Israel ended it's ban on the new iPad tablet computers today. For the past two weeks Israeli customs officials had been confiscating the devices, fearing that they might disrupt other forms of wireless communication. However today the Israeli Ministry of Communication released as statement saying that, "Following the completion of intensive technical scrutiny, Israeli Minister of Communication, Moshe Kakhlon, approved the import of the iPad to Israel."
Interestingly, this is not the first time Israel has banned something associated with Apple. However the last time something like this happened, that Apple was Apple Records and the product that was prohibited from entering the country was the Beatles. The Beatles were banned from Israel in 1965 due to fears that the group would disrupt, not wireless communications, but the morals of the nations youth. Incidentally, Israel officially apologized to the two surviving Beatles in 2008.
To me there is an interesting parallal in this, which actually has nothing to do with Israel. What I'm talking about is that the personal computer has been one of the most revolutionary aspects of our lives over the last ten to fifteen years. Much in the way that rock musicians reshaped culture in the '60s and '70s, the computer has done the same thing since the mid-1990s.
I wouldn't go as far as to say that Bill Gates and Steve Jobs are the Lennon and McCartney of our time, but at the same time you could say they have had as great, or greater an influence on this era as the Beatles did on theirs. Indeed, Jobs took his initial cue from the Beatles, conspicuously naming Apple Computer after Apple Records.
And indeed computers have helped to influence society in many of the same ways rock and roll aspired to: Increasing communication, venting revolutionary ideas, bringing people closer together and just opening the World as a whole up a little more. Well, a lot more let's be honest.
Of course the coolest by-product of this computers as rock & roll parallal is that by proxy, quasi-nerdy tech bloggers now become the cutting edge rock journalists of the digital age. Anyone buying that? No? Didn't think so.
Still the great thing about the Beatles is how much of their message still rings true today. Because now, just as then, all you need is love. . .
. . . And a good wireless connection.
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