Cars and technology show their strength in numbers

A Different View with Dave O’Connell

There are many different ways in which we get hung up on numbers – did you ever, for example, wish a woman a happy fortieth and live to tell the tale? But while the sands of time can apparently be held back by shedding the odd digit, marketing relies more and more on ever-increasing numbers for its success.

Take the iPhone or iPad – no sooner has the iPad 2 or iPhone 5 hit the shops than the expectation begins for the iPad 3 and the iPhone 6. And just because the delay may prove unbearable, there’s the iPhone 5S model coming down the tracks to bridge the gap.

Of course the reality is that the differences are minimal, more often than not, an extra button here a half a millimetre shaved off there, a gimmick or two…..and you have a whole world of people with a year-old phone who now feel they possess the modern equivalent of a Betamax video recorder.

And yet if you look at the iPhone, apart from a couple of minor advances, it still does what its predecessors did – it makes and receives phone calls, it has internet access, allows you to take and store pictures, to download music and videos and read your emails.

But it’s all down to the number – which is why we are now just over a month from a change in car registration, so that instead of waiting for the end of the year, we now have new numbers every six months.

Motorists didn’t want to buy a 13 car six months into the year – but the motor dealers hope that a 132 car will hold the same appeal as a new car in January held since we moved away from our old Galway IM and ZM number plates.

You’ll actually be buying the same car in July as you were in May, but it will feel different – and possibly cost more – because it has an extra 2 on the registration.

This works in movies and music too – once upon a time, there was an album called Now That’s What I Call Music!, a compilation of big hits from that not-so-golden generation for the industry.

The first Now! album – released towards the end of 1983 – featured such luminaries as Phil Collins, Kalagoogoo, Howard Jones, UB40, Limahl, Heaven 17, Bonnie Tyler and Culture Club, with eleven numbers one on the double album.

So almost 30 years on, Now 84! came out in March with 43 tracks from people, most of whom weren’t born when the original came out – with the obvious exception of Fleetwood Mac and the Justice Collective who re-recorded He Ain’t Heavy for the Hillsborough Fund.

But Pitbull featuring TJR, Wiley featuring Chip, Rudimental featuring John Newman & Alex Clare or Devlin featuring Diane Birch? They may be the latest stars of Now! but they could equally all be living across the road from me in blissful poly-habitation, for all I know.

When the first Now! came out, they probably hoped they’d knock six albums out of it, but such is its instant recognition now, those who still buy albums don’t even need to see the track listing – they know Now 84! is newer than Now 83! and that Now 85! will be here in plenty of  time for Christmas and that 30th anniversary.

Rule of thumb then for a happy life – numbers are always better and more appealing when they’re on the increase….except when it comes to a woman’s age.

For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.