I’m writing of course on the IPad. It goes with me pretty well everywhere – sneaked off the odd e mail in the Porvoo Primates’ Meeting and read a book on it on the plane home. It combines beauty and utility. And that’s why Steve Jobs was so special.
I came late to the IPhone – last May in fact. And of course the first one got drowned in our tent in France in July. What’s so special? Like the IPad, it is lightning fast. It has made the task of attempting to keep up with my e mail immeasurably easier. And it breaks the rules – it does many things and seems to do all of them well. I had always assumed that multiple-tasking of that kind never worked – male prejudice again, I fear. But it is phone, e mail, internet, camera, satnav, iPod, notepad. And for somebody like me who travels a lot, to have my mobile IT suite reduced to IPhone and iPad is a transformation.
I don’t know how much of all that is down to Steve Jobs personally … But if the church could bring just a little of that ground-breaking creativity to the task, things would be very different. It’s something to do with offering people something which they didn’t know they needed. That’s where it collides with the spiritual