You slide your thumb and you index away from each other and back, possibly like a conductor, or, if you imagine an ice skater, you develop an elegant figure on a surface that look like glass, a surface that has a depth to it because of the world it promises behind. I am talking about the latest sensuous gear of Apple.
We know, the device is not available yet, which makes the desire of possessing it even stronger. Logically human, we project our desires, fears, and fantasies onto what is unknown. So we are, longing for the familiar exotic tool, another one that does everything we “need” to feel at home when on the move: we can connect with one or more friends at a time, listen to music, recall our memories at wish or record some more… though it does not make it easy to engage with our surrounding like Ambient Addition. It is clearly a gear that plays with our emotions; but would you be asked to do so again, who would not crunch the apple for a world of passions or the kiss of a prince?
Apple tastes good. It does not smell yet. But touching it has something electrifying because we don’t always tap it with our thumbs; we caress it… And like in the days when you would turn the page of your newspaper, reading, sitting with a cup of coffee at hand, the index slides—to move on to the next image… So the forbidden fruit is tempting our senses, reenacting old or invented memories. Herein lies his latent success!
How do you attain “sleekness”? By eliminating the unnecessary, rather a paradox in the age of consumerism: why pressing a button when you can… brush… a sensitive skin? For the gadget to become a fetish, it has to trigger all senses. This is when the association and playback of an image with a sound (not necessarily the background noise) could become sensible… But that definitely is the next generation of sensuous gear.
The purpose of the dithyramb is to give design its righteous place. This is how I will contribute to m-trends!
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[...] I keep re-reading Yasmin’s blog entry on the „sensuous gear“, aka the iPhone announced last week. A one of its kind post, worthy of an editorial. Just as Rudy in his post I have to admire how Steve presents or rather evangelizes to his ‚followers’. Maybe Nokia should think about inviting more ‚followers’ to their next Open Studio event instead of just having journalists that sit there like dead fish. Some more excitement in the audience would surely not hurt. [...]
[...] Sometimes the guilt is too big… When such a great man leaves us, how can we not assess the world we build and the fights we choose? There are certainly more important things in life than owning the latest gadget! But here, to some, the battle seems unequal… To who is always in transit, forced to be mobile or not, that gadget is a fetish, a transitional object, an anchor, and a life jacket. It is home. [...]
[...] I’m looking forward to this do-tank, double-thinking my daughter surfing YouTube on her PSP, a conf call with Katrin Verclas from N-TEN last week on mobile appliance in Africa, the evolution of GSM, UMTS, WLAN, Bluetooth, and WiMAX, from web 2.0 to mobile 2.0, sensuous gear, Negroponte’s $100 laptop for the world’s children education, the kinetic elite, global warming, sustainability, the Mobile Web in the Developing World, lift, aspiration tech, while listening to the ‘The Awakening‘ of Ursula Rucker (check the lyrics!) on 4 Hero’s -btw- excellent new ‘Play With The Changes‘ album. Announcements, augmented reality, club of amsterdam, do thank, ethnographics, Experience Design, Felix Bopp, girona, human experience, Humberto Schwab, immersed experience, innovation, lab, Laurence Desarzens, media lab, Mobile Culture, Mobile Lifestyle, Paul F.M.J. Verschure, ricardo baeza yates, social media, Trends, Ubiquitous Devices, Urban, usability, user experience, we mediaThese icons link to social bookmarking sites where readers can share and discover new web pages. [...]