05 September 2020

Two Great Techs That Tech Great Together (part one)

This was going to be a single entry, but it ran a bit longer than I meant it to, and the flow got lost along the way. That other half is an impression of the recently-released Microsoft Surface Duo. I bring this up because I want to make clear that I do in fact consider ink and paper to be technology. I'm even going to be that hoity-toity type and stake the claim ink and paper is the most important technological breakthrough in human history. Simply put, we found a way to make words easily-transferrable from person to person across time and space. If that's not a breakthrough, I don't know what is. 

I forgot my wallet today at breakfast. Fortunately, I was with my roommate and the place is practically down the street from us, so I was there and back again inside of 5 minutes. My French toast had just arrived and my coffee was still hot. When it came time to pay at the register, I noticed the tap symbol on their card reader and asked if they took Apple Pay. They did not. From what I understand, it's some kind of opt-in feature on card readers and most restaurants simply don't bother. By contrast, the place we used to go to for breakfast before the pandemic claimed they took Apple Pay, but it never worked. 

Over my life, I've had many different types of wallet. The one I probably had the longest was a chain wallet. They're sometimes called skater's wallets, but the first time I had ever seen one, it was labeled as a trucker's wallet. It was a good, sturdy little number whose only serious issue was its button closures as they would bite off the corners of the cards placed in it, including my driver's license. The chain was useful for keys when I was still working retail at the electronics counter. I even had a convenient little pen on a carabiner. Overall, it was secure, durable, and versatile to the point it almost made up for eating cards. 

The wallet I had immediately after that one was an old neoprene case for my MiniDisc player. It was a bit bulky, but at least if I had to put it in my back pocket, I could sit down without feeling like I was sitting on a brick. That's probably the best example of something being repurposed as a wallet this side of an Altoids tin. Some time later, I remembered a cigarette case my brother had given me and my fellow groomsman. I didn't smoke, neither did he, nor did most of his friends, but they're just about the size of a credit card, and the little straps or springy paddles used to hold the cigarettes in place was a decent way of keeping cash folded. I gathered a small assortment of those, but rather than a daily driver, they ended up being storage for rarely-used cards or business cards I'd gathered over the years. A Gerber knife served as a money clip for a few years before I got sick of the clip scratching up the cards. It was a bad situation; either you had the numbers of your cards partially visible, or you wound up erasing the signature off the back (along with those 3-4 little numbers you need to verify your purchases). 

Fortunately, when it's holstered, it doesn't look like a knife, meaning far less nervous looks when I reach for my wallet to pay for something upon hearing the total. 

I don't carry cash with me anymore. If I ever do have cash, it's because someone's given it to me. The last time I had cash, I ended up making some Girl Scouts very, very happy. I feel embarrassed asking if their parents have one of those card reader add-ons for their phones. I've been seeing those more often at fairs, conventions, swap meets, and the like, but I imagine it may create some liabilities for the Girl Scouts if parents are effectively becoming the middlemen in the transaction as opposed to the cashbox being the intermediary. 

Sidenote: I don't buy into the whole conspiranoid narrative about a cashless society. For all intents and purposes, we've been living in a cashless society since the 1960s when the Gold Standard was phased out by Nixon. Call me paranoid, but the only reason I can see for anyone to insist on cash in this day and age is not wanting a paper trail. Maybe I'm simply not enough of a thorn in the government's side to be worried about waking up an unperson with a few keystrokes and mouse clicks. You say Doubleplusgood, I say Viddy Well. 

This is Holst. Everyone assumes he's named for a holster. He isn't, though that does tend to be a common nickname when we just don't know what to do with him sometimes. 

This is my current wallet. I bought it from the Rooster Teeth website a little over 2 years ago and it's been great. I only have 3 cards in it including my driver's license. I like how lightweight it is, even if it does occasionally mean leaving it in my other pants. 

Instagram has been a surprisingly big influence on nearly all of my major purchases of late.

Lately I've been seeing advertisements for something called the Sketch Wallet. It was a very successful crowdfunding campaign that's surprisingly still going strong this long after the campaign ended. The typical story with crowdfunded projects is once the initial production run of the bright, shiny object is sold out, the creators have scattered to the winds and moved on to other bright, shiny projects. This isn't necessarily a bad thing; clearly whatever niche needed to be filled has been left a happy customer. Those who were on the fence or wanted to wait and see missed the bus and simply have to wait for another one. Such is life. 

I doubt those lukewarm would-be customers would have to wait especially long, if at all, since there's nothing all that special about the idea of this wallet. It is essentially a travel journal. You could find its cousin in any office supply or stationary store as it's simply a small notebook with a leather (or fabric) cover that just so happens to have a slot or two for some cards and maybe cash. 5 minutes of searching could probably land you a half-dozen DIY patterns to breathe new life into that old purse or those the legs from your cut-offs if you were feeling adventurous. Speaking of adventure, try looking up "passport covers," though the real adventure may be trying to find a notebook that fits the standard 125x88mm size.   

What the guys behind Sketch Wallet have done to stand out from the crowd is appeal to artists. As I said, pocket (refillable) notebooks are nothing new. Similarly, pocket sketchbooks are nothing new, but applying the "it's also a wallet" label is admittedly a not-too-well-worn path to tread. That said, I'm going to try and read all of your minds and guess your impressions of this product thus far. 

"It's too big and bulky to be a wallet and too small and insubstantial to be a sketchbook." 

Was I right? 

Credit where credit is due, it is abundantly clear that the crew behind the Sketch Wallet knows their audience. They're not simply appealing to artists to stand out from similar products, but because they understand those products don't quite tick all the right boxes that artists may need in a small, refillable sketchbook. For starters, travel journals are typically for writing, an informal iteration of the classic reporter's notebook, or a less ephemeral take on Post-It notes. The Sketch Wallet, by contrast, offers their refills in a small variety of styles, including blank (obviously), dotted (the minimalist's graph paper), and tan-toned. 

There are currently three sizes of wallet. The smallest size has pages about the size of an index card folded in half, distinctly rectangular. The medium wallet (arguably the most popular given most of the available options are sold out) is almost square. This was the marketing blurb that convinced me without question these dudes were on the level: 

"great for Instagram"

Albeit pickings are slim on their happy medium, the refills are still readily available and even without the cover are a decent value. They come in packs of 3 with 60 pages (30 sheets) apiece for around 10USD. For comparison, the Moleskine Cahier style notebook also comes in packs of 3 for around the same price, though offering 80 pages (40 sheets), the major difference being not square and not offering any sort of toned paper option. We could entertain a healthy debate about which is the better value. However, just like the awful truth about your precious, precious cash is that the value is in the eye of the beholder. Indispensable to you is redundant to me is intriguing to her is useless to him. 

I've been a card-carrying member of the man-purse club since at least November of 2017 as I take my iPad with me everywhere. Along with the iPad is at least one Moleskine notebook (typically graph paper). This is completely, 100% normal for me. 

The patch does serve a distinctly practical purpose. It covers up an old employer's logo.

A term that often gets brought up with many new gadgets and life hacks and the like is "A solution looking for a problem." it's one we hear more and more, but it also seems to be losing some of its stigma. As our avenues for communication spread and grow, direct feedback and specialized manufacturing allows for a more tailored end user experience. While I have little to no use for a less-than-agreeably-sized sketchbook pulling double duty as a wallet for my shrinking library of embossed plastic and laminated paper, it's obvious there are people out there who have been waiting their whole lives for this little gizmo. 

Speaking of which:

Next time, Gadget... Next time.

No comments: