David Hughes

Notes From Afar

Tag: Apps (page 1 of 1)

24 December 2012

Account Deleted

I’ve been asked whether I regret deleting my Instagram account after Instagram’s recent volte face. I don’t, but I do regret opening my second Instagram account in the first place.

When Facebook bought Instagram earlier this year I deleted my account. I have a problem with Facebook, I’ve never really “got it” and their approach to security and privacy bother me. I didn’t want Facebook selling my photos, selling data about my photos or advertising to me so I voted with my feet.

But later in the year I was convinced by friends and family to reopen my Facebook account, and so thought if I’m going to be “Zuckerberg’s bitch” I might as well go the whole hog and open another Instagram account. So I did.

A number of events have made me re-evaluate my relationship with social networks, and my use of free apps and services. I’d been wondering about the business model of certain apps I used, Aral Balkan’s excellent talk The True Cost of Free at the last MK Geek Night really got me thinking, and then Instagram reminded us all that we are the product.

Facebook have shown their intentions with regard to Instagram; they’ll be back with revised terms in 2013, and they will sell their users, and to their users.

So not only have I deleted my Instagram account (again), but I’ve also deleted my Facebook account (again), and my Foursquare account (again).

I’m now using paid services and apps wherever possible – I’d rather be the customer than the product.

5 October 2012

On Writing

I’ll preface this essay by stating that I am not, and do not consider myself to be, a writer.

I recently visited the Writing Britain exhibition at the British Library, which “examines how the landscapes of Britain permeate great literary works”. It was a fascinating exhibition with manuscripts and notes from Arthur Conan Doyle, J.G. Ballard, J.K. Rowling, William Wordsworth, John Lennon and many more.

I was struck by how many were handwritten. Now I realise that Wordsworth didn’t have access to a word processor or even a type writer, but all of the contemporary writers did and yet each of them hand wrote their drafts or notes.

There is a whole slew of apps in the various app stores that are described as “distraction free writing environments” and marketed as if having a simple text app will help you write more and in some cases more creatively. I write this as an inveterate app buyer and trier.

What is clear to me is that writers write; they don’t wait for the right moment, they don’t wait for the right app or “distraction free” environment – they just write.

J.K Rowling famously started the first Harry Potter book on a long train journey from London to Manchester, and having seen the first few pages of The Philosopher’s Stone we can see she did so writing on sheets of blank A4 paper with biro. She didn’t need a distraction free environment – anybody who has travelled on a British train will agree they are far from distraction free – she just wrote.

I mentioned earlier that I am an inveterate app buyer and trier. I have probably tried every simple text editor or “distraction free writing environment” in the App Store today, but do you know what I haven’t done with any of them?

Write.