One of my first heated conversations original the original iPhone was when people started talking about it as a desktop replacement. I distinctly remember talking to Jeremiah Grossman about how he thought the iPhone could replace the laptop for many people. I vehemently disagreed at the time because of something I call “Consumption vs Production.”
As an example of what I mean is think about what you are doing right now as you read this. You are consuming data. You’re reading words I’ve written. But you aren’t producing anything. I’ve gotten very good about bucketing my day into one of these two categories. Reading Facebook? Consumption. Writing email? Production.
My beef with the original iPhone was that it was probably the best device ever made for consumption, but lousy for production. Writing long-form documents or code seemed improbable or impossible at the time.
That has changed considerably over the years. First is the concept of multi-tasking which was very lacking from the first variants of the iPhone. Subsequent revisions came with multitasking but still lacked screen real estate. That was eventually solved by the iPhone 6 and beyond. Lastly apps were the biggest bottleneck and have continued to be a burden.
We’ve finally come to a place where consumption isn’t the only option for smartphone users. You can now utilize the phone for an incredible variety of options. I, personally, am very excited by this prospect, because it enables me to be productive with an enjoyable consumption device.
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