John Gruber discussed a Technologizer article on the Future of Windows yesterday. In said article some of the “big brains” of the software industry were asked for their opinion on what Microsoft ought to do to keep Windows relevant in the years to come. Gruber quotes one scenario that imagines a tabula rasa, a new Windows without cruft and legacy code (much like Apple did when they switched from Mac OS 9 to Mac OS X), but then takes this idea even further, wondering whether it is actually necessary to replace the current Windows.

I disagree, however. As splendid, as the idea actually feels, the characteristics of the two Windows user bases (Developers and Users) won’t resonate with such a setting. Let’s call the two versions “WIN” (New, no legacy code, cool) and “Classic” (Current Windows) Developers only invest their time and money up front if there is a viable market available (or to come), so that the investment is at least likely to generate a positive outcome. They won’t start developing for a new system until the user base is of a certain size (or a huge growth is expected, see iPad). Windows users, on the other hand, are not really known for their progressiveness. I usually tend to divide them into three groups:

1. Business users, who have no choice anyway since IT installs their machines. Since businesses are actually the main force behind Microsofts keen upholding of legacy code, there is little reason for them to ever leave Classic. So here we have a very low adoption rate.
2. Non-Computer users: The kind of people who almost accidentally bought their PC at Walmart, still run Windows XP (maybe even 98SE), and mostly use the system to print ugly birthday flyers or play Solitaire. They would probably enjoy WIN, but they won’t ever notice it exists until they go and buy a new PC at Walmart. Here, we have another low adoption rate.
3. The enthusiast Computer user: These are people that grew up with Windows, know (and sometimes love) all of it’s kinks and quirks, and use it for a variety of tasks. They’re its avid defenders in Engadget comment threads and tend to be a tad regressive, since Classic has always worked for them quite well and since they fear loosing the high investment in Windows knowledge that they accumulated over the years. The less regressive, the higher the chance that the particular person has already switched to Mac or Linux. The more regressive, the higher the chance that they would actually reject or even despise WIN as it deviates too much from their well known Classic. The adoption rate should be pretty solid, but this market segment is also heavily courted by the alternatives.

The problem with the above scenario is that the actual market for a brand new cruft free Windows deems me not big enough to attract enough developer traction to get a larger user base to switch over. One possibility, of course, would be toleverage .NET so that these applications would natively work on WIN sans problems (much like Apple did with Carbon). This, however, would disable any chances for Microsoft to radically change the user interface, accommodating usability research and results of the past decade.
Instead, I think it would make more sense for Microsoft to create a brand new OS that still runs old apps by means of a virtual machine or something resembling the classic environment in Mac OS X. Microsoft needs to enforce adoption as much as they can, otherwise most of their user base simply won’t switch.

Via www.cnn.com

Liberalism, Atheism, and IQ

The article states that current research indicates a (statistically significant though not extraordinary) correlation between liberalism / atheism and intelligence.

Published from QuoteVault.org

In my last post I noted the possibility of Apple entering the newspaper market via its iTablet in order to help journalism accustom to modern times (or, as someone else wrote: ‘Pull it kicking and screaming into the future’).
There’s no doubt that the newspaper business, or rather journalism, is in dire need for a concept which establishes it in the internet-centered society looming upon us.
Newspaper sales been dropping year over year, which leads to journalists being fired, which leads to a loss in quality, which leads to less sales, which leads to less advertising, which leads to a higher prices – and that one leads to less sales, again. What we can see in this simple example is the rather inevitable crisis of classic paper-based newspaper journalism. The cause of this hideous process is (among other factors) the fact that news can be consumed for free on the Internet. However, since people reading news on the Internet tend to ignore the accompanied advertising, the shift from paper to web doesn’t make up for the loss of their paper counterparts (and not even for the production costs).
Countless CEO’s, consultants, and scientists have tried to come up with a solution for this conundrum. People want to consume news, but do not want to pay (much) for it. Solutions ranged from micropayments (pay 1pence per article – didn’t work), to government-financed journalism (a rather dangerous thought given the importance of journalism as the fourth power in a democracy). So, why should a new hardware product from Apple offer any kind of solution to this problem, which has already been discussed on a grand scale?

