The End of Stuff

Hot on the heels of my article on Western consumerism (Tech Manufacturing Coming Home) I'm going to propose that actually part of the consumerist habits are likely to retreat in the very near future.  I'm talking about the next 12 to 24 months here, not some out of focus point in the distant future.

Now many of us are avid collectors of stuff - not just gizmos like laptops and tablet computers, but also the media associated with them.  DVDs and Blu-Rays are a major part of many a collectors home right now with bookcases and shelves bulging with years worth of collected special editions, boxed sets as well as the normal versions.  A few years ago we all had bookshelves bulging with CDs - well actually a lot of us still do but those collections are building up much slower now.  While CD sales haven't died completely, many of us are buying our music on-line and downloading it to iPods and other MP3 players without purchasing a physical copy at all.

You could argue that the iPod, iPad, Android phones and tablets, and all the other devices we have in our homes to store our on-line bought music are the modern manifestations of the CD library.  But then we have to factor in the iCloud and Google's Play cloud where we can store up to 25,000 music tracks that we own the rights to listen to - either music we've bought from the likes of Apple or venerable tracks sat on plastic CDs on our bookshelves.  If we feel the need to store more than 25,000 (20,000 with Google) then that's also OK, but be prepared to pay for the storage.

So really, the CD collection is almost certainly a thing of the recent past.  We shouldn't be too surprised, it isn't that long ago that we had bookshelves of 12" vinyl records - OK I admit it, I've still got some in the attic and a turntable in my home office, but I don't play them anymore.  And the VHS tapes were recycled years ago (I'm not going to mention the Betamax tapes I used to have).  Fair enough, there's no shortage of records and VHS tapes on eBay, proving that there is still some demand.

And let's face it, the argument for owning DVD and Blu-Ray discs is only for completists.  What you can't Tivo, Sky+, record on your HD recorder you can order from LoveFilm either as a DVD on loan or streamed through to your tablet computer to watch, well, wherever you can get WiFi.

I haven't even started to rant about books, either.  Unsurprisingly I'm a great believer that eBooks are about to overtake print.  This holiday season we're going to see an avalanche of tablets ranging from £70 no-name Android devices to £500 iPads with everything in-between.  Some of these will disappoint, others will cause arguments on Christmas day over the costs, but pretty soon half of the adult residents in the UK and the US plus our friends in Australia, New Zealand and Canada will have devices that can, among other things, be used to read eBooks.

To me this means two things.  First, we're on the edge of not needing as much physical stuff as we historically have.  The toys will remain, the tablets and netbooks, but the physical media will shrink.  But the second thing is that the future probably isn't iCloud or Google's variant.  I think we will see the emergence of personal cloud space that could link to our Apple iCloud etc.  So we could take advantage of the iCloud directly or via our own cloud.  Critically I think there could be a family cloud, where common media could be stored - photos, diary, contact lists plus, assuming the ongoing arguments over intellectual property rights can be ironed out, our common music and film copies.  Then each family member could have their own overlapping cloud space - like the ultimate Venn diagram.  And critically each personal cloud would overlap to some degree with your iCloud, your Amazon cloud, your Google cloud.  It would be a unique space that all of us will have, that we'll be able to access day or night from anywhere with WiFi.

Perhaps I ought to pop onto eBay, take a look at those completists buying records, VHS tapes, DVDs and Blu-Rays.  They might want to buy my bookshelves.

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I can be followed on Twitter too - @RayASullivan
or on Facebook - use raysullivan.novels@yahoo.com to find me

Why not take a look at my books and read up on my Biog here

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Apple Told To Get Lost

Australians are not noted for diplomacy.  Sure, they're as sophisticated as any nation, but they're not backward in coming forward.  And it looks like the Australian police aren't too pleased with Apple's mapping App.

The App has come in for a lot of criticism since its launch in September and to be honest I'd understood that Apple had rolled it back and returned, albeit reluctantly, to Google Maps while they searched for a fix.

Well according to reports streaming in from Australia it seems that the Australian police have noticed a hole in the Apple Maps App and are looking into it.  It seems that the App reports places that are located in the middle of a desert as being 40 miles away in a populated area.  Up to six motorists have had to be rescued by the police in an area that hits over 100 degrees and is noticeably devoid of water.  One motorist had been lost in the wilderness for over twenty four hours.

The police state that the Apple mapping system is inherently dangerous.

This is another slam in the face for Apple since the release of iOS6 that has seen senior managers at the company clearing their desks as a result.  As I say, I'd understood that Apple had updated iOS6 to remove the offending app, but of course that depends on users being in WiFi or 3G contact to receive the update.  It also depends on the device settings as to whether the software updates automatically.  And let's not forget that Australia is a big country with lots of remote spaces - it is conceivable that some residents may only have access to update their devices every so often.

