A Health, Social Media and Technology blog by Mark Scrimshire (@ekivemark), Chief Instigator of HealthCa.mp - Empowering Health Care Engagement.
Great analysis to compare Apple v Android in the area of OS updates.
The pice that struck me was this assessment:
"Apple’s way of getting you to buy a new phone is to make you really happy with your current one, whereas apparently Android phone makers think they can get you to buy a new phone by making you really unhappy with your current one."
At Apple’s tablet event last week, there was one noticeable absence: games.
Apple frequently uses games to show off the computing power of its mobile devices, but this time, Steve Jobs was driving home the message that the iPad is a tool for creation, not just a fancy plaything.
“This is not a toy,” Jobs said after a demonstration of iMovie for iPad. “You can really edit movies on this thing.”
Later, after a demonstration of GarageBand for iPad, Jobs repeated it: “Again, this is no toy.”
Priced at $5 each, iMovie and GarageBand were the only apps demo’d last Wednesday on the iPad 2. These apps aren’t brand-new, because they were previously Mac apps, but bringing them to the iPad is a significant move.
Touchscreen tablets may become an ideal platform for multimedia creation with tools like these.Historically, iMovie and GarageBand have been popular on the Mac because of their affordability and ease of use. With these two apps, Apple pioneered tools for Joe Schmo to create music and movies — skills that were previously exclusive to professional musicians and moviemakers with expensive hardware and software.
As a professional Final Cut Pro videomaker myself, I was personally frustrated that Apple kept making it easier and easier for anyone to replicate my technical skills with much simpler tools. (To be clear, beyond my selfish needs, I did view iMovie as extremely beneficial for creators.)
Now Apple’s making these same creative tools more accessible to an even broader audience, on an even more affordable device, the $500 iPad. The touchscreen interface is so intuitive that even children and grandparents have been able to pick up iPads and figure out how to use them in a few minutes. Now they could potentially launch iMovie or GarageBand and create some movies or music.
While touchscreen tablets are less than ideal for typing out long blog posts or writing novels, they may become an ideal platform for multimedia creation with tools like these. For that reason, these apps may be even more important than the iPad 2 itself.
But Apple still has a lot of room to improve if it wants the iPad to be a platform for creation. Going forward, one key area of creation that Apple should focus on is a tool to create apps.
Creative Coding
Programming is one of the most creative things you can do with a computer, and the iPad could potentially be a powerful tool to introduce this form of creativity to many people, particularly children.
Currently there is no way for people to use the iPad to make programs. Furthermore, the touchscreen interface already doesn’t seem ideal for traditional coding, and there’s no easy way to look under the hood of an iPad to understand how to create software.
Without a proficient programming environment readily accessible on the iPad, Apple’s tablet paints a bleak portrait for the future of programming.
“I think the iPad generation is going to miss out on software programming,” said Oliver Cameron, developer of the Friends iPhone app. “Kids don’t need Macs anymore.”
It doesn’t help that Apple enforces strict rules around how iOS apps must be programmed, which occasionally results in some collateral damage.
Take for example Apple’s rejection of Scratch early last year. Scratch for iPhone was an app for kids to view programs coded with MIT’s Scratch programming platform.
Apple rejected the app, citing a rule that apps may not contain code interpreters other than Apple’s. This rule appears to be specifically designed to prevent meta platforms such as Adobe Flash from appearing on the iPad, thereby allowing Apple to keep its iOS platform to itself.
The young community of Scratch programmers, however, doesn’t pose a threat to Apple’s business, and the rejection of the Scratch app shows how Apple’s developer rules can harm the art of programming.
‘I think the iPad generation is going to miss out on software programming.’“I think it’s terrible,” said Andrés Monroy-Hernández, a Ph.D. candidate at the MIT Media Lab and lead developer of the Scratch online community, when Scratch was rejected April 2010. “Even if the Scratch app was approved, I still think this sends a really bad message for young creators in general. We have a forum where kids post comments, and they were really upset about this.”
Furthermore, Apple has especially frowned on the act of hacking iOS devices. It’s worth noting that programmers can still tinker on the iPad by writing code for “jailbroken” (i.e., hacked) devices.
But Apple has created the sentiment that hacking iOS devices is a criminal activity. Jobs has described Apple’s cracking down on iPhone hacks as a “game of cat and mouse.”
In the past Apple vigorously fought attempts to legalize jailbreaking on mobile phones. The company eventually failed in that effort when the U.S. Copyright Office added jailbreaking to a list of exemptions to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act’s anticircumvention provisions, making jailbreaking cellphones lawful. However, the iPad is not covered by that exemption, because it’s not considered a phone, and therefore the lawfulness of hacking an iPad remains uncertain.
The criminal stigma surrounding iOS hacking is disappointing, because many of our best coders learned a great deal by thinking outside the box, breaking the rules and hacking around with systems. Take for example, Alex Payne, an engineer at Twitter.
“The thing that bothers me most about the iPad is this: if I had an iPad rather than a real computer as a kid, I’d never be a programmer today,” Payne said in a blog post last year when the original iPad debuted. “I’d never have had the ability to run whatever stupid, potentially harmful, hugely educational programs I could download or write. I wouldn’t have been able to fire up ResEdit and edit out the Mac startup sound so I could tinker on the computer at all hours without waking my parents.”
