Tired of reading about the iPad yet? Please bear with me, this is not a review, this is different.
I saw a movie last night (Clash of the Titans in 3D, not worth your $14) and as is common these days, the theater happened to be located in a mall.
As this was a Sunday night most shops were closed, including the Apple Store. I had hoped it might be open, despite the lateness of the hour and it being Easter Sunday, because after all, it was the day after The Launch. Yes, verily, The iPad Launch. But alas.
I got to admire the iPad from afar though, because the lights were on in the store, and it was far from empty. There were two security guards in there, big guys with reading materials, uniforms and bored looks.
Two things immediately struck me as odd about this. One, the guards weren’t playing with the iPads or any of the other shiny objects available, they were reading newspapers and magazines. That’s right, paper.
Imagine yourself locked in an Apple store, the day after the iPad launches, with literally a dozen iPads laid out in front of you, all Internet connected and full of promise. You could read the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times in all their backlit LED glory, or download iBooks for free. All whilst inhaling the wonderful smell of newness and basking in the envious stares of passersby.
But no, you consume your news the way it was meant to be consumed, through your fingertips, as the newspaper ink smudges your skin and leaves your fingerprints all over the sports section.
Doesn’t this scene, in a faceless and nameless mall somewhere in America on April 4, 2010, say it all about the hype surrounding the iPad and indeed, even the future of the publishing industry? Take heart, printers, have faith, ink merchants, you will live to see another day. Or maybe the security guards were just luddites.
The other thing that struck me as odd was that there were guards present in a closed and locked Apple Store, in a sleepy mall, on a late Sunday night. And, that they had the store lit up like a billboard sign before Christmas, which is in fact exactly where this suddenly starts to make sense.
Apple feels we need reminding that their products are in fact so desirable that leaving them unattended, even if behind bars and fancy alarms, no doubt with powerful lasers and pressure sensitive floors, would be downright irresponsible.
It could mean that some dastardly thief would get his hands on an iPad before the honest men and women who frequent this mall, who are no less than the lifeblood of this fine institution, would get a chance to even just hold one or try launching an app.
The lure of the iPad is too strong, the pull of Steve Jobs’ patented Reality Distortion Field has been extended to cover the official Apple Stores.
That was the message Apple was blaring out through their two silent mouthpieces-cum-security guards last night, and I heard them. It was brilliant marketing, you could even argue it was hacking at its finest, employing social engineering in order to subvert and propagandize.
Just in case you think Apple is being overly paranoid, you should know that Mission Impossible style theft of their gear has happened before.
(Image credit: Matt Buchanan/Gizmodo, via Wikimedia Commons)