Let’s move back, for a minute, and consider the state of the music industry, ca. 2001. Napster had moved the task of finding, downloading, and sharing digital mp3 music from the realm of hackers and nerds to the broad public. Suddenly everyone was able to get music in an instant. For free. For years to come, the music industry, and its legal companion, the RIAA, tried everything imaginable to hinder mp3 music sharing, and lecture (or even force) people to buy expensive CD’s or download incompatible music instead. As indicated, by this quote from Jimmy Lovine – Founder and chairman, Interscope Records, it wasn’t until the advent of the iTunes & iPod behemoth, that the market of legal digital music exploded. By now, iTunes has surpassed CD sales and is the worldwide major music distribution platform.

How did Apple achieve this? First of all, there seemed to be a latent demand for legal digital music. People oftentimes claimed that they’d buy music in an instant, if it was available in something other than the arcane CD format. It was, however, possible to buy digital music online before the iTunes Music Store came along, a fact that diminishes the strength of the ‘legal music’ argument. Another important reason was of course the combination of iPod, iTunes, and iTunes Music Store. While previous approaches to selling music online were limited & rather unknown, the widespread success of the iPod brought access to millions of potential customers. Finally, there’s an often-overlooked but very important reason: The ease and comfort of Apple’s solution.

Napster reached such a wide audience not only because of the simplicity of the task, but also because the availability of of music. One could enter an artists name, find tons of related (or unrelated) tracks, and download them with a click. But Napster also had a ton of problems: Many tracks weren’t available at all, it was nearly impossible to get complete albums – mostly only a small selection of tracks, the files were not always in good quality, and almost every download took ages because the sharing party was accessing the Internet by modem.
Whereas iTunes brought best-of lists, fast downloads, high quality files, cover art, a big database of content (except for the Beatles), complete albums, reviews, and much more. And best of all, it was only one click away from the regular iTunes music experience.
I’m fairly confident, that the superior success of the iTunes Music Store lends itself a big deal on the usability of Apple’s solution.

So, going back to the future (or rather lack thereof) of journalism, how can we apply the merits of the digital music solution to newspapers? Since news is already free on the Internet, this market lacks a significant demand for ‘legal’ news. However, as explained above, this wasn’t a big deal for digital music either. The difference is actually marginal: Before iTunes, people could buy digital music, but illegally downloaded free stuff instead. After iTunes people could still buy digital music, but did download far less illegal music. Now, people can buy paper news, but they access free, digital news instead.
If Apple really was to try to reinvent the newspaper, it would need to offer a seriously simplified, less cumbersome, very usable interface. But is this possible? Online newspapers have been evolving for years, the NY Times employs a constantly growing team of web developers to optimize it’s site. These sites still follow a model that lends its basics from the classic newspaper. A frontpage, departments, current articles in chronological order, features, and a ton of adds.
These simple thoughts establish a basic framework which allows to draft a set of requirements for a device that could establish itself as a news platform:
- The perfect size: It certainly has to be bigger than an iPhone. It needs space for a splendid layout, big fonts, high quality pictures, and a general feeling of comfort. However, it shouldn’t be so big as to be considered clunky.
- The layout: Visit Google FastFlip), which introduces a blazingly fast way to read news. Instead of html content, the site serves screenshots of news sites. I’m hardly convinced that Apple will not use WebKit for the iTablet newspapers, but that’s not the point: They just need to find a way to make the browsing and loading of articles incredibly fast.

When I applied the probable factors of success of the iTunes Music Store onto journalism, I left one factor out: The giant userbase of the iPod. The Music Store not only did benefit but wouldn’t have been possible at all without the already available incredible amount of iPod owners. The iTablet, on the other hand, isn’t even on the market yet. So, in comparison to the iPod, where the physical product helped sell the digital content, with the iTablet the digital content would need to help sell the physical product. I imagine newspaper access to be one of Apple’s arguments for the iTablet. While this certainly limits the applicability of the thoughts above, the App Store has shown that even a new content platform can quickly become a selling argument.

