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Alan Kay Says iPad Betrays Xerox PARC Vision
harrymcc writes "Over at TIME.com, we've published David Greelish's interview with Alan Kay, the famously quotable visionary whose Dynabook proposal has provided much of the inspiration for advances in mobile computing for over 40 years now. Kay talks about his work, laments that the computer has failed to live up to its potential as an educational tool, and says that the iPad betrays the vision that he and others created at Xerox PARC and elsewhere in the 1970s."
Sometimes I wonder why we are so quick to discard the PC. I certainly hope it won't become a symbol of lost opportunity.
Of course the 70s' vision has blurred to the point that the iPad betrays it !! This ain't your grandfather's Atari !! It is his Oldsmobile !!
What a stupid idea. The iPad was intended to be a portable screen for viewing content. Virtually every app (outside of games) is for viewing pre-generated content of some form or another. The iPad was never intended to be a "dynabook" or to co-opt the idea, so how can it be a betrayal?
I have an idea for Kay... build your own damn hardware and write your own damn software. Don't rely on publicly-traded, for-profit companies to execute your "vision".
As you might expect, his problems with it is the major problem many have with iOS devices:
Apple with the iPad and iPhone goes even further and does not allow children to download an Etoy made by another child somewhere in the world.
The solution is obviously to stop buying devices you don't truly own, but it's difficult when many applications are targeted for that platform first.
Funny thing is Xerox sold a lot of their stuff to Apple in the 70s.
Seems to me that Xerox got out of the market 40yrs ago and has no right to complain about its path now.
"That's right...I said it."
They don't?
Please show me were I can upload applications for free to the Apple store and without restrictions.
My application is a wireless network monitoring tool, which my understanding is that they are totally banned.
Apple is very successful at turning computers into something their owners do not control.
"Hey third world kids - us first world rich kids are going to give you laptops! Well, not real laptops, that might let you actually learn skills that will help you get out of poverty and better your life. They're these tinkertoy bullshit things that you won't really get much use out of... but they look so modern and plastic! And really, it'll help us feel good about ourselves for "doing something," mostly. But we'll console ourselves by telling the world that it's going to 'help you learn how to learn and give you access to the works of Shakespeare,' or some shit like that."
In essence, first world people misunderstand the needs and wants of third world people living in abject poverty, and give them gifts that demonstrate that misunderstanding. I know I'm shocked by this development - aren't you?
I, for one, can't wait to see the Open Source Refrigerator designed for use by native tribes living above the Arctic Circle! And I hear RMS is working on a new brand of super-absorbent white cotton gloves, just PERFECT for protecting your hands while eating ketchup popsicles.
Apple with the iPad and iPhone goes even further and does not allow children to download an Etoy made by another child somewhere in the world.
Even ignoring the fact that Android doesn't seem like it has any limitations that matter in this regard (and to me the question was more "do we have a dynabook yet" rather than "is the iPad a dynabook"), the statement is incorrect when applied to the iPad.
That's because you can share "eToys" within the context of an app. Codea for example, is an app for creating programs on the iPad - you can export code for a game you develop there, and send it to someone. That is in fact doing exactly what he said you cannot do - share an "eToy" you created.
Basically he has fallen into believing the myth that tablets are for consumption and not creation, ignoring a great lot of creation occurring all over.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Yes, I think the objection is not that you can't install a text editor on an iPad, but that the ecosystem is mainly aimed at one-way retrieval of content via Apple. As Kay notes, it's not just that you can't get your content into the App Store easily, but by default you can't even install something your friend made who's sitting right next to you— there's no way to install apps from your friend unless either you jailbreak your device, or your friend gets it into the App Store.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
"This has been absolutely done by the iPad ..."
not on the iPad. You need a middle man.
Tel my how I can write an app on the iPad, and then share it with whomever I want. How do I just send it to my friend across the table?
"Even this is disingenuous because Apple doesn't in any way prevent a people from creating a good app uploading it to the store for free"
You are missing his point.
"d does not allow children to download an Etoy made by another child somewhere in the world. "
he is correct. It has to go through Apple. I needs to meet Apples arbitrary corporate 'standard'; which includes many subjective things, such as 'we thing there are enough apps of this type'. Plus, creating an app on an iPad has a much higher barrier to entry then other systems.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Sometimes I wonder why we are so quick to discard the PC.
