commit cbb8eedb93035fb6f2f52e50778448b0582f800b
parent 58344cf451ba6fefcfaa9555d35c62554ee39632
Author: FIGBERT <figbert@figbert.com>
Date: Tue, 14 Jan 2025 17:57:44 -0800
Add "It's Time to Build New Hardware" post
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diff --git a/content/posts/time-to-build-new-hardware.md b/content/posts/time-to-build-new-hardware.md
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+title = "It's Time to Build New Hardware"
+date = 2025-01-14T17:57:00-08:00
+[extra]
+type = "post"
++++
+
+[There is a feeling coursing through the populace.] It is just now
+bubbling over, spilling through the cracks and taking its many shapes.
+The world changed forever with the introduction of the iPhone in 2007—it
+is a fool who thinks it can't change again. I am a fool who thinks it is
+going to change very imminently.
+
+<!-- more -->
+
+> Let’s be honest, making a new primary device is effectively
+> impossible. We probably won’t see a smartphone-killer or a
+> computer-killer ever.<br/>
+> [Louie Mantia, Jr.]
+
+These two sentences represent the prevailing wisdom on mobile computing.
+Not just that consumer hardware is hard—it is, with even great successes
+like [Pebble] eventually collapsing—but that it's not worth pursuing:
+that we've already figured it out. It's the most dominant form of
+technology worldwide. Billions of people make their digital homes on
+their phones. Surely that means the field is done.
+
+To my mind, this has always sounded ignorant. Look at your phone: it's a
+rectangular screen. What is this optimized for? What does this form
+factor make easy? The screen is a blank canvas. It enables Jobs' vision
+of a device that doesn't need physical updates to gain new
+functionality. But it's also profoundly lazy. It is the lowest common
+denominator of interfaces.
+
+> A game for everyone is a game for no one.<br/>
+> [Arrowhead]
+
+The screen is also uniquely condemnable for the way it inherently
+hijacks our attention. Our brains are ill-prepared to encounter the
+light of a thousand suns or colors more vibrant than any Amazonian tree
+frog, but that's what we see when we check our phones at 3am. Try and
+have a conversation with a phone in your peripheral vision. Play a video
+with the sound on mute: can you avoid distraction? Alternatively: could
+you actually recognize the contours of your palm? The common turn of
+phrase would suggest this to be the most familiar thing in the world. I
+suspect we all know our home screen much better.
+
+> \*wakes up and looks at phone\*<br/>
+> ah let's see what fresh horrors await me on the fresh horrors
+> device<br/>
+> [@missokistic]
+
+At the same time as I am thoroughly steeped in technology, I hate it. I
+want to maximize the amount of time I spend present with the people I
+love: my friends, my family, random kind and exciting people. The time I
+spend "in" a device—the fact that such a turn of phrase even exists—is
+despicable, in my eyes. And I'm not alone in this:
+
+> If you’re looking at a phone more than someone’s eyes, you’re doing
+> the wrong thing!<br/>
+> [Tim Cook]
+
+The status of this crusade, as it stands, is a bit of a mixed bag. On
+the one hand, there are a metric ton of reasons to despair: there's a
+whole generation of "iPad kids" out there who have grown up breaking
+Cook's ironic axiom above. I myself just quit a Reels addiction. The
+status quo is riddled with the ills of our devices, from the wasteland
+of social media to the phantom notifications plaguing our pockets.
+However, there is some cause for hope and excitement: that feeling I
+mentioned earlier. People don't just live amidst all the garbage—they're
+starting to feel it.
+
+Some of these people are seeking to do something about it all.
+Throughout the industry there are new takes on what the coming device
+paradigm might look like: new minds finally tackling the question of
+what it should look like to live alongside our technology. Obviously,
+none of them have come close to supplanting the phone or the laptop or
+the *screen* at all. Not just yet. But I hope they will, eventually, and
+I want to be a part of that.
+
+There are numerous significant and cool initiatives in this area these
+days. [Humane] has been universally panned but I'm extremely interested
+in rapidly developing their laser display technology as an alternative
+to traditional display panels. [Matcha Computing Co.] is actually the
+reason I'm writing this post, because I promised Sarvasv I would do so
+over six months ago and I want to reply to his email. I steal his line
+about the love-hate relationship we have with our devices all the time.