If only a bit of these thoughts apply, it would be a chance for journalism. The iTablet scenario won’t help solve many of its inherent problems, like bias, uneven news distribution, or the rise of entertainment, but it might at least help journalism to stay alive – maybe until a conclusive ‘future of news’ has been found. Because weblogs, social news, or Twitter cannot replace journalism.

Via money.cnn.com

Much like Apple saved the music industry with the iPod & iTunes combination, I'm quite confident that they're now en route to save the dying newspaper business with the upcoming tablet. Whatever one might think about Apple: For the valuable sake of keeping journalism alive, let's hope they succeed.

Published from QuoteVault.org

Via www.wired.com

As mentioned earlier, I fear the same. It's sad, because WebOS is a great Platform – just still in its infancy.

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I like WebOS, but I’m not confident yet whether Palm will be able (by means of investment, developers, and pace) to pull of building a major mobile platform, that is directly competing against the Google Behemoth and the iPhone, with it’s advantageous 15 years of Cocoa development on the Mac. Already, if one looks past the user interface, WebOS lacks many technologies which Android or iPhone OS developers take for granted.
And Android 2.0, just like iPhone OS 3.0, introduces another ton of new technologies. If Google and Apple keep this pace, they’ll be the two dominant mobile platforms soon, leaving behind Windows Mobile (cough), WebOS, Symbian, Maemo, and BlackBerry. One might wonder, if Apple will be able to compete against a myriad of feature rich Android devices. Riding on the wave of the iPod, featuring the prominent brand, their chances seem to be good.

Update: Just stumbled upon this Billshrink.com Smartphone comparison. They compare the iPhone, Pre, and the Droid. In the following (about) 40 user comments, one guy laments the lack of Windows Mobile, another one the lack of BlackBerry, and finally the last comment just notes ‘No mention of Nokia.. again’. That’s three out of forty.

Toktumi on their BlackBerry vs. iPhone Development experience.

RIM only has two options. First, invest serious work in their current platform. Or second, develop a new platform that eases development and enables developers to target different devices with one code base. Currently, they seem to try to sit it out instead.
There is a stark and distinct relationship between the usability of a Software development kit and the amount of software being developed with it. Current BlackBerry users buy the device because of the email and texting features. But with the increasing feature set of Android, this primary BlackBerry advantage will diminish. A wide range of apps (or a small range of high quality apps) are increasingly influencing purchase decisions. RIM has neither.

(via Andrew Keen)

Via www.paulgraham.com

Very nice essay on the differences between operating a startup and a regular job.

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WWDC 2009
Here’s another WWDC roundup. Although there’re already very good ones out there I decided to try and tackle things that seem to have been neglected so far. Since this was only my third WWDC I might see things from a different perspective than those die-hard Mac developers who’ve been attending the conference for +10 years. Gruber already pointed this out, but the past 3 years have been rather iPhony: 2007 was on the verge of the first iPhone release with everyone demanding a SDK. 2008 introduced this very SDK and already drew lots of developers who were bright enough to see the potential of the platform. This year, then, marked an even stronger iPhone theme as the platform grew and assimilated *lots* of developers very very quickly. The growing of mobile development wasn’t the only visible change however. I’ll try to address another two visible moments of change: (1) Jumping at the Apple momentum and (2) a changed audience.

(1) Apple has steadily improved and refined its brand. Most current consumer ratings place the Apple brand at the top of the list. Our modern society introduced and needs brands as a method of reducing the complexity that the free market as well as globalization bring along. An unbelievable huge amount of slightly differing and ever updating products for any kind of problem can’t hardly be understood and processed by a single person. We’re using mechanisms like journalism / reviews, peer information / opinion leaders or brands in order to artificially limit the range of choices we have to process for coming to a purchase decision.
Brands are especially interesting as they allow to overshadow primary product dimensions: A great brand makes up for product features, product price or product support. If we have a no-name product, we scan for technical features or price. If we have a branded product, most people don’t.

