Google is in some danger from Bing. Bing is nearing a point of critical mass in quality and usefulness that could translate into market share momentum. In the end, companies will divvy their ad spend accordingly. Handset search is also on, and it's a pitched battle in a high hardware turnover environment. Apple and Microsoft dislike each other, but they both are fostering a special hate for Google. Google has to out-innovate both of them like hell, and while it's doing a fine job, it must be taxing to say the least.
People are building CPU's in Minecraft, so it's just a matter of time before we see calculators arising inside multiplayer games. And thus the cycle will be complete and we'll all be left wondering: why??
I understand the drive to minimize the UI in popular applications, but there's a point where it is taken too far. When widgets with intuitive functions start to have extra, magic functionality added on in order to get rid of other widgets, that raises a yellow flag with me. A tab, I get. A text box, I get. A combo tab and text box, hmm, I could get used to it, I guess. But taken too far, I can see UI's being without any chrome at all, and interacting with it becomes a mysterious combination of gestures, control keys, and hovering over the right places. I'm not a fan of that.
To counterpoint that a bit, almost everyone I know who owns an iPad also owns an iPhone. I don't have an iPad, but do have an iPhone. That's because my iPhone is also a book reader, a great little gaming device, etc. Unlike the iPad, it has 2 cameras and fits in your pocket.
For sure, web browsing and reading books on a smaller screen isn't quite as comfortable, but it gets me by. Are those two things worth lugging around a book-sized device and paying an extra $50/mo (as per your amortization of the cost)? For me, no way. My iPhone improves my life 99% as well as the iPad would.
Amazing how fast the industry is ramping up the hardware capabilities of mobile devices. Among the critical problems Windows has on tablets, responsiveness might end up being solved for them. Of course, battery life and usability are still huge problems.
I think you're on the money. Nokia might have a decent hand, but the flop came out and when they looked around the table at the bets their competitors were making, they realized they need to make a play for the pot. Doesn't matter if they had aces, the flop sucked for them, so either they fold the hand or go all in. Now we see if the turn or river hits them.
This is about refactoring the company. Stuck with different platforms, one of which is outdated and the other just not yet mature, and too much investment in budget phones, what are they to do? If they adopted Android, it becomes an all out slugfest between them, LG, HTC, and Samsung, and those competitors are giving Android their all. Nokia, short term, needs a differentiating factor, and that's why WP7's lack of sales and poor marketing actually facilitated the deal rather than slowed it down. They don't want their best designs to become commoditized, and they don't want a huge software development staff trying to write the same stuff for multiple OS's. Nokia needs development velocity, and that just won't come with Symbian or MeeGo.
What Elop did was pretty brave, actually. I think his memo indicates that he has a daring strategy for a huge problem. It actually isn't very different from what HTC did with Windows Mobile back when WM was being ignored by most others, and the giants were Blackberry and, um, Nokia. They focused on the hardware and WM actually carried their business a fair way (until it became clear that WM just sucked in the face of iPhone and the WM team didn't give a rats ass).
Will it work? Who knows, but it is refreshing now and then to see a new CEO execute on an actual strategy rather than trying to push out a few good quarters just to collect bonuses and retire. Remember when John Sculley took over Apple - no new strategy, just pushed out more crappy hardware with a dated OS that developers eschew. Jobs came in, took his OS from his former company with him, and focused deeply on hardware design. That puts Elop a lot closer to Jobs than Sculley in my book.
I think given the work they've done to bring IE9 standards compliance up to par, it's more the second one.
Also, vendor lock-in to a browser just isn't a reality anymore. IE might always be part of Windows and thus gain wider adoption on that platform, but given that smartphones (of which MS has like 2% market share) have outsold laptops, and both tablets and Macs are poised to further erode the PC market share, web developers would be crazy to code to IE-specific features, even in intranet applications.
It's really a different world than the IE6/Windows XP world of almost a decade ago, and I think IE9 reflects a welcome attitude change.
I had written a Tetris-like game a while back for Windows Mobile. It got quite popular, too, and kind of an ego boost to be sure. However, I also received the same cease and desist about 5 years ago. Though I did not actually pull my game, I stopped developing it. I just don't want to waste a penny on legal resources for an implementation of a game idea that wasn't mine to begin with. There are better, more important things to code, and better ideas to explore. It's a waste of time to get hung up on trying to clone someone else's software.
