Our Relationships With Products
“The unerring certainty of machinery” — Charles Babbage
I recently read a recommended text for my Industrial Design course at University. It was basically about the relationship that we have with our consumer electronic products. It made me think about the clear difference between how I appreciate my own.
I struggle to live without my MacBook. It is essential to my everyday life. As a designer I regularly acknowledge the incredible build quality and functionality in both the hardware and software. It is as close to flawless as any consumer product I have ever encountered.
But, if it broke or got lost the only thing I would care about is the monetary value that was lost. All of my data is backed up so I can always copy it to a new MacBook. I’m not attached to the specific product itself. It is a tool. Charles Babbage articulated this as “the unerring certainty of machinery”. We are in awe of how flawlessly reliable MacBooks are and therefore struggle to feel emotional about the ones we specifically own.
On the other hand my Olympus E-P3, whilst a good camera, is flawed. The build quality is nowhere near a MacBook, the low light performance is frustrating and the video quality is lacking when compared to similarly priced DSLRs. I’m attached to it though. It’s been to so many places with me and has the wear marks to prove it. At first I ‘babyed’ it making sure it didn’t get bumped but it eventually began to develop marks that were unavoidable on my part. I’ve grown to like the peeling, clear plastic coating on the metal body near the points most frequently touched. Same goes for the small specs of rust that glow from beneath the coating — reminding me of sharp humidity changes that we’ve been through together like traveling from Dubai to Singapore or some weird days in Sydney.
A MacBook only surprises you with it’s occasional sparks of brilliance — features you didn’t previously know existed. The rest of the time it is an incredible, discrete tool with Rolls Royce reliability. My E-P3 however is more like a 1960’s Ferrari 250 SWB. Beautiful, flawed yet perfect.