This means that jumping the Apple brand bandwagon sounds like an excellent opportunity to improve sales without improving products (covering problems, so to say). This is why WWDC was almost overshadowed by companies and people trying to feature their products in context of the Apple brand momentum. Around Moscone there were literally tons of people handing out flyers describing interesting up to weird services. There was a truck featuring a big advertisement for a flight simulator game that drove around Moscone all day all week – talk about saving the frakin environment. I even got approached by a 11 year old (or what) advertising his iPhone App Review club or something. And apart from that, there was the weirdest thing of them all: The iPorn Party; a desperate attempt to get developers into a strip club and (sucessfuly!) land articles for a small porn portal in the main Apple related media. The idea of a porn company trying to improve its perception by advertising in the context of WWDC – a conference geared around Mac Development – would have sounded very very awkward just two years ago.

(2) There was a tangible and visible change in the actual people attending WWDC. Sure, there were still the regular geeks with funny hats, witty (in a technical fashion) shirts and (not seldom) interesting beards. But more than ever before, there were two new types of attendees: Women and business people. I think two years ago I could count the attending women by hand. This year there were far more. As someone on Twitter wrote: This was the first time that, in a WWDC session, two girls were sitting next to each other. Probabilistic factors hadn’t allowed for such an event to happen in previous years. Not that I want to conclude anything from the looks of a person, but many of them were good looking too, and dressed in a way that, if you’d see them on a street, wouldn’t let you think they knew how to fire up XCode (please bear with me here, I’m not in any way misogynic).
Apart from this, there were lots of business people around. Wearing suits, sometimes even walking around with Thinkpads and Windows.
I conclude from this, that the iPhone halo has put the conference in a light, that will bring along fundamental changes. For next year I expect more business, and all in all a more heterogenous audience. The Mac & iPhone are strongly moving away from a niche or geek market to big money.

Summarizing just like shit attracts the flies money attracts the big business. Let’s hope they don’t corrupt the very nice Apple culture with their processes, calculations, economics and no fucking clue for interface design.

“He calls it Microblogging, I call it “twitter.” wrote Dave Winer; and he’s quite right. Depending on the perspective, that is. While doing research for my upcoming BA thesis I thought a lot about this subject.
Microblogging is a definition for a specific social process: Writing and publishing short bits of information on the web. Twitter, on the other hand, is an implementation of said specific social process. When I perform ‘microblogging’, I perform it via Twitter. That’s an easy distinction.

But what about the other Twitter-Like services? I can’t call it twittering when I use identi.ca. And, quite frankly, Twitter wasn’t even the first. Years before Biz Stone even thought about Twitter, Dave Winer himself had a similar feature implemented in his OPML editor. As soon as I want to address the more broad form of communication one performs while using Twitter or similar services, I have to refer to microblogging. People often tend to ignore current Twitter alternatives due to the limited amount of users, but if you look closely, then even Facebook offers microblogging. The features are all there: One can update his status, one can see updates, there’s an API.
So, recounting on this simple observation, it sounds easy: If I talk about my personal car, I talk about my Audi. If I talk about cars in general I use the term, well, ‘car’.

There’s a striking difference though: If you ask any of your friends for the definition of a car, you’ll get a simple answer. Ask them for microblogging, and you’ll earn blank faces. They (verb*)facebook, they (verb*)identica, they(verb*)twitter or they (verb*)friendfeed. But they don’t microblog. And that’s fine. In the short run people can call it as they wish – as long as the bigger perspective can clearly be defined. The fact that like everyone says ‘I googled it’ instead of ‘I searched it on the internet’ doesn’t abolish the semantical linkage between ’search’ and ‘google’. Google is still a search engine, no matter which word people use to define the process. And Twitter is still a microblogging service, no matter which word people use to define their usage of said service.

This doesn’t matter now. But this will matter in 1, 5, 10, or 15 years when there’s an alternative to Twitter or when Facebook grew so big that people use their services to perform similar-to-twitter needs, or when something totally different came up and won us all over. Then I’m not tweeting anymore, but still microblogging.

Which means that one should use the term Microblogging as soon as one wants to talk about anything including Twitter. That’s clearer and more concise.