Because the PC is a nightmare in terms of reliability. Here I am using PC in the generic sense; this statement applied not just to Windows but also OS X or Linux or any desktop app compared to a tablet. In every case they are much harder for people to keep running well over time.
The "Post PC" era is a term probably overused at this point but at the core it basically means simply: computers that non-technical users can have over time without someone to help them maintain.
More technical users see this as limiting, but non-technical users see the ability to not rely on technical people to help them as freeing.
And it's not like PC's, or anything like them, will ever vanish. Those threatened by a world where normal people can use a computer too should just chill out and be happy for them.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Even this is disingenuous because Apple doesn't in any way prevent a people from creating a good app uploading it to the store for free and let people download it for free.
You either have a different definition of "for free" than I do, or you're purposely using misleading language.
In order for me to start "uploading it to the store for free" I have to pay at least something like $1100 for specialized hardware and the developer account in addition to the tablet. And, yes, I'm counting the cost of a bottom-end, cheapest, entirely unsuitable for development work MacBook in this, because the PARC vision allows you to do development on just the tablet itself.
So, no, I can't just create a good app and upload it for free. I can upload it for $1000+$100/year, and allow other people to download it without cost to them, but if I want to create an app, I have an upfront cost of at least $1100 on top of the cost of the original tablet.
And that all assumes Apple doesn't simply reject the app for no particular reason.
You are in a maze of twisty little relative jumps, all alike.
In the middle of the interview is the most brilliant thought of the whole article:
One way to think of all of these organizations is to realize that if they require a charismatic leader who will shoot people in the knees when needed, then the corporate organization and process is a failure. It means no group can come up with a good decision and make it stick just because it is a good idea. All the companies Iâ(TM)ve worked for have this deep problem of devolving to something like the hunting and gathering cultures of 100,000 years ago. If businesses could find a way to invent âoeagricultureâ we could put the world back together and all would prosper.
This is exactly right. Modern companies are NOT modern companies, they are generally companies as companies have always been. I think in smaller companies we are seeing experiments that show tiny examples of truly different ways to run a company, but I don't know of any that have been able to scale that to thousands of people yet.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Tonight's top story: An old guy complains that the future doesn't match what his vision of the future was back when he was young.
This, and the rest of the news, coming up at 11.
#DeleteChrome
It also shows a 60/70's naïvety toward how nasty our computing world has become toward attacking other users for personal and political gain.
Yeah, mitigating modern malware techniques, particularly trojans, is a non-trivial problem. Apple's solution, the walled garden, is probably the wrong one, but no-one has come up with another credible security model that works as transparently or effectively for the end user. This is really an area of OS research that needs a ton of attention and effort that it's not getting - anti-malware applications are not cutting it. The solution needs to be baked-in, not bolt-on, and pro-active rather than reactive.
Basic users who have zero need for the features of a PC.
A PC offers more room to grow. Eventually a basic user is likely to become no longer a basic user and will need to spend a significant chunk of change to upgrade from only a tablet to a tablet and a PC. If this no-longer-basic user is a child under legal working age who has been using a tablet that he had received as a gift, it becomes even more difficult to find the money to buy even a used PC. Owning only an iPad is more likely to convince the user that the limits of only an iPad are reasonable, just as a lot of American kids who owned only a game console and not a PC during the third, fourth, and fifth console generations never got the chance to try their hand at learning what makes a game tick by coding a simple game themselves.
Just like society fails to (thankfully) live up to expectations set 2000 years ago in the bible.
I mean really, we are supposed to adhere to a 40 year old vision of the future? I mean, where is they Dynabook today? Yes, that's right, its back in history where it belongs.
Also Apple nearly went bankrupt several times back in the day. Obviously the original vision failed to sustain both Xerox (as an innovative company today) AND Apple until Steve Jobs had another vision for the future.
If you have a vision that fails, then you failed to deliver your vision, it's nobody else's fault.
I haven't thought of anything clever to put here, but then again most of you haven't either.
