Technology

Steve’s Kill Your Cable Adventure #6: Not With A Bang, But With A Spare $90

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So I got around to finally Killing My Cable.

We haven’t been using cable in my apartment for awhile anyway, as our regular readers know.  First, my roommate and I experimented in going without, but kept it around.  Then I cancelled TiVO, and I just didn’t get to canceling cable until recently because I kept forgetting to.

It was pretty simple – I called the company, cancelled, and took the card into the local office to turn in.  That was that.  No more cable.  A strange denouement to something I’ve been using for nearly 30 years.

Yet, an understandable end to something that just isn’t what it was three decades ago, or even a decade ago.

Walking into the local cable company office, the cable card in my pocket, it struck me how archaic it felt.  People with bulky cable boxes being returned or picked up, the line to talk to staff who clearly didn’t want to be there, the advertisements for services that no longer seemed new or fresh.  I could feel the age of the idea of cable itself weighing the place down.

Even the card I carried plugged into a bulky TiVO box.  This small device itself was a reminder of the odd negotiations of years past to get things to work together.  It was an artifact of old battles (as opposed to some of the new battles and continuing ones).

Cable feels aged, out-of-date, arthritic.

The office wasn’t a Genius Bar.  The technology seemed inappropriately large and ungainly.  The staff attitude wasn’t enthusiastic.  The service . . . well the service is something you can get anywhere, namely bland and uninterested.

At home I’ve got Netflix and Hulu on my Xbox or computer, with slick recommendations and all the programming I want.  I’ve got glittering, light, fast, friendly devices to deliver my content (among other things).  I can get what I want, when I want it, in many ways.

The age of content delivery is fast, slick, sexy, and smart – and with many options.

Cable still has the moribund feel of something that remembers being the only option.  It reminds me a bit of Microsoft back before Microsoft caught on and knocked everyone’s sox off with the XBox.  Perhaps that should offer cable companies hope – and something to think of.

I don’t miss cable.  I think, perhaps, I miss when cable was cool, when a new channel was amazing, when you could dig up neat treasures surfing around.  Those times are gone, and now the internet and Netflix and everything else offers a world of possibility – and focus.

I also wonder if Cable companies can truly move with the times.

I do believe it’s possible. A smart cable provider could become a kind of “ISP plus,” with all sorts of extra bundled services, premium content, and so forth.  It’d be a shift, indeed.  It’d be less profitable (if probably more stable) than they’re used to I’m quite sure.  It’d require effort, it would require change.

Sadly, I’m not seeing the kind of radical change that’s needed coming out of cable, though at some point the writing on the wall will be a bright neon glow that can’t be ignored.  By that time, it may be to late.

So now, I’m cable-free.

It should feel like something big or revolutionary.

Instead, by now, I just feel like my roommate and I are saving $90 a month between cable and TiVo.  I’m pretty attached to the money, but it’s still not the same.

– Steven Savage

Why We’re In The World Of Eternal Nerdstocks

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So Wednesday we had the big Apple announcements.   New iPad!  Apple TV!  More Siri!  We learn what Voldemort’s plan is!

. . . er, wait a second.  Yeah, sorry, the last sentence was wrong.  See it only felt like some giant release of a big novel.

I’ve noticed lately that big technical announcements, especially ones relating to Apple, consumer electronics, and of course games, are huge events?  Have you noticed the social bonding as people wait for products and specs, then share them?  Have you fanned over gizmos and games and stats?

Well, if you’re reading this you probably have.  For all I know now you’re wishing Mass Effect 3 came on the new iPad so you could play it using Siri.  For all I know someone is doing it.

Technical announcements and events have become just like big book events and big movie events.  They’re big productions, important, everyone is there, and we line up around the block to get our stuff (even if it’s only a virtual block).  We bond over it, it provides *meaning* to us.  It provides social bonding and connection.

Nerdstock is every few months.

I can’t overstate the importance of this – we are now bonding over technology and tools.  Sure some of the technology is fun technology, but even then there’s a technical aspect to it (“What machine are you running ‘Mass Age 3: Effect of Dragons’ on?”*)  Our social interactions now have a strong component of “what tool is coming out next?”

Our social bonding has thus taken on a strangely practical quality in the geekosphere.  We’re analyzing what we can do and what we can achieve and what we can play on some new device.  Tegra chips and hi-res screens are things we talk about over dinner.  We walk the Apple store with our friends appreciating the lovely gadgets.  We make jokes about the Adobe building**, in contrast to their software.

It’s not just geeks either.  Google TV has my parents talking about the virtues of browsers-on televisions.  Tablets are discussed by education professionals.  Everyone has some kind of smart phone that does many things including let you direct unhinged avians at angry bacon sources.

We’re bonding over technology as sure as we would of a film or a book.  It’s getting even more prominent.

I actually think this is a good thing – as in many ways it’s practical and educational.  People learn.  People use the technology.  People do stuff (even, again, if it’s winged creatures versus walking pork).  It’s a celebration of stuff we do stuff with.

This may also be part of what I noticed is an increasingly progeny streak in younger people (which, as I head to 44, I should clarify means anyone under 27 to me).  They’re used to celebrating tech and using it, used to the amazing things coming out.  Also, they’re probably thinking more of the future since some of us kinda screwed it up for us.

I only see more Nerdstocks in the future.  I see people discussing where they were when SiriBot 6000 came out.  I expect to see people discussing how they fell in love at a Microsoft Event openly.

. . . I’m kind of all for this.

– Steven Savage

* Dragons in space and sexytime with alien elves.  Tell me you wouldn’t play it.

** Really, that thing is ugly.

3/7/2012: The Inevitable Apple Roundup

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OK, yes, lots of Apple announcements today, so let’s get to ’em because they announced a ton of stuff.

  • A new iPad, which surprises no one. Sounds like they’re focusing on better visuals (both display and camera) for this one, plus a lot of extraws (LTE, acting as a hotspot, etc.) All these changes (and adapted software), are really pushing the iPad towards a kind of “everyunit.”
  • Apparently the latest Siri will have a dictation function, further confirming Apple’s focus on voice. I imagine the people at Nuance are a bit nervous, and rightfully so. If course they probably saw the writing on the wall awhile ago, which would explain their further move into medicine.
  • Surprising no one, the new Apple TV is coming. It doesn’t sound radically different – then again, Apple doesn’t DO radically different. It’s mostly some new integration, better interface, and so on – though I figure it’s going to get better support. My guess is it’s still being figured out, since some of it is basically turning a TV into a big monitor.
  • An iOS upgrade, but that’s probably the most boring announcement.

What’s intriguing to me is that this is all evolutionary not revolutionary – but that’s exactly what Apple does. There’s little that’s unexpected, but you can slowly see all the plans coming together in what’s obviously a suite of integrated devices and opportunities, really extending previous Apple plans.

A few takeaways:

  • Nuance, as I noted, may have seen the writing on the wall.  If you’re in tech ask yourself what companies may become redundant as common consumer tech advances – and then ask if you’re working in those areas.
  • Apple TV still doesn’t seem quite “fully formed” to me.  I’m waiting to see what more they do (though it’s cheap enough I may get one).  I think we’ve got a few iterations to go, at least software-wise, for it to evolve to it’s full potential.  This gives competitors an in.

– Steven Savage