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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.
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."
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
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".
Seconded. Also, stop bitching that someone else didn't execute your vision.
There are two types of people in the world: Those who crave closure
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
No, they're really not "likely" to become more than a basic user. The standard tasks that most people use their home computer for - browsing the web, sending emails, watching a video, etc. - are not likely to suddenly prompt those people to decide that they need to hack the Linux kernel.
Why do you thick fucks make the assumption that this is something MOST people would want to do? There's a reason most of us grew up as social outcasts: OUR INTERESTS ARE NOT SHARED BY THE VAST - OVERWHELMING - MAJORITY OF THE OTHER PEOPLE AROUND US. Playing a game leads to "I'm gonna program my own game" about as often as driving a car leads to "vehicular homicide." Stop projecting your interests on the rest of the population - I can guarantee you that they're not shared by the vast majority of the people you're assuming will magically become Linux kernel hackers if you just hand them a computer with a bash shell on it.
As far as "upgrading" a tablet? Buy a $30 bluetooth keyboard, and you've got yourself a netbook. I just saved you two grand - you're welcome.
Or "if you're going to be always adding a second wheel, why not buy a bicycle in the first place?"
You're living in a very small world and there are very few people who live there with you. (Despite this post, I'm one of them btw.) People who live in the rest of the world, and that's almost everyone, are never going to code up a game themselves. The idea isn't even going to cross their mind. Why? Because they don't care.
They just want something that works. They own technology to accomplish a task, not for the sake of owning the technology. They want to take a picture, send an email, read a web page, or play a game and they don't care in the slightest how many Mega-pixel-fps-giga-tdp widgets 2.0 this thing has over that thing. This is why the iPad (and the iPhone) is so popular; it gets out of the way and let's people do what they want to do without having to know or care how it happens.
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. The personal computer as you and I know it will die a much deserved death.
You care. I care. We are, however, a shrinking minority.
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.
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.
He's not "bitching" about anything. He was asked this question:
Do you agree that we now essentially have the Dynabook, as expressed in the three tiers of modern personal computing; the notebook, tablet and smartphone? If not, what critical features do you see missing from these? Have they delivered on the promise of improving education?
He responded by saying that no, we don't have a Dynabook, that the slim laptops are the closest thing to it, and that the ideals behind the iPad are not the ideals behind the Dynabook. He's answering the guy's question, which apparently he has been asked for the past 20 years.
"Our two-party system is like a bowl of shit looking at itself in a mirror." - Lewis Black