Psychologically, that price is way high. There's a reason Apple wanted to target a $499 price point with the iPad. I think once they start getting into the mid-range laptop price range, it becomes a different kind of purchasing decision. At least, that's the reaction I've had as well as a few others I know. We were pretty excited about the Xoom, but once it comes time to lay down $800+, it stops being an impulse buy.
I hope this does not start an upward trend in price for tablets. Large-ish android phones will easily cannibalize its big brothers if the price differential is that great.
It could just be that in the eons it might take to discover how to travel and communicate over more than a couple of parsecs, searching for ET's becomes a really, really boring topic. Perhaps creating new universes and playing god is more fun.
It's already getting overloaded with non-intuitive stuff. Double-press the button and you get the task pane. Hold it down and you get voice commands or whatever you have configured for it. These are basically already gestures. Are they going to add a 3-press gesture?
Also, that home button is just not ergonomic. A better placement would be on the upper left or right side. Either-handed people could hit it with either their index finger or thumb instead of using their other hand, or regripping the device (and potentially dropping it).
There really isn't a fundamental difference between an App and an HTML 5 app/page/whatever. Unless you're using some kind of RDP, HTML5 executes on the local device, just as the App's executable code does. Traditional apps are beginning to integrate markup and scripting anyways, so they are converging architecturally anyways. Ultimately, the only arguably important difference will be just the deployment model. HTML 5 apps will eventually break out of the browser, and traditional apps will start to use HTML 5 or something very much like it.
The question for me is, will Microsoft do its part? Are they gonna half ass it by slapping on some lame, choppy UI that takes up even more memory and resources on top of Win7? Or will they do the right thing and strip Win7 down to its core and work on a first class tablet experience from the ground up? Remember MinWin? That sure looked cool, but where has that gone?
My guess is they will half ass it as they always do, and then a bunch of clueless execs will be left scratching their heads why sales flopped. Then, a handful of execs who knew the whole thing sucked and fought to do the right thing will leave and defect to Google or start a company. The wheat will leave and Microsoft will be left with the chaff.
Well, what would the odds be that if I were on death row, that I'd want to go out with one last laugh - by trashing a high profile multi-billion dollar project by pressing the Self Destruct button.
On a different note, it would be an interesting social experiment if Self Destruct were a 6-inch glowing button in the exact center of the capsule surrounded by death row inmates. Might be an interesting YouTube video. Might be a pretty short video, too.
How does one find candidates that won't suddenly flake? You have to spend a ton to train them, and suddenly at the last minute, "nah, I actually want to live."
My proposal is to build a secret death row training facility. All volunteers are only promised that if the program proceeds, they'll get sent to Mars. If the program is canceled, they are all immediately put to death via lethal injection. There would be no public exposure until post-launch, so any appeal to the public to save them would be impossible. The program would be hidden under defense spending, and would be canceled at the whim of some high level director, who does not know the exact details of the arrangement. The volunteer would be made to understand that.
Anyone actually volunteering would understand they are being subject to certain death. So, anyone making it all the way through training would deserve both the reward or success and the punishment of failure.
That's the only way I could see this being viable, as silly as it sounds.
So that Samsung and/or AT&T can provide expanded memory models without having to crack the case open or place new manufacturing orders. Supporting user-upgraded hardware has costs.
The SD slot is intended to be used by the carrier to upgrade device internal memory. That's why there's a big old sticker over it saying it will void your warranty of you install it. There's really nothing wrong with this, IMO. It's more flexible than baking in the flash memory and having to go back to Foxconn for new orders of 64GB models.
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... I curse in the actual code!
int *sh_ttyF_ckingPointer = &gSomeSh_ttyArray[MAGIC_F_CKING_NUMBER_A_SHOLE];
You mean, we Americans like to keep our leaders in check? Yeah, that's a serious flaw.
