gather here or there or get censored messages past the authorities to be broadcast to a vast audience.

Do iPod users as a whole avoid eye contact, ignore social etiquette, and become more animalistic just because they have a secondary sound source strapped to their ears? I have not seen any scientific evidence on that, personal experience says the students who work in our department have retained some semblance of civility. They acknowledge my presence when I enter the room, remove earbuds when spoken to, and communicate quite freely between themselves, frequently with only one bud in and one open.

“The iPod itself is a piece of technology. As a piece of technology it’s neither right nor wrong, good nor bad” (Page 162). Can its use have consequences? Of course. Can you create a haven that extends your quality of life? Perhaps. Can you use it to enhance your relationship with others (usually more distant)? Perhaps. Could it be used to teach courtesy and respect? Doubtful, but not impossible.

The point about diminishing social skills to the point of being detrimental to job seekers seemed a bit melodramatic to me. Possible, yes – an interesting chapter but not a well written objective academic piece by any stretch.

Twelfth Chapter … Donald L. Turner, “Listening with the Other; Listening to the Other”

If several of the other articles were a little too excited in favor of the iPod, this article helped balance the effect by being almost paranoid of the “awesome and dangerous powers of that little machine.” Emanuelis Levinas quote of Blaise Pascal in describing the “beginning of immorality as the self’s declaration of possession” page 149 is even more effective following Dumitrica’s “The iPod is about me, about my experiences, my time management, my preferences” from the previous chapter.

Several people in this class joined in previous discussions on Donna Haraway’s “A Cyborg Manifesto” and it was interesting to see how her adamant claims are gently absorbed into iPod culture. The iPod may simply be a means of expediting obtaining knowledge about a person, an encapsulated version (oversimplification?) of the complex forces and experiences that have shaped the unique individual which can now only be expressed through a mechanical cyborg model.

The Martin Heidegger quote on scientific observation “it takes care not to see in order to understand what it sees … but only in order to see” is ambivalent beyond human expectations. Can a human not be touched by what he sees? Not try to think beyond the visual? Not question beyond the observable? I appreciate his view on the river (page 150) but calculative thinking is symbiotically tied to meditative thinking (referenced by Condella in Chapter 8) and part of what separates the human inquisitive nature from what we consider lower life forms.

Eleventh Chapter … Delia Dumitrica, “You Are Your iPod!”

This chapter opens with the question, “Ever wonder what the person next to you is listening to on their iPod?” and unfortunately, the only thoughts I had were the few times I have been next to someone for a length of time who insisted on singing along with the music only he could hear. However, since I enjoy reading Foucault and about his thoughts, the rest of the article was pleasant. Our identity is always under construction, constantly changing, being acted upon by numerous forces. How do we construct our selves? Were does the self fit in reality? What level of agency do we possess and how much are we (pre)determined by external forces?

When we consider the iPod to be a technology of the self, it is suddenly much more interesting to me than a music archival system. Could an iPod actual assist a person in leading an exemplary life? If the iPod or iPhone records and identifies the self, a diary style interrogation of the soul, a sharable but presumably private expression of likes, dislikes, thoughts and motives, then the playlist of that persons life may show which culture they have bought into. Are all the songs mainstream top 40 commercially created artists or is there an independent streak of defiant, protesting the issue de jour awareness content? Is there a model self? Whose propaganda would the model self’s iPod contain?

Dumitrica states on page 136-137 “These devices talk about what we deem as important…” Personification that I appreciate; this is how some have found their voice. But the voice Dumitrica offers is very self centered: “The iPod is about me, about my experiences, my time management, my preferences. It separates me from the social world in which my body is present. It signifies a state of being to this world: I am present, but I am with myself. No intrusions, please!”

The technological tool she describes utilizes a dividing practice, much more a separator than a unifier. The discussion about separating the unfit until cured was almost chilling and the closing comments on becoming a work of art was entirely too brief to be effective. Getting joy out of showing Dad your calendar is not my standard definition of art.

