iPad is a game changer

[Alias]

(02-03-2010 04:48 AM)Reboot Wrote:  

(02-01-2010 01:51 PM)Alias Wrote:  No Flash, Silverlight and Java support, so no Hulu or Netflix streaming.

Read up on HTML 5. Jobs knows the future of media on the web, and it isn't CPU sucking Flash, Silverlight and Java. Vimeo and some youtube already are HTML 5.

Well, stuff's going to be fractured for a long time because Apple (HTML 5, Obj C), Microsoft, Adobe and Oracle (Sun: Java FX) all have major traction in the one big nut. This is like superpowers colonizing over the feeding frenzy over oil and other declining resources - Too much at stake, and sort of like 'good cop bad cop' can play out for a long long time, all the while the good cops and the bad cops all prosper, since the only one losing out is the rest of us. And it's sort of like a religious war, when you frame it around developers, so you know how religious wars go : { It aint over til they pry my dead cold fingers off my keyboard } , however, there is a shift towards user centricity first, maintenance-continuity second.

They all got pluses and minuses that cancel each other out, so it's going to be a mess for a long, while they keep on keepin on gettin rich.

Apple's disrupted everything, major force to be reckoned with - Anybody who thinks about software and the web thinks about Apple. They're scary successful. Huge headstart on mobile and now they'll have one in mass consumer computing / cheap web-thin-client stuff. Their thing is the user comes first - Value user experience over developer experience, and it's pretty clear that's pushed some major buttons with the right people, the only people that matter, the user/consumer.

But, the ugly side of this user experience gestalt/whatever is when they figure out Club Penguin, NeoPets, Mint, Hulu, Netflix, Disney (now that's really funny, Steve), Farmville, ad infinitum / ad nauseum ( point of view ) don't play on the "Best Way to Experience the Web." Duplicity. For the rest of the world, I don't know, but Americans are fickle about it - It's a crapshoot not worth gambling on - Sometimes they grudgefuck liars, sometimes they don't. People want all this cool stuff, with all this cool trick stuff and heavy lifting going on to accomplish that, without having to deal with anything more involved than point-and-click, point-and-shoot, and Apple's got that figured out better than anybody - What the basic cool stuff without any of the wonker stuff is, and mediating that out to a clean simple effortless interface minus wonker hardware/features/whatever. They've got the Mass and Mass Media down pat. Apple/Steve/Pixar/Disney is the Mass Media company like no other.

Apple's definitely the leader in this really lusted after market, so their chore is to maintain their leadership, as developers will want to reach Apple customers - If they falter or can't match pace with Android/whomever, that market love will fizzle to an annulment/divorce/whatever, since the Apple market requires special effort, Apple apps and Apple fluent developers, a necessary evil, an adjunct to .NET, Java, whatever developers.

And those other guys aren't going away, as they have stomped major terra and have big footprints all over the web. Flash has its ubiquity, the best designer tools, and the best designer/developer workflow. Flash's only problem is Apple . There's all this great stuff saturating the planet that plays everywhere, except two places: The iPhone and now the iPad, and one is a big place and the other is going to be big. So, those guys are boning up on HTML 5 or Objective C or both, and just play both ends, one for Apple and one for the rest of the world.

Same with Java and Silverlight. They're not going away - They're just going to accomodate Apple. If this happens quick enough, Apple won't have to worry about getting caught in a lie, so again might get to come out the other side smelling like a rose, HTML 5 hero, etc, etc.

They still need multi-tasking and a web cam (to multi-task chat, for the young uns as well as the way a lot of folks share that Goddamned web experience junk these days).

Oh yeah, Google has the biggest challenge, as they haven't figured out what Apple gets like no other but some other companies are catching a clue on (but not Google yet), and that is a unified user experience. They think they're catching a clue, but that many geeks can only have a synergistic toxic effect on user experience, and it shows . But they'll figure it out - They have no choice but to sync that up with their ambitions.

Well, man, this has been real, and fun, and actually real fun, but gotta go.

Later man, and peace,

Ed

[polymerase]

I think you nailed it that Apple gets the unified user experience like no one else. And since they also start with the hardware when building that experience they run the show and may well end up being the show.

Google is the only threat and and google does not quite get the hardware leads to unified user experience. Android might be it but they might have to break the "don't be evil" rule to get any traction.

[Alias]

(02-02-2010 02:48 PM)polymerase Wrote:  When I put "game changer" in the title of this thread I was exaggerating. But Steve is on the cover of the Economist as a cartoon "the Book of Jobs" and he looks like Moses with the tablets. In the first paragraph, "game changer".

The only android I have seen is a friend on the floor. His battery is always dead when he wants to show me something. Doesn't have time to figure it out. It has everything blaring in network waves likely cooking it.

