Multipurpose Technology
What the shift from analog to digital means for how we build and interact with technology today
I recently had a discussion over dim sum with my friend David Sax about the relevance of analog technology in today’s digital world. We spoke about the rise of vinyl record sales driven not by nostalgic boomers, but by creative millennials. What’s that about?
We spoke about the significance of pen and paper in the age of Evernote. I learned that Evernote itself is an apt metaphor for their significance with a surprisingly large portion of its revenues coming from the Evernote Market, an office supply store.
Finally, we spoke about what is being lost in the shift from analog technologies to their digital counterparts. David is writing a book on this subject, so you should turn to him for what will be a far more cogent and thorough argument, but I thought I’d expand upon my thinking post-conversation:
I believe the shift from analog to digital is best understood as a shift from single to multi-purpose technology. This perspective provides several interesting implications for how we build and interact with technology today.
First, The Shift
Analog technology was largely single-purpose. Your original Polaroid camera took pictures. Your record player played albums. Your television aired TV shows. There was rarely any confusion about what someone might be doing when they were seen interacting with one of these devices.
Today, however, that curved piece of glass you carry in your pocket performs all the actions and more of this previous generation of technology. Your iPhone is now your camera, your music player, your television, your library, your photo album, your movie collection, your radio, your newspaper… the list goes on… all of which to say is that observing someone using their iPhone could imply just about anything.
It’s this new one-to-many relationship between technology and its designed affordances that I call multipurpose. And yes, it’s pretty amazing: just think of the cost and space saving advantages. It’s just $900 for a device that takes what was once a room full of technology and media worth at least $5,000 and puts it in your pocket. But now, 8 years after the introduction of the iPhone, I think there are other implications of this shift that warrant deeper consideration.
Now, The Implications
A questionable effect on productivity
While multipurpose means that you can do just about anything with your device, it also means that the opportunity to be distracted is similarly limitless. These distractions come in two forms: interruptions and temptations. While we might be distracted by a notification or alert that interrupts our workflow, it’s the temptation of having so much possibility at our fingertips that is the real productivity killer.
In providing so many different affordances, multipurpose has removed the distance that used to exist between work and play technologies. In the single-purpose era, your play was downstairs in the basement, across the room, or tucked away in a drawer. Today, however, it has never been so tempting to peak at what our friends are doing, read up on what is happening in the world, or to — god forbid — crush some candy.
While multipurpose brings clear productivity benefits, it’s not obvious that that these outweigh the costs. For over 50 years, the productivity of U.S. workers grew at an average annual rate of about 2.5%, but since 2011, it has averaged only 1.1% — less than half the historical rate. Our productivity growth has decelerated in the multipurpose era.
As with most phenomena in business and technology, I think we can make sense of this through a restaurant metaphor: multipurpose has resulted in the ultimate fusion menu, one where customers can order literally any dish imaginable. Some of the dishes on the menu are of exceptional quality and craft, but most are mediocre (and some will give you food poisoning).
The incredible size of the menu means that customers are often paralyzed by choice. Even after struggling to decide, it also means that they frequently suffer from what my girlfriend Anna refers to as ordering regret — that gnawing suspicion that the food you ordered is inferior to something else on the menu. In this case, what is true of food is true of technology: having access to everything all the time is not inherently better.
Just as I prefer restaurants with small menus that take pride in the experience of their food, so too do I value the constraints imposed by single purpose technology. It’s these constraints that reduce distraction, afford creativity, and explain why the pen and paper just won't die.
A new competitive landscape
With such diverse tools now living side-by-side, it’s clear that multipurpose has created a new competitive landscape. Your camera is competing head on for your attention with your music and book collection in a manner that is fundamentally different than in the era of single purpose technology. Today, the equivalent of Kodak, who used to compete with Leica and Polaroid, is taking on Universal and Penguin as well.
Kodak used to compete with Leica and Polaroid; multi-purpose means that today they’d be competing with Universal and Penguin as well.