Tenth Chapter … Andrew Hickey, “iCon of a Generation”

“We live in an era in which the image assumes ever more currency and the real increasingly follows behind” (page 115). iDentity and the iPod as a marker of social context., the new definition of youth, coolness and affluence are all interesting thoughts. I don’t know if any of these things define the user/owner/customizer of the iPod or are just clues and examples about how she chooses to interact with technology.

Youthfulness is more than a simple age demarcation (page 126) is becoming increasingly obvious to me. But it is also not 100% separated from chronological age either.

Hickey does mention agency and that not everybody is a product of mass consumerism. Some can and do re-appropriate cultural trends and demands and look beyond the implied images and make thoughtful decisions. But his primary emphasis is on the iPod “telling us” who we are.

Ninth Chapter … Jon Austin, “The Unbeatable Whiteness of the iPod”

Okay, when I heard part of the discussion about this chapter (again before I received my copy) I was questioning whether this was being expressed humorously or as a significant race issue. Reading through the chapter I am still somewhat perplexed by how far to take the thought.

Appearance – yes, some of the first iPods were that pristine white, my iPhone is white (but it is protected within a black leather case). But subsequent versions, especially of the Shuffle were every color imaginable.

Users – the developers and initial purchasers of iPods may have been primarily of Caucasian descent, but when I look around for those infamous white cords, I see a diversity of ethnic, social, religious and financial backgrounds. Much like my take on commodification and reification from Chapter 4, some of these perspectives are more difficult for me to see being immersed within this specific primarily white, very capitalistic, geographically isolated population. Is there really “an unthinking assumption of superiority claimed by and ascribed to the white West”? (page 103). Is there an implied connection between goodness and morality – or was the color selection a marketing decision and advertising campaign selected with minimal consideration of epitomizing or degrading any racial or ethnic population (Wolfenstein’s “epidermal fetishism” or racism page 110)? Whoever developed and marketed the first “skins” may not have been as neutral in their attitude, but without researching that extensively, I don’t believe Apple was involved directly – more likely Griffin or an independent, but in my isolated white world, I pictured skins as the tiger and zebra striped wraps I noticed; not as an ethnic jab.

I did like some of the word selections Austin employed, cognoscenti, simultaneous consumption, lifestyle transfusion apparatus, imaginative geographies, politics of representation, etc.

One thought regarding the final subtitle, Playlisting the iPod: White Soul – since I was not familiar with any of the titles Austin mentioned, I wanted to mention that since the original iPods that did not show album covers, videos or anything other than audio and text which may have helped expand the audience and acceptance for a whole generation. I appreciated the music of several individuals and groups that had clever or catchy names for their tracks that I would never have listened to had I seen their cover art or their pictures. I am prejudiced when it comes to excessive tattoos or piercings or inflammatory graphics and being ignorant of the artist’s appearance and background I listened with an accepting attitude to the actual music and judged it according to those standards, not preconceived appearance based expectations.

Eigth Chapter … Craig A. Condella, “iPod Therefore iAm”

Wow… a soundtrack for our lives leading to the most question of our time – how we handle technology. Tying in with the last chapter and the specific applicability for specific periods of quiet, meditative thought as well as calculative thought and the seeming impossibility of finding enough time and adding the constant availability of iPod type devices was presented well. Shower thinking – in the quiet solitude was good enough for a whole series of commercials, so when Condella quotes Heidegger and arrives at a definition of the shower as one of the few places where we find ourselves alone and with our own thoughts and therefore that is precisely where what little meditative thought we engage in occurs makes sense.

Remoteness and homelessness – not as a sign of poverty but as a result of a specific type of wealth – is an interesting perspective. Having devices that bring the familiar to wherever we are, and customizing the familiar so specifically that nobody else’s environment is quite the same as yours does produce a specific type of isolation or homelessness that is rapidly escalating in prevalence. What is still lacking is a communal homeland, a specific camaraderie that transcends location that does not isolate one from locality but seeks to familiarize the traveler/nomad/technologist with other location based individuals with a similar basis for belonging.

Then, like the yoga pre-session meditation, the technological tool could become the focus of building community, not isolation. The GPS based applications of iPhone that can locate people or places may rapidly change this concept as the general public becomes more aware and more willing to adopt their offerings.