Google is in some danger from Bing. Bing is nearing a point of critical mass in quality and usefulness that could translate into market share momentum. In the end, companies will divvy their ad spend accordingly. Handset search is also on, and it's a pitched battle in a high hardware turnover environment. Apple and Microsoft dislike each other, but they both are fostering a special hate for Google. Google has to out-innovate both of them like hell, and while it's doing a fine job, it must be taxing to say the least.
Some philosophers might say that's the reason this universe exists.
People are building CPU's in Minecraft, so it's just a matter of time before we see calculators arising inside multiplayer games. And thus the cycle will be complete and we'll all be left wondering: why??
http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2010/11/17/get-the-minecraft-cpu-map/
I understand the drive to minimize the UI in popular applications, but there's a point where it is taken too far. When widgets with intuitive functions start to have extra, magic functionality added on in order to get rid of other widgets, that raises a yellow flag with me. A tab, I get. A text box, I get. A combo tab and text box, hmm, I could get used to it, I guess. But taken too far, I can see UI's being without any chrome at all, and interacting with it becomes a mysterious combination of gestures, control keys, and hovering over the right places. I'm not a fan of that.
And against all expectations, a group of them will decide it's easier to put on ninja outfits and burn down the church. Hack the planet!!
To counterpoint that a bit, almost everyone I know who owns an iPad also owns an iPhone. I don't have an iPad, but do have an iPhone. That's because my iPhone is also a book reader, a great little gaming device, etc. Unlike the iPad, it has 2 cameras and fits in your pocket.
For sure, web browsing and reading books on a smaller screen isn't quite as comfortable, but it gets me by. Are those two things worth lugging around a book-sized device and paying an extra $50/mo (as per your amortization of the cost)? For me, no way. My iPhone improves my life 99% as well as the iPad would.
Amazing how fast the industry is ramping up the hardware capabilities of mobile devices. Among the critical problems Windows has on tablets, responsiveness might end up being solved for them. Of course, battery life and usability are still huge problems.
Reminds me of Access Japan's strategy of buying PalmSource so they can VM Palm apps on their Access Linux Platform. Look how well that turned out.
I think you're on the money. Nokia might have a decent hand, but the flop came out and when they looked around the table at the bets their competitors were making, they realized they need to make a play for the pot. Doesn't matter if they had aces, the flop sucked for them, so either they fold the hand or go all in. Now we see if the turn or river hits them.
This is about refactoring the company. Stuck with different platforms, one of which is outdated and the other just not yet mature, and too much investment in budget phones, what are they to do? If they adopted Android, it becomes an all out slugfest between them, LG, HTC, and Samsung, and those competitors are giving Android their all. Nokia, short term, needs a differentiating factor, and that's why WP7's lack of sales and poor marketing actually facilitated the deal rather than slowed it down. They don't want their best designs to become commoditized, and they don't want a huge software development staff trying to write the same stuff for multiple OS's. Nokia needs development velocity, and that just won't come with Symbian or MeeGo.
What Elop did was pretty brave, actually. I think his memo indicates that he has a daring strategy for a huge problem. It actually isn't very different from what HTC did with Windows Mobile back when WM was being ignored by most others, and the giants were Blackberry and, um, Nokia. They focused on the hardware and WM actually carried their business a fair way (until it became clear that WM just sucked in the face of iPhone and the WM team didn't give a rats ass).
Will it work? Who knows, but it is refreshing now and then to see a new CEO execute on an actual strategy rather than trying to push out a few good quarters just to collect bonuses and retire. Remember when John Sculley took over Apple - no new strategy, just pushed out more crappy hardware with a dated OS that developers eschew. Jobs came in, took his OS from his former company with him, and focused deeply on hardware design. That puts Elop a lot closer to Jobs than Sculley in my book.
I think given the work they've done to bring IE9 standards compliance up to par, it's more the second one.
Also, vendor lock-in to a browser just isn't a reality anymore. IE might always be part of Windows and thus gain wider adoption on that platform, but given that smartphones (of which MS has like 2% market share) have outsold laptops, and both tablets and Macs are poised to further erode the PC market share, web developers would be crazy to code to IE-specific features, even in intranet applications.
It's really a different world than the IE6/Windows XP world of almost a decade ago, and I think IE9 reflects a welcome attitude change.
