Pendulum
Originally written at 4am on 20240908, while still half asleep...
Almost two decades since the falling of the first stones that ultimately caused the touchscreen revolution. I was there. Blown away by the idea that a slab of glass can become whatever you need it to be in the moment, all managed by clever software. A million units shipped that first year, and everyone lined up to play ‘Follow the Leader’.
Five years later, capacitive touch had spilled over into ever more products. If it had a screen, it begged for oily fingerprints. The days of blind interaction with tactile input are over.
Those days were over, right?
A million songs in your pocket, entertainment on demand, availability and access ever increasing, The line must go up. Saturation of art and the commoditization of creativity, whatever you want just a tap-tap-tap away. Why care to stare at the vista when you have five million pixels at your every command?
Design and human interaction are important, more so than ever, I’d argue, and just like any emerging fad, the details and the best practices eventually sort themselves out. Two steps forward, one step back, ratcheting progress ahead.
Did you know? Analog formats are making a comeback. The art of the playlist is alive and well, elevated to the status of a mixtape, with only a 60 minute capacity to convey your dreams, your rage, or your empathy. Playback is achieved with technology from a lifetime ago, modernized with advanced, modern circuitry and lithium polymer.
Every automobile has a touch screen. Constant over-the-air updates evolving your experience, allowing newer and newer features, the best money can buy. Integrations with the all-knowing, all-seeing, all-hearing digital messiah, whether you want it or not. Don’t bother yourself with the journey, Alexa take the wheel. Millions of pixels, no need to interact, she knows what you want, instant delivery.
I remember seeing the Honda E concept a half dozen years ago, and the Volkswagen Buzz shortly thereafter. Both were updates on ideas from decades before I was born. Not necessarily ’retro’, but clearly inspired by earlier sensibilities. Form and function, seeking harmony. No need to maintain an austere facade, these vehicles know what they are and embody playfulness and delight.
The trend doesn’t stop there, with more OEMs delving into their back catalog of greatest hits, pulling the classics forward, offering a fresh take on known quantities. I mean, JFC, who would have thought a modern take on the Bronco would be so incredible?
The thing that delights me the most about the current trend into mature technology and design is that it’s been tested, proven for decades, and reveling in human interaction and emotion. At some point over the last lifetime, we became infatuated with the idea that the human senses should always be occupied, entertain, or overwhelmed, and that our digital assistants should constantly curate our experiences. It became a novel idea, at first, to access anything you desired, anywhere you were, at anytime of your choosing. Abundance of choice and access to everything have value in themselves, but often the signal is lost in all the noise.
Resistance to the mainstream is always expected. Counter-culture middle fingers always have value in that they question our blind acceptance of ‘progress’ and force us to reflect on what might be lost by tossing away rituals and tradition, or in this case, allowing technology to replace our humanity.