I know most of your preferences will change depending on the gadget; but I tried to make this poll as general as possible, meaning for anything from PDAs to Toasters. I also tried to make it meaningful for you cavemen who aren't necessarily in to gadgets but are periodically forced to use them.

While shopping around for another gadget it made me curious as to what most people in my age group prefer. I know that the younger generations (not the majority on this forum) prefer whatever the latest greatest thing is. But the older generations have more experience with what works for them.

And NO, I don't work for Sony or any other technology company. This is just my own personal curiosity. I just want to know if my preferences are unusual compared to other people on this forum.

Just to clarify, the last option of the last poll question is a literal option. I know there's some tongue and cheek humor in this poll, but I meant for there to be no easy "all of the above" type answers. A literal plug would require a brain implant operation. So if you pick that option, it means you are ready to be a cyborg.

digital, mobile, wireless devises and gadgets, and old fashioned hand tools.

I like old things that labor saving devices were supposed to make obsolete because of...?

I love mobility.

i tried the choices and they are almost inanely inappropriate. why is portability always at the expense of power? that is the old way of looking at things. the power is catching up and driving the ease and reliability of portability, and the reliability of new portable software is driving the hardware that will deliver the power ....

com[patability over reliability?

all appear to me to be false choices in that I stay away from devises until they can deliver a reasonable form of the uses you put forth as opposites.

I didn't get my MAC until the cable modem. why? dial up was for people with too much time on their hands and too little patience for substandard products

I like to have friends and assistants with lots of gadgets, so I don't have to be bothered.

very friggn' good!

There will always be a demand for more power. People will want it done faster, longer lasting, brighter, sharper, louder, with more memory, access to more data, more data storage space, more bandwidth, and (if it can be used as a weapon) more destructive power. The properties of power are usually sacrificed for properties of portability such as smaller, wireless, longer range connectivity, modularity, detachable, wearable, weather proof, etc.

One of the reasons you probably like Macintosh over Microsoft Windows machines is that you probably prefer reliability over compatibility. The philosophical differences between Bill Gates and Steve Jobs are so classic and timeless, theres now a musical about it. Apple sacrifices compatibility for reliability. Because Microsoft catered to open architecture, the upside was that their operating system was compatible with most major computer manufactures and software developers. The downside is that more competing entities and minds involved in developing the one technology (personal computing) was bound to breed inconsistent interpretation of standards and conflicts that lead to bugs, crashes, and 3rd party hardware incompatibility with other 3rd party software. Overall, the reliability of Microsoft Windows computing suffers. There is no way for Microsoft to reign in all those competing technologies in their platform. Apple is more totalitarian, but has made the Macintosh more reliable because of it. The downside is that Apple can only spread there influence so much before people start demanding more freedom of choice. This is why Bill Gates is richer than Steve Jobs.


In a nutshell, compatibility is the democracy of technology. The goal is to make your technology work with other technologies. The more, the merrier. But just like democracy in government, it's hard to control entities that you don't have authority over. Too many cooks spoil the broth. There are other factors governing reliability, but unified vision is a big one. This will always be an issue with technology.

oversimplification. apple brought the desktop (hardware) to the public. microsoft brought proprietary software and predatory practices. they are more totalitarian than anyone.

compatibility of apple's software to open source has always been there. the only problem I've seen is with microsoft dominating and trying to squeeze others out.

jobs and gates were separated at birth, but not before each lost a vitalness that contributed them being whole.

apple is the most reliable computer I've ever seen. apple's software is compatible...just not before...with...oops...microsoft

Microsoft isn't as totalitarian as much as it would like to be. Apple is more totalitarian because it doesn't allow in as many entities in as Microsoft.

The reason why apple brought the desktop computer (more importantly, the home computer) to the masses is because he was liberal enough to see that there was a market for it before most people

Don't get me wrong. I like Macintosh which is why I'm responding on a Macbook Pro, one of 8 Macintosh computers I own.

Steve Jobs may be a Liberal Hippie at heart (which explains his better taste that Bill Gates has admitted he wish he had), but don't be fooled. What Steve Jobs did was more totalitarian than what Bill Gates did. He wanted to rule both the Hardware and OS, the platform for all the software.

Bill Gates originally just wanted to rule application software. He didn't even go after the operating system business. It fell in his lap, and then he tried to sell it to IBM. Lucky for Bill, IBM didn't want it. Because IBM used open architecture, Microsofts OS was more compatible with cheaper hardware from a wider variety of manufactures. That made Microsoft richer and more powerful. Had Bill been as totalitarian as Steve, he would have started building Microsoft Computers instead of devoting so much energy to Marketing the OS.

So even though Apple has always had (and still has) the superior hardware and OS, it has much smaller market share because it gave people less choice. The only time Apple gave more choice was when Steve wasn't with the company and they opened up their architecture to Macintosh clones a little too late. What Apple should have done was marketed the MacOS for open architecture IBM-Compatible hardware.