I had written a Tetris-like game a while back for Windows Mobile. It got quite popular, too, and kind of an ego boost to be sure. However, I also received the same cease and desist about 5 years ago. Though I did not actually pull my game, I stopped developing it. I just don't want to waste a penny on legal resources for an implementation of a game idea that wasn't mine to begin with. There are better, more important things to code, and better ideas to explore. It's a waste of time to get hung up on trying to clone someone else's software.
Aside from the functional part, I'm still not seeing the difference.
Psychologically, that price is way high. There's a reason Apple wanted to target a $499 price point with the iPad. I think once they start getting into the mid-range laptop price range, it becomes a different kind of purchasing decision. At least, that's the reaction I've had as well as a few others I know. We were pretty excited about the Xoom, but once it comes time to lay down $800+, it stops being an impulse buy.
I hope this does not start an upward trend in price for tablets. Large-ish android phones will easily cannibalize its big brothers if the price differential is that great.
It could just be that in the eons it might take to discover how to travel and communicate over more than a couple of parsecs, searching for ET's becomes a really, really boring topic. Perhaps creating new universes and playing god is more fun.
It's already getting overloaded with non-intuitive stuff. Double-press the button and you get the task pane. Hold it down and you get voice commands or whatever you have configured for it. These are basically already gestures. Are they going to add a 3-press gesture?
Also, that home button is just not ergonomic. A better placement would be on the upper left or right side. Either-handed people could hit it with either their index finger or thumb instead of using their other hand, or regripping the device (and potentially dropping it).
I'd welcome a gesture-based replacement.
There really isn't a fundamental difference between an App and an HTML 5 app/page/whatever. Unless you're using some kind of RDP, HTML5 executes on the local device, just as the App's executable code does. Traditional apps are beginning to integrate markup and scripting anyways, so they are converging architecturally anyways. Ultimately, the only arguably important difference will be just the deployment model. HTML 5 apps will eventually break out of the browser, and traditional apps will start to use HTML 5 or something very much like it.
The question for me is, will Microsoft do its part? Are they gonna half ass it by slapping on some lame, choppy UI that takes up even more memory and resources on top of Win7? Or will they do the right thing and strip Win7 down to its core and work on a first class tablet experience from the ground up? Remember MinWin? That sure looked cool, but where has that gone?
My guess is they will half ass it as they always do, and then a bunch of clueless execs will be left scratching their heads why sales flopped. Then, a handful of execs who knew the whole thing sucked and fought to do the right thing will leave and defect to Google or start a company. The wheat will leave and Microsoft will be left with the chaff.
I just need an ideas guy. I now have the hang of this C++ thing and if I could just find some idea lackey, I will be the next google.
Doesn't sound right this way around does it?
Well, what would the odds be that if I were on death row, that I'd want to go out with one last laugh - by trashing a high profile multi-billion dollar project by pressing the Self Destruct button.
On a different note, it would be an interesting social experiment if Self Destruct were a 6-inch glowing button in the exact center of the capsule surrounded by death row inmates. Might be an interesting YouTube video. Might be a pretty short video, too.
How does one find candidates that won't suddenly flake? You have to spend a ton to train them, and suddenly at the last minute, "nah, I actually want to live."
My proposal is to build a secret death row training facility. All volunteers are only promised that if the program proceeds, they'll get sent to Mars. If the program is canceled, they are all immediately put to death via lethal injection. There would be no public exposure until post-launch, so any appeal to the public to save them would be impossible. The program would be hidden under defense spending, and would be canceled at the whim of some high level director, who does not know the exact details of the arrangement. The volunteer would be made to understand that.
Anyone actually volunteering would understand they are being subject to certain death. So, anyone making it all the way through training would deserve both the reward or success and the punishment of failure.
That's the only way I could see this being viable, as silly as it sounds.
So that Samsung and/or AT&T can provide expanded memory models without having to crack the case open or place new manufacturing orders. Supporting user-upgraded hardware has costs.
The SD slot is intended to be used by the carrier to upgrade device internal memory. That's why there's a big old sticker over it saying it will void your warranty of you install it. There's really nothing wrong with this, IMO. It's more flexible than baking in the flash memory and having to go back to Foxconn for new orders of 64GB models.