This new competitive landscape puts a premium on purpose. With so much utility in one device, users have to be certain as to why they are opening your app and not someone else’s. I see two consequences of this new reality:
First, new apps are looking for success as single purpose utilities before layering on additional functionality. As @rrhoover, @jason, and @daniellemorrill discussed in a recent TWiSt episode, there is perhaps no clearer example here than Snapchat which started with a well-articulated purpose as an easy way to share photos before becoming a discovery and payment platform as well.
Second, products that become so feature-packed that their purposes are muddled are unbundling themselves into discrete apps. The unbundling of Facebook and Google is frequently discussed in terms of reducing friction, but rarely in terms of clarity of purpose. Yes, Facebook’s distinct messenger app means that I can now access my chats in fewer thumb presses, but this refined UI flow is not the primary reason I use the app. I use it because amid the sea of apps washed up on my homescreen, the purpose connoted by the Messenger icon is clearer than that of the Facebook one. Facebook is for friends. Messenger is for chatting with friends. The difference is subtle, but it reflects the extent to which our new competitive landscape has placed a premium on purpose.
A premium on search and context
With our phones like ever-expanding swiss army knives, it becomes increasingly difficult to find the correct tool in a given moment. As a result, we might say that multipurpose has put a premium on search too. Apple’s recent iOS 8 widget additions and new Spotlight upgrades can be seen as direct response to this; they help you find the right tool faster.
But the marginal utility of search eventually decreases unless it is bolstered by context. So multipurpose also increases the need for contextual computing (enter: launchers like Aviate).
Our phones are like ever-expanding swiss-army knives. The corkscrew tool should automatically extend when I’m about to open a bottle of wine.
While the corkscrew tool of my swiss army knife should automatically extend when I’m about to open a bottle of wine, the inverse is even more important: the toothpick tool should not.
There are few things more annoying than being notified to use a tool that you clearly don’t need in your given context. Multipurpose has resulted in our tools behaving more like drug pushers than helpful assistants. Your camera shouldn’t ask you to take pictures when you’re watching a movie. Your book shouldn’t prompt you to read when you’re writing a letter. Your record player shouldn’t whisper into your ear, “Pssst! Pleeeasssee listen to meeeee” when you’re chatting with your friends.
While developers are trying to deduce context from things like time of day, location and weather, it’s fascinating to think about how much your phone’s user-experience would improve if we knew what apps you were currently running. This is something that my friend Robleh believes is the opportunity behind building new keyboards. As persistent apps themselves, they stand to be the information bridges between the tools screaming for our attention.
A more humble approach to development
Success in today’s multipurpose world requires a more humble and refined approach to development.
If the single-purpose era was a playground, the multipurpose one is a cocktail party. Scream for attention and you’ll get the cold shoulder, but approach people with honesty, intention, and respect and you’ll become the life of the party.
Today, relationships with users need to begin as casual conversations, an expression of interest in what they do or in a problem they might have, and an acknowledgment that you are but one of many things competing for their attention.
Linkedin Connected and Yahoo News Digest do this last part well. Instead of designing ways of increasing your session time in their apps, they respect your time, limiting the amount of content they show you to a few important pieces. Yahoo even asks you when during the day you’d prefer to receive their content. The psychology of this is particularly interesting because when their notification comes, I for one am much less likely to interpret it as a nuisance or distraction since I’ve opted into it.
Looking forward, as AR and VR matures, and everyday objects receive access to the internet, it’s clear that technology will only become more multipurpose. What is true today, will be more true then: multipurpose will bring questionable effects on our productivity, a new competitive landscape, a premium on search and context, and most importantly, a requirement that we approach our development with humility. The role of humility in software development is something that I intend to write more about as we continue to develop Volley.
Thanks to @saxdavid, @fahdananta, @altoiu for reading drafts of this. You can follow me @mimurchison.