Seventh Chapter … Daniel Sturgis, “Today’s Cheaters, Tomorrow’s Visionaries”

This is another good discussion around the iPod (and iPhone and other future devices by inference) as an important educational instrument. The comparison between traditional and asynchronous podcast style classes seemed somewhat dated, now that synchronous online class options are so much more prevalent.

The points about auditory learning styles and combination learning styles are quite relevant however. Sometimes the full immersion new alternatives do actually seem to interfere with the potential of the mentioned “theater of the mind” capacity. A focus on the audio only has a magical appeal that incorporates imagination in a way that video or dimensional immersion does not allow. Last semester we explored Second Life pedagogy and while it has its place, it demonstrated that pure text, pure audio and other combinations have their specific place as well. The incremental benefit of listening to podcasts in addition to written text seems quite positive.

The most significant portion of this chapter in my opinion was the differentiation between memorization and education on how to utilize technology to access information. Pg 82 – “To free learning from memory is also to free it from a focus on self reliance – the value of knowing it yourself.” Collaborative efforts and information filtering appear to be much more important in the future than memorization. We may be on the brink of systematically redefining the ultimate goals of learning.

Sixth Chapter … Scott F. Parker, “Philosophy by iPod”

Great chapter. Opening couple of pages about benefits of iPod in foreign country while using treadmill but the balance is a very well written discussion about the benefits of Philosophipod and the democratization of media and the (nearly) universal access to philosophy. Whether or not this universal access is a threat to academia or a desired outgrowth remains to be seen. Parker brings up great topics of authority, interactivity, version control, objectivity, etc.

Fifth Chapter by Librivox Volunteers, “Philosophy Audiobooks?”

Quoting from the back cover of the book, Dylan E. Wittkower has recorded numerous texts that can be downloaded from LibriVox.org.

Visiting the site, you can subscribe to D.E. Wittkower, ed.. "On the Popular Judgment: That may be Right in Theory, but does not Hold Good in the Praxis" by Immanuel Kant in a “Chapter a day” iTunes format, download a single zip file of his recitation of the entire work, or listen to individual chapter mp3’s with 64kbps or 128kbps download options.

Scott F. Parker and I may be the exceptions to the rule, but my iPod has very few music tracks. I have several audio books, many sermons and studies and dramatized readings and other audio files. I am not an avid music listener; therefore my world does not revolve around an iPod playlist.

I also hope many additional titles, including textbooks and philosophy books become readily available through programs such as LibriVox.org and while I really appreciate Wittkower’s perfect enunciation and careful reading of the Kant text – I feel compelled to mention that his recitation is boring. Some of the other readers I sampled from this site were much more lively and nearly as clear. Back to chapter two – there has to be some coming together of aesthetics and efficiency for optimal results.

Fourth Chapter … Peter D. Schaefer, “Alive and Clicking”

Relates back to Rehn’s first chapter. Page 42 “… there’s a fine line between personalization and personification.”

Commodification is not inherently evil or oppressive. Easy for me to say that from this side of the capitalist economic rift, but I do believe it. The whole issue of reification or thingification is intriguing. “Marx uses the term “reification” to refer to the way that the market tends to make us reduce people and workers to mere labor-power, while, at the same time, we begin to see human, life-like qualities in manufactured products.” Page 45, but as Schaefer makes clear (Page 50) “The modern world is a reified world and we can imagine no other.”

I will revisit some of the dehumanizing aspects of commodity production at a later time. Not an easy, comfortable point to casually toss around.

Third Chapter … Andrew Wells Garnar, “Don’t Delete These Memories: The iPod and Materiality”

Garnar states his credentials on page 31. “The sheer number of CDs serves to make clear I take my music seriously.” Okay, then if ownership, possession and unrealistic quantities are your criteria for level of involvement – why am I not surprised that you are writing about materiality and that your whole self-image equates to economic materialistic control. Not an unbiased observer.

His slant on iPods powerful effect on establishing non-linearalness in the thought process was well written. The tactile, ownership, physical manipulation, categorizing and obsessive behavior was wasted on me. Every object has its stack. Every stack has its opportunity to someday be looked at seriously and then discarded or restacked. My wife makes me rent an office a few blocks from the house because she cannot handle my level of organization, or lack thereof. The right amount of space is crucial to a healthy relationship… as is the plurality of media (trying to segue my digression back on topic).

