I can't help being struck by the volume and vehemence of apparently technologically sophisticated people inveighing against .

Some are trying to dismiss these ravings by comparing them to certain comments made after the launch of the iPod in 2001: "No wireless. Less space than a Nomad. Lame." I fear this misses the point.

For years we've all held to the belief that computing had to be made simpler for the "average person." I find it difficult to come to any conclusion other than that we have totally failed in this effort.

Secretly, I suspect, we technologists quite liked the idea that Normals would be dependent on us for our technological shamanism. Those incantations that only we can perform to heal their computers, those oracular proclamations that we make over the future and the blessings we bestow on purchasing choices.