But one thing Australia isn't is backwards - it has a vibrant technological user base and Apple is a big part of that.  For example, Australia is second only to the US as far as Apple iBook sales go.  The UK is third.  So it seems inconceivable that many Apple users in Australia are completely oblivious to the furore surrounding the iOS6 upgrade.

Of course, the whole planet is also affected to some degree by the upgrade and are happily using their iPhones, iPads and iPods on a daily basis - well, reasonably happy.  However most of us don't drive into remote desert regions totally reliant on the mapping capabilities of a mobile phone.  If I was venturing anywhere with the potential to get hopelessly and life-threateningly lost then I'd take a dedicated satellite navigation device like a Tom Tom with me.  Or a map, now there's a thing.  In fact, I tend to venture afield with a Sat Nav and a map, but I'm a bit old school like that.

So the Australian police would like Apple to get lost.  Could I suggest that Apple take a copy of Google Maps with them.

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I can be followed on Twitter too - @RayASullivan
or on Facebook - use raysullivan.novels@yahoo.com to find me

Why not take a look at my books and read up on my Biog here

Want to see what B L O'Feld is up to?  Take a look at his website here

Worried/Interested in the secretive world of DLFs?  Take a look at this website dedicated to DLFs here, if you dare!

Apple Plays Risk With eBooks

There's a board game that's sat in my cupboard gathering dust, not because it isn't very good, but because everyone thinks I grow horns as soon as the dice start rolling.  The game is called Risk and if you've never tried it then have a go.  Just make sure you don't play with someone who creates characters such as Barry Liam O'Feld, the megalomaniac evil genius anti hero of Project: Evil.

The idea of this game is to achieve world domination - there is no second place in Risk and definitely no such thing as a draw.  You play to  win.  Initially you are allocated countries randomly, to which you spread your limited 'armies' across.  Your competitors do likewise and then you wage war on each other.  The only vocabulary you need is the following few words: Stomp, stomp  stomp and stomp.  The attacker throws up to three dice and the defender chooses to throw up to two in defence.  Highest scoring attacking die is matched to highest scoring defending die, second highest attack versus remaining defender if applicable.  Throwing two sixes in attack is a great attack, two sixes in defence is superb, unbeatable.  Sounds easy, is easy, but requires the tactics of Sun Tzu and the luck of the Irish.  A good game lasts for hours, great games last for days.  That's probably the other reason it stays in the cupboard, come to think of it.

Anyway, it would appear that Apple have been burning the midnight oil playing Risk.  I mean, nobody is doubting that world domination is an aim of Apple and to be fair, they seem to be succeeding.  For starters, they've sold enough iPads since its launch two and half years ago to provide one to every three Americans. Or one to every Brit in the UK with change.  Their latest bid for world domination is through their Apple iBookstore distribution network, which has just added pretty much the whole of Central and South America from Mexico down to the tip of Chile, and New Zealand.  This takes their distribution to fifty individual countries worldwide and positions them ahead of their competitors as far as I can tell.

The Central and South American stores are a great move - the whole region is a major expanding collection of countries that are tipped to be highly influential Internationally in the near future and Apple have obviously recognised this.  There's an opportunity for Spanish and Portuguese language writers to gain greater exposure in these regions and in Europe, but also for English language writers to gain exposure to this wonderfully diverse range of countries.

The surprising addition, though, is New Zealand.  Not surprising that it should be included but that it wasn't already.  In September Apple's book sales were, in descending order of sales rank, from the US, Australia, UK then Canada - all predominantly English speaking (with a bit of Spanish and French thrown in for good luck).  I know New Zealand is a distinct and unique country to both Australia and the UK, but it is a no-brainer that it also shares many of the same qualities and characteristics of both of these countries.  I expect Apple will start seeing some great sales returns from New Zealand real soon.

In an unannounced aside, I note that Amazon have added Japan, ostensibly from the same broad geographical region as Australia and New Zealand, or at least that's how Risk sees it.  I understand that Australian eBook readers can use the UK Amazon site to buy books, not at all sure about NZ - but Amazon have no dedicated facility for either.

So I welcome all the new arrivals in the Apple community; Central America, South America and New Zealand.  I only have one question.  How did Apple get to New Zealand via South America?  In Risk you can only get there via Asia.  But win NZ and Australia and you have the safest continent on the board.  Amazon might want to think about that!

However Apple got there, I think they must have thrown a couple of sixes on the way.

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I can be followed on Twitter too - @RayASullivan
or on Facebook - use raysullivan.novels@yahoo.com to find me

Why not take a look at my books and read up on my Biog here

Want to see what B L O'Feld is up to?  Take a look at his website here

Worried/Interested in the secretive world of DLFs?  Take a look at this website dedicated to DLFs here, if you dare!