The android may be the superior technology. I am dealing with two companies right now and I like the superior technology. But the other one is blessed by the masses. The android might end up with the same fate. It will be betamaxed to oblivion.

You picked the right word. It's a game changer. Well, the world had this thin client stuff before, and there's actually a lot of it in big business, but it never took off for the Mass (don't believe it even got off the ground). But, like you said, new-fangled stuff happens but then tech evolution changes old stuff, too, and that radically changes the contexts of a lot of the different old stuff to make more sense than new stuff. So, I don't know where the Mass thin client fits in there, but stuff is different now - There's the Cloud, virtualization, cheap (well, I guess that's relative, since it more thrashed marginal values of utility, i.e., it raised the bar on connectivity and what people will pay for it) high-speed access, realization of Sun's 'the network is the computer', 'networkification' of civilization, simplicity-ease-convenience, Mass adoption, matriculation of media and computing from the living room and the desktop to the Cloud - A convergence of a ton of technological evolution/revolution, consumer behaviors, social patterns, etc, etc. And as important as all that stuff, there wasn't the Apple user experience.

One scenario could be that developers will bone up on HTML 5 or Objective C or both and play both sides of the street, one for Apple and one for the rest of the world. Then stuff gets to play out normally to where HTML 5 will win a fair game scored by the user. But another scenario could be those $11B worth of netbooks you cite also choke on Flash (and modern netbooks are getting a lot more buffed, dual-core Atoms with Nvidia Ion, etc, that shouldn't be choking, but Flash does that). The big Apple universe and the big netbook universe (and both of those universes are going to grow even larger) are just too big to ignore. Those are some major lost opportunities for producers and advertisers, and that lost opportunity is going to get even larger, so developers will get two choices: Bring back the bacon with HTML 5 or get out so someone else can. So, who knows, maybe Flash would have a sudden death. Only developers care about that stuff, because they're invested - Producers and advertisers are only invested with whatever makes them money - That's the part developers don't get - Nobody cares about the tools, better designer/developer workflow, etc, how much of this vibrant vital this and that is built with this and that - Everybody else just cares about 'what happened to my Hulu, Mint, NeoPets, etc?' and 'get that shit back on people's eyeballs or take your ass and your bullshit excuses somewhere else.'

Yeah, Apple is a game changer, and as a new piece (and a newish kind of device, well, the best iterated for the user {the Joe, Josephine, Joe Jr and Jolene mass consumer}, therefore rabid adoption) of their unified user experience (what the real game changing is), the iPad will be another game changer. Apple connects with their users like no other, and that's probably why some shortcomings get overlooked, the benefits, the Apple user experience just blows it all away. That's what others don't get, the Apple unified user experience - You get a taste of that world and you don't want out. Nobody has anything like that, and their attempts will be clunky and chunky for some time. I have no clue what's going to happen with their streaming, but clearly Apple could do a better Hulu-Netflix than Hulu and Netflix, stream music, etc, and with socialization, sharing, etc enabled, a further colonizing means of the unified Apple user experience.

Google? All Android really has to accomplish to benefit Google is to just shake stuff up to where the Big 3 match network quality-performance to their massive revenues and to lower prices, to compete on performance and bang for buck. That brings more traffic and information on the web, Google's turf, stuff Google knows what to do with. It's hard seeing how they have the chops for this unified user experience business and the device part of that, but still it may likely be Apple and Google with the lion share. Cool stuff - I know I've wanted nice graphical portable turn-by-turn navigation, so I'd almost get a Nexus for that with a phone and dorking around junk thrown in with it.

No clue, really, but this stuff sounds good

Ed

[polymerase]

Years ago when the idea of thin client plus cloud was introduced or back then it was more like server owns all apps, I thought it was nonsense. People like to own the apps and the data and they want it on their hard drive. But without even knowing it virtually everything I do now in the personal computer sense I am thin client and everything is happening elsewhere. If HTML5 follows that curve better than Flash then flash is dead.

On the science side it is more messy right now. My big apps need CPU horsepower and storage and they will work better on Xgrid type design structure but the cloud beckons. Both can do the job but once the app has most of the beta wires tucked in it is cheaper, easier, and all sorts of other good stuff on a cloud.

My membership in Cloud Computing at LinkedIn is pending approval. Hey, wake up and let me in. I know who you are!

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1,242 companies listed in LinkedIn have Cloud Computing in their description. Tons of orange listed jobs available and lots of employees on their payroll. This is a bit of a surprise to me. I need to get out more. Need a job? Don't follow plastics, follow the cloud.

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pps. I like how myBB just appends a new comment right to the bottom of my last comment. It works the way I work, just one more thing ...