It's strange, typing on a tablet is identical to typing on a laptop or a desktop for me... don't they have bluetooth keyboards where you live?
These people are trapped by their own make-believe assumptions about the technology, refuse to acknowledge that apps like Codea exist, and are convinced that using an Apple product somehow takes away their freedom. What freedom? Oh, you know, that freedom that lets you go in and modify the kernel source code to suit your own needs. Or that freedom to use whatever software you like. Or to create new content. Yeah, Apple totally destroys all that and keeps kids from learning! The iPad sucks! Fuck Apple! I want my freedom!
This is like saying: "riding an unicycle is easy, because you can put its wheel into a bike and ride that one instead".
---- MISSING MISCELLANEOUS DATA SEGMENT --- [sigdash] trolololol
You can code on the iPad? This is news. Whats the environment you use? Not talking about scripts or a text editor with basic syntax highlighting tho. I'm talking about being able to code a full project, with all necessary files, and preferably being able to compile it too - but that can be worked around.
I tried this with the Asus Transformer when it came out. Was... KIND OF... doable, but in the end it was a LOT easier to just use a 13" laptop and code on that. No sacrifices were required, completely compatabile with my revision controls, etc.
Also, this is the second time I heard you could write and release iOS apps for free - can you share how this is doable? I admit I don't follow iOS much anymore since I didn't want to spend $100 a year just to write hobby level code, so this change is quite exciting. Unless this post is a day late, then Fool on me...
Doesn't the fact that you need a developer 'license' tweak something in your mind about the DynaBook ideals?
People love to make the claim you can not create content on the iPad but its been proven time and again for the most part to be false beyond a few exceptions you can create just fine. People code on them
Several years ago, Apple pulled a Commodore 64 game from the App Store when it was discovered that the user could reboot the emulated Commodore 64 into the BASIC prompt. Apple didn't want a BASIC prompt because users could key in programs that Apple had not approved. What caused Apple to change its mind and allow things like Codea?
Apple doesn't in any way prevent a people from creating a good app uploading it to the store for free
How are a Mac and a developer license available "for free"?
and let people download it for free.
Of course it does. If your application falls into one of the banned categories, which you're not even officially allowed to see until you've already bought a $650 Mac and a $99 per year developer license, Apple won't let you distribute it.
Tepples, I think you mean they believe this.
Wireless network monitoring tools are primary useful to those who deploy, secure and integrate wireless networks. It is very handy to be able to see at a customers site that his wireless speeds suffer because all this neighbors are on the same channel.
What a self-important twit. Why the hell should his "vision" rule what Apple wants to sell 40 fucking years later?
Kind of reminds me of Ted Nelson complaining about how lame the web is because it doesn't live up to his vision for project Xanadu ;-)
Remember the quote "Real artists ship"???
...but Jesus H. Fucking Christ that's lamer than a Thalidomide dachshund.
Jesus Fucking Christ, that comment alone packs 1,000 more humor than all of yesterday's April 1 stupidity combined...
HTML 5 and Javascript apps aren't restricted in a manner inconsistent with their programming paradigm
Yes they are. Apple intentionally refuses to let HTML5 applications use WebGL; iAds can use it but not anything else. Apple refuses to allow the user upload any object stored on the device other than pictures and video through <input type="file">, and even that didn't work for the first five years of iOS. Nor does Safari implement getUserMedia or any similar API to use the device's microphone and camera. This appears odd especially in relation to the fact that when introducing iOS 1 on the original iPhone, Apple intended to make web applications the only kind of application that one would need. How would a barcode scanner work without support from Safari?
People used to be able to make actual useable software on their own as Hypercards stacks which they could then share freely (or for cost) with others. There was no restriction on how to share or requirement for approval and okey-dokeys and blessings from the Mother-ship in order to be allowed to do so. You could install software from whatever sources you wanted. It's that type of freedom to tinker that I believe Mr Kay is talking about and not seeing in the way the iPad money-sucking and "closed up" walled garden which is specifically designed by Apple.
No, it's like saying "riding a unicycle is hard, if you need a vehicle to get around, why don't you put a second wheel on it, and stop whining about how hard it is to ride a fucking unicycle?"
