Resident Techie: More fun the day before

Sometimes it's fun not to know. Call it the pre-Christmas euphoria. You may see the wrapped box that's just about the right size for socks, but maybe it's keys to a new car. The anticipation hangs thick in the air.

I was reminded of that this week, when Apple unveiled its new iPhones and mobile operating system. As in the past, the Apple events are the biggest of spectacle with geeks of all stripes following online and a cavalcade of reporters, bloggers a mile deep in the audience.

By any measure in the short term these events matter. The reams — if you can use reams for bits and bites these days — of stories that will propagate both in favor and against every decision, lead to sales and keep the company's name at the top of the world's lexicon.

But in many ways I think Monday is much more important than Tuesday. There seems a lot more value in not knowing for sure what's coming next; the space where wishes and desires aren't bound by human engineering. Learning exactly what you'll get to buy in the future is pretty boring. But, the prospect of an announcement gives us all permission to focus on invention and try to figure it out ourselves. Everyone from spectators to the straight-laced triple-checking reporters get their chance to guess at the next win on the computer innovation lottery.

It's tech companies' fault. The announcements have lately come as more bit-sized bumps. Who wants a flat design, when we're so close to carrying the collected wisdom of thousands of years of human history next to our keys. Over the past few decades achievements of software and machinery have made the impossible ... routine. The magic of WiFi and cellular data service have been accepted as the way the world has always existed. Yet, such innovation is barely in its teenage years (Apple is credited with debuting the first mainstream computer equipped with a WiFi card in 1999). The iPhone is just a first-grader and Android isn't even 5 years old.

They show the ultimate value of dreams. A thought, that along with its brilliance, is shaped to reality through hard work.

So three or four times a year the tech companies, Apple, Google, Samsung and rest, give us permission to hope that the engineers and the visionaries among us will change our lives again. And while most of us won't ever get to realize the completion of our own tech dreams, you never know from where the kernel of the next earth-shattering dream will emerge.

Sean Roth is a self-professed geek. When he's not following real estate and businesses for the Business Observer, he's musing about the latest doohickey.