a lot of the products shown on Apple's website's homepage are accompanied with a few adjectives; for example, the iPhone 14 has been described with „Big and bigger“, the iPhone 14 Pro has got „Pro. Beyond.“

and the iPad has got „Lovable. Drawable. Magical.“

but I do not believe that this is accurate.

these taglines all share something: "Big and bigger", "Beyond" and "Magical" all imply a sense of ununderstandability, unreachability and mystery, as if Apple were selling more than shrunk down pieces of computer hardware stuck together under a some shiny plastic or metal.

this is different from the time when the Game Boy Color was available in a transparent case to let people see the inside, when desktop computers had at least a dozen of ports, when buying and owning music, movies, video games and software was actually possible.

back then, technological products and media were not disguised ever-enshittifying subscription-based services.
back then, things were small if they looked small.
back then, things were big if they looked big.
back then, things could touched, without a company monitoring every gesture.
back then, things did not need taglines and catch phrases to be Lovable. Drawable. Magical.
back then, things did not need to be Magical to be Drawable, they just had to be huggable.

reappreciating that which is lovable

postcards.

I had never sent one. I had received one more than once.
I used to think that it is useless.

when I discovered ribo.zone, I loved it. I loved the dithering that is present on most images. I loved the colours. I loved the shapes. I loved the content.
clay things? I have touched and interacted with clay! I remember having gathered some from a river and making a face out of it, twice!
microformats? I have implemented and interacted with microformats! I wrote the HTML into the template files and installed an web browser addon to see them!

on the contact page, there was a mention of postcards, which used to not interest me, and of a website of which I had never heard, Postcrossing. I read what the webkeeper of this site wrote about it, which expressed the excitement that they feel every time they reveive postcards sent by strangers, and soon became inspired to try this website.

when I first dared click on "Send", I got someone's address with their profile on the website, their physical address and some links to various pages withe instructions and tips. I did not find any postcard at home (there actually were a lot of them; I just did not look in the right place.) so I took some paper cardboard, cut it in what happens to be my favourite paper format ever, A6 (105mm by 148mm or roughly 4 by 6 inches), carefully care fully used a pen of my favourite kind, a black ink rollerball, and a ruler to trace a vertical line in the centre to clearly separate the text content on the left side from the recipient's address on the right side and made some collage on the back.

that collage was composed of a a picture of a river near which I live that I had taken with my smartphone and that I printed with a printer, accompanied by some cut out pencil drawings.

as the recipient lives in another country, I could not used green stamps, which can only be used from mainland France to somewhere else in mainland France. I had to used purple stamps, which cost slightly more (2.10EUR).
as I feared that the whole DIY postcard could be somehow more than 20g, over which more than one stamp is required, I weighted it… with a dedicated device that is called „pèse-lettre“ in French.

posting the postcard was a long process. the nearest postbox is more than one kilometre from where I live.

reembracing that which is huggable

digital cameras.

I used, like most people, to take pictures with my smartphone. unfortunately, like most people, I would often end up being distracted by something on it other than taking pictures, which is usually a waste of time. before I ever had had a smartphone, my pictures were taken with dedicated digital cameras; there are two of them: one is the PENTAX Optio M60 and the other is the NIKON COOLPIX S2700.

I recently started looking for them, especially the the PENTAX, which, despite being the oldest one of the two, had been my favourite.
when I found them, they both uncharged, which is an issue that was quickly resolved by simply using the cables with which they originally came.

retaking that which is small

MP3 players.

once again, music is something which I used to experience with my smartphone (and also sometimes a computer) and that changed with a dedicated digital device, the PHILIPS GoGear ViBE.

attempting to collect up all of my music files, finding good sources to replace bad ones and get new ones and transferring everything via USB cable was a very interesting experience; it made me feel more content of everything to which I have access.

even if I originally had on this device about eighty different tracks (most of which being legally¹ from TUNIC's OST) and currently 138 253, my listening experience feels richer, not necessarily more varied, just richer: it feels like I am digging my own huge but deeply personal cavern instead of visiting and touring around an already existing mine with little signs and siderails to not get me lost.

although I really appreciate it, my experience is somewhat flawed:

• the back/cancel button does not work (it does not really that much though; the absolutely necessary buttons do work.);
• sound files' metadata are sometimes not displayed on the player whilst they are on my computer; and
• dirt and scratches are everywhere.

a few more words

using dedicated objects (regardless of whether they are electronic) feels more intentful. using them is tactile.

distraction is less likely and they are more reliable:
when one takes a camera to take a picture, they can be sure that they will be able to do nothing but take pictures and that they will always be able to do so until all storage is used;
when one takes a smartphone to take a picture, it is not sure whether it is still able to take pictures or if some software update prevents from doing so and all of the addictive elements might deteriorate from achieving this goal anyway.