Your friend with a Mac and an iOS developer license can provision several dozen testing devices on his developer account, including yours.
Sure, for the low low price of $99 per year. Every year. For the right to load software onto the device you own.
I think what keeps being over looked here is what Apple brought to the scene with the iPad; an actual tablet computer. Prior to the iPad tablets were laptops without keyboards: heavy, buggy, hot, slow, clumsy, kludges that kept trying to force a desktop UI into a pseudo-touch/stylus interface.
Apple broke away from that and their success in being the first to understand what a tablet needed to be and _finally_ getting the rest of the world to understand what tablet computing _should be_ can be seen not only in their sales but also in their imitators. Every other single tablet on the market now is merely a variation on Apple's success without any additional innovation in the concept.
Or "if you're going to be always adding a second wheel, why not buy a bicycle in the first place?"
FTA:
"Apple with the iPad and iPhone goes even further and does not allow children to download an Etoy made by another child somewhere in the world. This could not be farther from the original intentions of the entire ARPA-IPTO/PARC community in the ’60s and ’70s.
Apple’s reasons for this are mostly bogus, and to the extent that security is an issue, what is insecure are the OSes supplied by the vendors (and the insecurities are the result of their own bad practices — they are not necessary)."
How is it an OS issue if a user downloads an app and grants an it full access to an iPhone and the app takes a copy of the contact list and the entire archive of phone calls and messages and beams them to a host somewhere in Russia without any further user interaction?
If the answer is the user must act as the software warden, how is a child supposed to guarantee this Etoy won't do any harm to the machine he or she is using?
In short, if the wall garden isn't the app curator then who is? The OS? The app developer? The child?
Indeed, everyone knows you stir coffee with a pencil!
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
It's actually more like saying, "buy a Bluetooth keyboard and it's practically identical to your desktop typing experience". If you're doing that much typing I can't imagine NOT having a dedicated keyboard.
I don't even think it's really doing much to displace PCs. People shortsighted enough to think solely in terms of new sales certainly feel that way, but it ignores reality.
Basically, PC market with or without tablets was destined to plateau. PC sales for a couple of decades were driven by more demanding applications and use cases. Now, the products have, largely, caught up to the applications people use. A new purchase was formerly driven mostly by the current owned product being 'too slow'. Now a new purchase is driven more and more by when the thing wears out beyond warranty rather than new capability not previously available.
Tablet and mobile are really a distinct market that PC didn't really penetrate. Sure, occasionally you'd see someone pretty dedicated lug around a laptop out and about, but those were pretty rare. Most everyone that had a PC 3 years ago still uses their PC, even if they have no need to buy a new one.
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
Above all though, the iPad really needs AppleScript.
Sphinx of black quartz, judge my vow.
If the device in their hand does what they want it to do then there is no 'upgrade' (I'd argue: downgrade) path to a PC.
That's the real problem right there: a locked-down device makes people want less.
Don't know about you, but I hardly ever use my laptop keyboard. I have the same keyboard at home and at work. I much prefer the full size keys, numeric keypad, more ergonomic layout, and I don't feel bad when I throw it away and buy another when it gets worn out. My laptop screen is at eye level which means fewer headaches.
Speaking of "douche", wow, it must be your monthly.
Different people have different needs and different desires, and if I want to use a disposable keyboard with my laptop and throw it away when the keys get Cheetos in them and the letters worn off, that's my fucking prerogative. If I want to do that with my iPad, again it's my money, not yours.
Can you dig it?
Initially, Apple rejected anything that would even remotely resemble Codea.
And now they don't.
People also used to have to get dinner with spears. And now they don't So you pointing out how hard it is metaphorically speaking to hunt with spears is as stupid as it is pointless.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
This is because lots of people are short sighted and stupid.
There is nothing we can do about that. It has always been that way and likely always will.
Maybe one day we can have another BBS/early internet that excludes these folks. Maybe one day september will end.
which is explicitly and entirely unacceptable. You should not need a developer license (permission from apple) to do anything on your iDevice. That is exactly the problem.
You are RIGHT!
/sarc
I mean it is the exact ideals talked about in the article, just a few small changes.
You must have a developers license.
You must have another computer. (Of course one made by Apple)
You may only provision it to a limited number of users, unless you get it INTO the store.
