One of my friends recently linked to this impressive quote from Paul Graham of Y-Combinator fame, writing in 2006:

It reminded me a, at least as I see it, equally impressive forecast by Fake Steve Jobs (née Dan Lyons). Back in 2006, in one of his parodical pieces, he contemplated what Steve Jobs might want that mythical iPhone to be like, and wrote:

Keep in mind, this was in 2006. Back then there was no iPhone, and nobody knew if Apple intended to ever build one. Even more, when people thought what this mythical unicorn could be like, they came up with this, this, this, or that.

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 a 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. As 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 as they fear loosing the high investment in Windows knowledge that they accumulated over the years. The less regressive, the higher the chance that this particular person has already switched to Mac or Linux. The more regressive, the higher the chance that he/she would actually reject or even despise WIN as it deviates too much from her/his 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 to leverage .NET so that new applications would natively work on Classic and 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. (Even the almost 10 years old Internet Explorer 6 is still being used way too much. This simple fact is telling about the Windows demographic)

John Gruber linked to this interesting Project today. A group of people plans to optimize the instant film in order to bring it back to the mass market. They bought one of the old Polaroid factories, in Enschede, Netherlands. Funny thing is that I live(d) right next to Enschede. Best luck to those guys.

Palm’s Andrew Shebanow (former Adobe) on Cocoa on iPhone versus JS on the Palm Pre and it’s effect on application quality and developer interest:

I do think he’s right in that many developers will want to target both plattforms. In this case the Cappuccino Web Framework seems to be godsend. It doesn’t feature everything that Objective-C 2.0 and Cocoa on the iPhone offer, but it should seriously ease transitions. Actually, if I was 280 North, I’d try to add the Palm Pre Javascript extensions to Cappuccino as quickly as possible in order to attract that horde of iPhone developers on their gold rush.

I for one am happy that I can target Mac OS X, the iPhone and Web Applications with one framework (more or less) and one language (more or less). Sometimes it drives me crazy to jump between PHP/Symfony, Python/Django, JS/Prototype/Ext and Objective-C/Cocoa.

Looks like serious, and much needed, iPhone competition. Basic history (and The Windows) tells us that a healthy marketplace is not only good for the consumer, but also for the innovative motivation of the producer.
The Pre looks slick. Albeit the technical side looks good, it’s far more perplexing because this is Palm, who didn’t get their act together for the past 5 years or so.
Let’s wait, if the device will be like the demo – or another Storm. The lack of price and avaibility information makes me a tad skeptical.
Also, since all applications seem to be written in Javascript, I wonder if it’ll be possible to develop more sophisticated applications, like 3D games, audio engines or Google Earth.

But let’s wait until it’s out. For now, it looks great. Good, innovative ideas, and, most important, it’s Palm.

In all honesty. Innovative as always, these Linux guys. Well, not that Microsofts “I’m a PC” campaign has been terribly innovative.

I hardly play games anymore, but this sure as hell looks like a big hit. That battle report feels like a good football game.

There was a great summary of their past development efforts in a Slashdot comment, some months ago:

Seriously, given Palms history regarding Operating System development, if I was Palm, I would have jumped on the Google Android bandwagon right when it came out.

Via Ft.com

So. After several months of not having enough time to write any code, I finally managed to fix the remaining bugs and publish my first application on the iTunes App Store. If it wouldn’t be for work and university, the app would probably have been online months ago. But one has to set priorities, and thus it took me a tad longer than expected.

A dedicated website for the application is here, and the direct link to the iTunes Store Page can be found here.

Happiness is build around the concepts of Dolf Zillmann’s Mood Management Theory and further research in the area of mood modification through media. The basic and empirical verified (in many many studies) idea is that the exposure to funny, sad, frightening or suspenseful media can modify our mood in specific ways (that is, funny or sad, f.e.).
Build around this idea, Happiness aim is to enhance one’s mood in a very positive way through the exposure to nice imagery and the sound of laughing people. There’re different options which allow to optimize the usage behaviour.
While this is certainly not a complex application, it taught me nontheless a lot about the whole iTunes Application Store experience.
The App is really cheap (almost a bargain!), and I’d love if those of you, who own an iPhone or iPod touch, could try it and give some feedback, so I can enhance the app.

Cio.com

It’s hard to expect any kind of innovation from a corporate culture this conservative. Luckily they managed to decide against bureaucracy.