McLuhan’s Tetrad

iPod Touch, iPhone

1. 
   
   
   What human trait or experience does the medium enhance?
   The iPod touch and the iPhone enhance our lives through the usage of applications, as well as music. In fact, iPods, which were originally just designed to play music like any other media or mp3 player, have developed into a single tool for multiple purposes such as the usage of applications for daily life – from flashlights to rulers – all sorts of smaller tools can be contained in this one tool known as the iPod touch or iPhone. The iPhone has the additional functionality of a phone or small camera. Despite that it is called an ‘iPhone’, the phone functionality is secondary only to the applications.

2. 
   
   
   What Pre-existing technology, method, system, or medium does this medium obsolesce?
   The iPhone seems like some sort of innovation that tries to become a monopoly by itself. The smart phone, which partially replaced the generic cell phone, which mostly replaced the home phone, which again replaced the morse code-based telegraph, has become a competition to prior inventions contained in its apps, which include innovations such as calculators, GPS(which have mostly replaced paper maps) and flash lights. One can also browse the Internet with an iPhone or iPod Touch’s ‘Safari’ web browser, which also ships in it’s full version on Mac OS X. MP3 players, of which the iPod originally was one, have also replaced CDs for the most part (and usually when one buys a CD it ends up on an MP3 player anyways). Included software such as iTunes has become very strong, and probably will end up consuming such things as local CD and music stores. (By the way, CDs have previously consumed audio tapes, which again replaced the music record.)
   
   
3. 
   
   
   What technology, method, system or medium that was previously obsolesced or abandoned does this medium retrieve?
   The iPod Touch and the iPhone both bring back vintage or even ‘obsolete’ innovations – just in digital form. For instance, there are various applications that emulate the use of an abacus or an ancient sun-based compass, which have both become obsolete.
   
   
4. 
   
   
   When fully utilized or pushed to its extreme, what will the medium reverse into?
   Imagine the iPhone or iPod running out of battery. All the tools that are on this ‘digital swiss knife’ end up dying with it (until you recharge it, that is). So if a person becomes solely dependent on this tool, and neglects packing the tools it replaced, the person will be left helpless. This is a dangerous thing. Imagine getting lost somewhere in the wild with nothing but food, water, and an iPhone. You then find out that the iPhone is dead. Not only do you have no access to the tools contained in it, but its original functionality – a phone – is not available to you, either! You better end up having a good amount of traditional survivor knowledge (If the dependency on modern-day technology hasn’t handicapped you too much, that is).

Conclusion:

The iPhone and iPod Touch have become very useful, yet potentially destructive, innovations. When they first came out I didn’t like them, but fate decided I should own them anyways. Fact is that these inventions by Apple might seem very useful, but the lesser-seen reality is that these inventions can bring about a problem of potential dependency, which can get in the way of basic survival. Therefore, from a very extreme view, they can be fatal to individuals -- and from an even more extreme view-- they can be fatal to human civilization as we know it(just like the Internet). What will happen once those batteries run out?