To get it into the store, it must pass checks to ensure you are not stealing business from Apple, and may be rejected for any or no reason.
you can NEVER do anything outside of what apple says you can
Sure you can - you can always jailbreak (or root, or whatever).
There will always be a means for the technically ept to escape whatever bonds there appear to be wrapped around any technology. What there has not need to this point is a way for people who did not understand technology to get tangled in unkept tentacles of difficult that crept out all over.
YOUR kind is the one who has enslaved humanity over the years; you are the luddite proclaiming something new to your experience is bad even though you have lost nothing. You simply wish to seek others from enjoying technology to the degree you can, because it threatens for some reason.
Screw that I say, let EVERYONE enjoy the technically enhanced world that computers promised but had a rough time delivering.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
People make it sound like administrating unix is hard. You should try to administer Windows Server from a tablet. That's a real challenge - although less so with the new GUI-less options.
Views expressed do not necessarily reflect those of the author.
I kinda feel that this is the problem with all mobile devices. You can do pretty much everything with them, but for anything you use them for there is a device that will beat a crap out of it in terms of functionality, usability, everything. It may be a good compromise, I mean it *is* portable and you *can* do pretty much anything, but if you are a professional, you have to have a real thing.
May Peace Prevail On Earth
Tel my how I can write an app on the iPad, and then share it with whomever I want. How do I just send it to my friend across the table?
Did you try going to the App Store and looking for Codea?
Instead of making other people do the research, you could have just said "they can install the Codea app, create a project, use the Codea Runtime to package their project as an iOS app, get a developer license from Apple for $99/year, submit their app to Apple, and if it gets approved then someone else can download it". Not exactly what Alan Kay was talking about, but I guess that can be considered some form of "distribution". It doesn't help if you want your friend sitting next to you (or across the world) to play the new game you made, but hey, with Apple you can only ask for so much.
"Our two-party system is like a bowl of shit looking at itself in a mirror." - Lewis Black
you have a cat and mouse game going where you constantly try to close the latest hole
Apple closes security holes, which they absolutely should.
There will always be the possibility of tethering jaibreaking which is more an issue of trcking the system updater; Apple COULD close that hole but has not to date.
Otherwise what would be accomplished by your paper other than to kill trees? Anyone with technical ability knows jailbreaking exists in short order, if they desire to go beyond the approved development tools (which give you a huge range of scope to start with).
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
How about any job (and there are many) which used to be done walking (or driving) around with a clipboard, and then someone back at the office doing data entry from the paper form.
Just because your own kind of job doesn't require mobility, doesn't mean that all professionals don't need mobility.
Says who? Is this a law? Was it on tablets delivered by Moses? Or is it just a personal preference of poetmatt. A requirement that is completely and fully satisfied by poetmatt not buying an iOS device.
As long as people are free to chose whatever product they want, there is no problem. Stop trying to enforce your desires on people who have different requirements.
There is no problem. It's entirely unrealistic for you to like every product on the market. And it's fucking insane to require that every product matches your preferences.
Ok I admit I was being harsh before.
Maybe the hypothetical recipient of the iPad is at a point where they want to do more but can't. They've downloaded some books/info at home for offline reading, and now want to write some code. They could jump through a ton of hoops trying to use a device that just isn't designed for that - I'm sure it can be make to work but perhaps the effort isn't worth it the results - and your suggestion about selling it for the money towards a cheap notebook is the way to go.
Are Android tablets better for this - say the Nexus 7, is it straight foward to hack it to a command prompt and get a keyboard for real typing? That would be for the super cost sensitive, but otherwise the cheap notebook/laptop would be better for the kid who wants to learn programming.
I advocate that we should keep the access to general purpose computers restricted [...] By the way, when did you last use a blowtorch, a soldering iron, a pneumatic drill? All of them are less advanced tools than the computer, still most people without knowledge of how to use them (including geeks) would never pick one up. Why should computers be treated any differently?
Is access to a blowtorch, a soldering iron, and a pneumatic drill restricted?
Xerox PARC produced wonderful, important concepts, but I'm unable to think of a single important commercial product that came from there. Dynabook is just another example.