I have been on a kind of device-consolidation kick for a couple of years now, shedding gadgets that I feel overlap in their use-cases a bit too much to justify keeping around. Last year, I wrote about how the tablet was being made redundant by the big-screen phone and the super-light laptop, and, becoming a phablet convert myself, I sold my beloved iPad, and my Kindle to boot. My creativity/productivity stuff was covered by the laptop, and the reading/kicking-back stuff was covered by the phone. What did I need a middle device for?
What I’m coming to realize, or at least be reminded of, is that there is a lot to the psychological baggage of a device (and really, all objects). I work all damn day on my laptop, and it is particularly tweaked and arranged and fussed over to serve that purpose. It is an optimized and remarkably powerful tool for getting my job done. But when it comes time to pursue some kind of creative endeavor or hobby, or just relax and browse, all the distractions and stresses of work carry over. It’s like trying to read a rich novel in the middle of a noisy office. That stuff stays in my head.
The phone is a little different in that it’s the device I use all damn day for, well, almost everything. It’s always at my side or in my hand, getting used. (I do adore it.) Achieving a switching of gears becomes difficult, because that object you wish to lean back and read something on is also the same object that you were just doing texts, emails, calendar checks, and (of you’re me) Angry Birds 2 on. The tactile sensation as well as the visual data of the display size make it harder for me to get away from all of that.
So I can see, once again, why it’s nice to have a middle device that can take on the lean-back tasks and for shits-and-giggles activities that the laptop and phone can also do just fine. It’s about leaving the other stuff behind intentionally.
I was spurred to think more about this thanks to this piece at Medium by Tiago Forte (hell of a name) about the benefits of read-it-later services. He points out that other apps and services can serve the same functions as Instapaper and Pocket, but they bring with them their own baggage:
A common response when I recommend people adopt yet another category of apps is “Why don’t I just use Evernote?” Or whatever app they’re using for general reference or task management. Evernote even makes a Chrome extension called Clearly for reading online content and Web Clipper for saving it.
It is a question of focus. Why don’t you use your task manager to keep track of content (i.e. “Read this article”)? Because the last thing you want to see when you cuddle up with your hot cocoa for some light reading is the hundreds of tasks you’re not doing.
On a laptop, and on your phone as well, all your tasks are literally a click or tap away. Indeed, they may be blinking at you without input needed. And both of these devices invite you to act on those distractions. That’s what’s so great about them: they allow you to do so much. Sometimes you don’t want to do “so much,” though. You want to do very little.
That’s good territory for tablets and e-readers to cover, I think. I don’t know that it’s territory that’s worth, say, top-of-the-line-iPad money to cover, but something more affordable? More modest? Yeah, I can see that. Now. Again.
Near-Earth Object 