I ♥ [a very small subset of] technology
A self-indulgent love letter
I’m a technology journalist, so I spend my professional life surrounded by and talking about tech. I’m also not coincidentally someone who finds technology exciting, so my home life too is suffused with tech, and frankly on the walk between the two, I’m listening to podcasts, being tracked with a Nike Fuelband, checking Twitter, writing quick emails, and so on. We may readily assume, then, that I love tech.
I don’t, though. This is, of course, not uncommon. Technology is a means to an end. Even an iPhone – probably the piece of tech that is most personal to me, that I use most of all and that I’d be most bereft without – hasn’t really been much more to me than a tool since the rush we all got from the original faded.
Some stuff, though, I genuinely love.
What follows then is a wildly self-indulgent little love letter to the very few pieces of tech in my life that I just adore. It’s not about authoritative, these-products-would-all-get-five-stars reviews. It’s just about things that, when I use them, make me just a little happier.
Whitelines Link
I promised myself I wouldn’t be one of those people who would, in a piece about technology, write a paean to a Blackwing pencil or something, saying “oh but this is technology too; in some ways the most important tech” or some such rot. Tech is tech is tech, and shit like that can do one. So let’s get this one over with quickly, as it skirts dangerously close to that.
The Whitelines Link system is basically a notebook paired with an iPhone app. Sketch and write in your notebook, and then you snap the page with the app, and do the usual filing and sharing stuff you’d expect. The lovely thing about it, though – aside from the light grey paper with white lines that let your scribbles really stand out – is that when the app photographs the page, it uses the marks in the corners to orientate, deskew and automatically capture the page, and removes the Whitelines pattern from the background, giving you a clean sketch you can quickly upload to Dropbox, email, Evernote or whatever. It’s far, far cleverer than the Evernote Moleskine books. You can print the papers out yourself and give it a go. I really hope it expands beyond the current small selection of soft-backed spiral-bound notebooks.
Aluminium Apple keyboards
Keyboards are very personal things, and I’m quite sure many would disagree with me, but every time I try a new keyboard I’m amazed that no company appears capable even of equalling how good Apple’s keyboards feel under my fingers. Whether it’s the keyboard on my MacBook Pro, the wired keyboard I use at work, or this Bluetooth model, the keys have just the right amount of crunch and bite – but without needing an apparent conscious press – to make typing a joy. Sure, at least part of this will be my familiarity with them, but even after many years’ use and many millions of characters typed, they still feel great, and if they start to look a bit grubby, they’re quickly cleaned with a baby wipe.
Etymotic hf3 with custom moulds
Earphones too are very personal things, and none more so than when you have custom moulds made for your ears.
Even before I got the custom moulds done, though, I liked the hf3s a great deal. Unlike many of today’s headphones, their sound is clean and neutral; Beats they are not. Some might try them and find them a bit flat and undramatic – and it’s certainly true that if you don’t have a tight seal there’s a distinct lack of fullness at the bottom end – but it’s that very calm assuredness that I really like.
The custom moulds, though, are what make them really special, and it’s not just that with a perfect fit they sound richer; it also means that they’re comfortable to wear, and that they stay in your damned ears.
Altec Lansing inAir 5000
I’m not immune to the charms of thick, unctuous sound, though, as my love of this AirPlay speaker will attest. Just as some would find the audio from the Etymotic headphones thin and unexciting, others would find the honeyed, saturated output of this speaker off-putting.
But while it’s not high fidelity, it is utterly sodding glorious. Nearly every track I put through it sounds stunning. Vocals have a warmth and presence that few speakers attempt, acoustic instruments especially have a terrifically vinyl quality, and underpinning it all are thumping great gouts of chunky bass. At odds, perhaps, with the sober stylings, its sound is big, silly and thoroughly happy.
In the UK at least, Altec Lansing ceased trading some time ago. The name’s been bought by another company, and I’ll be watching with interest, but as I write this, there are still inAir 5000s in the channel, and you can buy one for around £200 – which is less than half what it cost when it was first introduced.
Kindle (second generation)
This, really, is the thing that inspired this post, and I know plenty of others who feel the same way about their Kindles.
There’s something so pleasing about E Ink. So quiet. So inert. When you’re reading a Kindle you’re reading a Kindle. You’re not about to double-tap the Home button to bounce to your email. You’re not going to see the notification of a mention come in on Twitter and get dragged back into a conversation you hoped petered out a couple of hours ago. You’re not going to read two paragraphs and then fancy a game of Super Stickman Golf. This is time with you and a book.
I’ve resolutely not upgraded my Kindle from this second generation model either. Partly it’s pragmatic – this was the international model, with free bundled 3G, and it’s a tremendous thing to know that wherever I am in the world I have at least one device that I can, in a pinch, get online with – but mostly it’s because I think the newer models have been too influenced by consumer expectations.
Sure, we all think everything should be touchscreen now, but moving your thumb from the bezel to tap on the screen then back again – tens of thousands of times over the life of the device – is inelegant design. The thing you’ll do most with a book is turn the page, so that action should be as direct and easy as possible. Even on the Kindles that followed this one that have physical buttons, the buttons are too small, and the balance is wrong. With mine, the hinge is on the outside edge, so you depress it inwards; my thumb sits in a natural position on the bezel when I’m holding it, and the slightest twitch turns the page. With my wife’s Kindle, not only are the bezel buttons thin, but their hinge is on the inside edge, so pressing it means a slightly crabbing of the hand to continue to support the Kindle as you roll your thumb to the right to flick to the next page.
I like on mine too the two slim holes on the left edge that let me attach a really lovely leather case quickly and easily, rather than wrestling it into and out of elastic straps or a wrap-around border.
Even the keyboard at the bottom, which most would consider ugly, has a use. If I’m lying on my back in bed or at the beach, with my Kindle propped up on my midriff, the keyboard means the screen is raised to a position at which it meets my eyeline without me having to push my chin right down onto my chest.
Yes, the E Ink screen on mine is low contrast next to a Paperwhite, and it flashes on each page turn (something your mind quickly ignores), but I love it. It’s just right, and I’ll keep and use it until one of us dies.
