Apple's Ubiquity

As a minor break from the monotony of my favorite subject, photography, I've decided the inspiration for this week's blog should be one of our reading assignment for class.

The article, What Apple’s iPad Means for Journalism Design, Multimedia & Business, talks mostly about how the ipad is going to affect newspapers, magazines, and other media that is traditionally available in hard copy. It mentions that Apple is becoming a middle man with power over the information we can consume on Apple devices, via Apple apps.

I don't have strong opinions on how the ipad itself will change journalism, but I do have an opinion on Apple and its technology. Since Apple's resurgence and reemergence with top of the line computers, phones, mp3 players, etc., it has become ubiquitous. Everyone, literally everyone, I know has some type of Apple device. Apple has taken over technology and invaded our pockets and purses. Internet is the same way.  Everyone is connected via ipad, blackberry, or the laptop they carry around in their backpacks.

Which means that article I was talking about applies to just about everyone, all the time. Even when they're underground riding a subway.

That article probably applies to you. Unfortunately it doesn't apply directly to me. Not yet, anyway. I am the only person I know (including many friends who are in debt from college loans and a few bad decisions) who does not shell out money every month to pay for my smartphone's internet. Why? Because I don't have a smartphone. Or an ipad, itouch, Apple anything, or a computer that I carry around in my backpack. Compared to most people in the modern world, I am digitally cut off from everything. I don't even have wireless internet at home.

That little fact makes me feel a bit behind the times. I would love an ipad, if only to check up on National Geographic's latest Visions of Earth while I'm on the bus to work, but that's not going to happen until I have a solid job with a solid, livable income. In the meantime, I'll say what a lot of people have been saying for years: I can live without internet on my phone, or checking my twitter feeds whenever I have two seconds to spare. So can you.

But if you don't care that you can survive without internet or the convenient devices Apple feeds you (because let's be honest, you don't care; mobile internet is fabulous), at least try to branch out. Let's not let Apple be the driving force, the gatekeeper of the information we receive via apps. Apple isn't the only one selling tablets or 4G phones. Try buying from someone else, and join me in my little microcosm where the only apples around are Fuji or Granny Smith.