I did appreciate “the tendency to place the lower-case letter “I” in front of a word to indicate a move away from “the real world” to something virtual, electronic, digital, based in information or how-ever-else-you-want-to-describe-it.” I wish he had taken one step further and discussed the obvious self-centeredness involved with this virtual world and away from the communal based ‘real world.’

Second Chapter … Francis Raven, “The Moment of the Blobject Has Passed”

Not having received my book until after the second class, I was at a loss for most of the conversation about Blobjects. I missed out on the significance of the conversation. I thoroughly enjoyed this chapter. Again – pre-book arrival – I mentioned in a Tweet same article Joshua referenced, http://rooreynolds.com/2008/04/24/blogjects-and-tweetjects/ that discussed Blobjects and Blogjects. I was thinking strictly on a productive communication device, The text pulled me back towards the multifaceted aesthetics and design versus functionality and efficiency concept.

Lifestyle embodied within and reflected by products. Blobjects represent the best of both worlds mentality. Starting on page 23 Raven observes “The design phases of Beauty and Truth echo deeper currents in society. The philosophical poles of idealism and realism can be said to be the hidden forces behind the tides of Beauty and Truth.” If the iPod represents that penultimate balance between decoration and function, introduced shortly after 9/11, establishing itself as a new icon of all encompassing minimalism, then we don’t have to compromise between (possibly even differentiate between?) truth and beauty.

On to the First Chapter… Alf Rehn, “Wittgenstein’s iPod, or, The Familiar among Us.”

Familiarity, familiarization, family relatedness, beyond intuitive to the point of synchronization of thought to the point where the absurd is so natural and logical that it is accepted without question (back to Odysseus). Safari 4.0 has a Top Site display, Cover Flow and other new browser options are totally alien and impossible in the physical world but seem perfectly natural in a digital environment.

Two quotes on pages 9 and 10 caught my attention: “… ready-made familiarity seems to make the world more distant and unimportant… we have created ways of looking at the world within which the iPod stands as a symbol through which we can understand things. Many things.”

These introduce the section on self and agency. Who is doing the training? Do you load things into your iPod so that it learns your style and what you like or does it recommend related songs to make you more general, predictable, normalitive so that in what you perceive as unique and customized you are actually finely analyzed and controlled? Page 13 “… it questions exactly who is getting familiar with whom. “

iPod and Philosophy

My initial thoughts while reading selections from iPod And Philosophy; iCon of an ePoch edited by D. E. Wittkower ran every possible direction. An organized study on lifestyle, thought process, belonging, racism, community, identity, change and motivation all centered around a consumable intangible mass produced object.

But many of the readings were well done; they affirmed the viability of the product to give value, meaning and identity to life – at least as a method of archiving, expressing or analyzing those emotionally laden terms.

The title of the introduction caught my fancy much better than the title of the book did. “What do we hear when we listen to our iPods” subtly speaks past the obvious; what we hear and discern is much more than the audible relaying of digital tracks saved to another electronic medium. I had not considered an iPod as a method of creating, building or defining a relationship in any plausible way so the discussion of how an iProduct can condition its owner (caregiver, human partner, imprinter, or other term may end up applying by the time I finish the reading based upon first two articles) in a manner that both limits exposure and enables common ground was intriguing.

Page xiii was the analogy with Odysseus and the question:

Which are we? Are we Odysseus, who hears the voice of the other, distant, disconnected from action, unable to go meet them, but aware of the compulsion to do so? Or do we silence the other, in order that we are able to move forward, to act, and to participate in our day-to-day re-creation of our society through our mere consumption?

Wittkower then offers insight into his response, and assumes the reader automatically agrees when he states, “How can we bridge the gap? How can we become Odysseus unbound?

My reaction to that was an emphatic ‘Why would we want to become Odysseus unbound?’ Those who heard the Sirens and were allowed to act went raving mad. Their sound created a self-destructive obsessive and illogical pattern of behavior that would not be desirable in the least!