+The [Apple Vision Pro] may initially seem like its going the exact
+opposite direction of what I'm advocating in this post, but if you look
+at it closely you realize that it too is seeking to eliminate the role
+screens play in our lives today. [tinyPod] is such a compelling reason
+to buy an Apple Watch that I might actually do it. I own the [reMarkable
+2] and use it every day for school: for years it replaced all my paper
+use, though I've built up a nasty habit of of sketching and journaling
+on dead trees again. I met an angel investor in [Daylight] on a flight
+to New York—I'm most interested in their tablet because it runs full
+Android, and there are good apps I use on my phone that I wish I could
+use on an e-ink-ish display. I have similar feelings toward the [Palma].
+I'm not sure that [Freewrite] belongs among this new wave, because
+they've been around for a while, but it is yet another e-ink device that
+I want to buy. Limitless' [pendant] and Avi's [friend] strike me as
+products similiarly oriented around the question "what if a microphone
+was maximally intelligent?" [Spatial Pixel] gives strong
+[tldraw]/[todepond]/[Ink & Switch] vibes, as well as relying on cool
+projection technology that we've previously established I'm a fan of.
+The [Oura Ring] is not as much of a general computing device as the rest
+of these, but it has the great quality of [delivering utility] to me on
+a daily basis while not having a screen, so it has won a spot. And
+frankly: [Roll Call] was inspired by this very scene/movement and [was
+explicitly] an expirement in alternative display technology!
+
+Gruber wrote the sharpest critique of these sorts of efforts two years
+ago when the Ai Pin was first announced, in a post entitled *[If You
+Come at the King]*. In essence, he says that Humane's founder, Imran
+Chaudhri, may be right that our phone addictions are sad and
+problematic. However, he points out, people don't care. The objective
+truth has no bearing on the fact that everyone *loves* their phone.
+Addicts love their compulsions, even when they know they're
+self-destructive. I agree with Gruber. But I think that the need is too
+dire to simply give up. We need a [Pareto improvement] in our mobile
+devices: new digital companions that are not only healthier for us, but
+that we love even more. People won't change their behavior for abstract
+concepts like well-being, but they will absolutely change their behavior
+for *better*.
+
+And something better is possible. We do not have to take the good with
+the bad. A more humanistic future is out there: one with technology that
+is helpful and ubiquitous but totally dissolved into the background of
+our existence. We have designed our present, and we can design a future
+with all of its benefits and none of its downsides. We must right our
+priorities by building a better system on the back of the one that came
+before. There is no area of more impact than hardware, and no better
+time to [experiment] [wildly]. It is time to build new hardware. It is
+time to turn our focus to the world we were given.
+
+[There is a feeling coursing through the populace.]: https://fosstodon.org/@FIGBERT/112674073244946013
+[Louie Mantia, Jr.]: https://lmnt.me/blog/primary-device.html
+[Pebble]: https://medium.com/@ericmigi/why-pebble-failed-d7be937c6232
+[Arrowhead]: https://www.arrowheadgamestudios.com
+[@missokistic]: https://x.com/missokistic/status/796870708412358657
+[Tim Cook]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MU-SXaFpSts&t=1472s
+[Humane]: https://humane.com
+[Matcha Computing Co.]: https://matchacomputing.com
+[tinyPod]: https://thetinypod.com
+[reMarkable 2]: https://remarkable.com/store/remarkable-2
+[Daylight]: https://daylightcomputer.com
+[Freewrite]: https://getfreewrite.com
+[Apple Vision Pro]: https://www.apple.com/apple-vision-pro/
+[pendant]: https://www.limitless.ai/#pendant
+[friend]: https://www.friend.com
+[Spatial Pixel]: https://spatialpixel.com
+[Oura Ring]: https://ouraring.com
+[Palma]: https://shop.boox.com/products/palma
+[tldraw]: https://tldraw.dev
+[todepond]: https://www.todepond.com
+[Ink & Switch]: https://www.inkandswitch.com
+[delivering utility]: https://cloud.ouraring.com/docs
+[Roll Call]: @/projects/roll-call/index.md
+[was explicitly]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42600100
+[If You Come at the King]: https://daringfireball.net/2023/04/if_you_come_at_the_king
+[Pareto improvement]: @/posts/marc-tarpenning-on-innovation.md
+[experiment]: @/posts/tangible-deliverables.md
+[wildly]: https://teenage.engineering