And then there’s software programmer Mark Pilgrim, who reminisced about the days when personal computers were truly “personal,” meaning a user could do anything he wanted with his device without feeling like a rebellious rule breaker.
“You could turn on the computer and press Ctrl-Reset, and you’d get a prompt. And at this prompt, you could type in an entire program, and then type RUN, and it would motherfucking run,” Pilgrim said in his post last year when the iPad launched. Pilgrim and Payne agree that children learning to program with an iPad won’t get the enlightening tinkering experience they had.
That’s unfortunate, because in our digitally driven economy, programmers are more important than ever before, and it’d be beneficial for people of all ages to learn some code.
If Jobs really wants the world to view the iPad as a platform for creation, it seems like an opportune time for Apple to release a suite of basic programming tools for iOS devices. This could be a simple tool that creates some rudimentary iOS apps (plenty of apps in the App Store would be considered subpar anyway), and purchasing it should include a free developer’s license for kids to get started programming.
It’s great that Apple’s iPad will give birth to some more musicians and moviemakers, but we can’t forget the people who make hardware extra special: the programmers.
Hey, Apple - why not at least give us an AppleScript Editor for the iPad/iPhone...
This is a Really interesting article about the explosion of interest in Near Field Communications - wireless payment systems. The most interesting part of MG's article is the question of how Apple can tackle the challenge of getting Near Field Communication receiving devices out in to the marketplace. It is one thing to have phones capable of paying for goods and services but as Google has discovered with the Nexus S, without receivers there is no way to make a payment.Bloomberg has an interesting report tonight, but they have the headline all wrong. Apple Plans Service That Lets IPhone Users Pay With Handsets — is technically correct (assuming the report is true, of course), but it completely downplays the potential ramifications of what Apple is apparently attempting to do. If Apple can nail Near-Field Communication (NFC) and tie it directly into their already-established iTunes payment system. It could change everything. It could transform Apple from the biggest technology company in the world, to the biggest company in the world, period. By far.
Granted, that’s a very big “if” in the above statement. And there are many unknowns from this report, which I’m simply extrapolating out. But there’s also a lot that makes sense, if you think about it.
First of all, Bloomberg’s Olga Kharif reports that Apple will build NFC chips into the next iteration of the iPhone. That should be absolutely no surprise — in fact, we reported on it months ago. Plus, given that rival Google has already done this for the Nexus S Android device, it has gone from a no-brainer to a must-do.
What is somewhat surprising is first of all that the report only mentions the new iPhone “for AT&T” and not Verizon. And secondly, that NFC is said to be built into the iPad 2 as well.
It’s hard to know what to make about the former. Perhaps that’s just a slip up? Or maybe AT&T really will get the iPhone 5 first?
The iPad 2 talk is conceivably more straightforward. Typically, NFC is associated with mobile payments, but don’t forget that it can also be used for a host of other short-distance data communications. In fact, it could well be that NFC becomes a staple of most Apple products for beaming information instantaneously and securely over a short distance. Things like photos, movies, etc. Also, imagine if the iPad is in your bag or purse, it could certainly still be useful when it comes to paying for things by sending a signal to a receiver a few inches away.
But the key to this is really iTunes. Or more specifically, the payment system within iTunes that is already in use by millions and millions of people around the world.
The obvious main reason that NFC hasn’t taken off yet for payments is the lack of hardware support. But one reason that’s been slow to come is that manufacturers likely know that there’s simply no good payment processing system behind any of the current ideas. In fact, the best possible way for things to start moving is probably for the credit card companies to do this themselves and get the ball rolling. But while they are testing the technology, they don’t seem to see the need to disrupt a system that is already working.
So why is this becoming a big deal all of a sudden? Well, everyone’s ears perked up when they heard Google would be including NFC chips in the Nexus S. But the same basic problem remains. For all of Google’s strengths, they have not been able to nail a payment processing system. Yes, they have Google Checkout. But customers clearly prefer competitors like PayPal. The situation is so bad that they’ve even had to start including carrier billing options in Android so people will finally start to buy apps on a whim. Users are simply not doing that as much as anyone would like with Google’s current payment structure. And the system is to blame.
And the same issues will likely hold up their NFC ideas as well. And we’re already seeing the fact that while the Nexus S has NFC built-in, you can’t do anything with it yet.
Enter Apple. The technology giant does have a proven payment system. One with over 100 million accounts set up with built-in credit card access. But those interviewed by Bloomberg for the story suggest that Apple aims to go farther with NFC:
The main goal for Apple would be to get a piece of the $6.2 trillion Americans spend each year on goods and services, Crone said. Today, the company pays credit-card processing fees on every purchase from iTunes. By encouraging consumers to use cheaper methods — such as tapping their bank accounts directly, which is how many purchases are made via PayPal — Apple could cut its own costs and those of retailers selling Apple products.And why would customers do that instead of using a credit card? Because a new piece of regulation may soon make it cheaper to pay via debit rather than credit. Apple could be in the right place at the right time with this.
Also from Bloomberg’s report:
Apple, based in Cupertino, California, is considering starting a mobile payment service as early as mid-2011, Doherty said. It would revamp iTunes, a service that lets consumers buy digital movies and music, so it would hold not only users’ credit-card account information but also loyalty credits and points, Doherty said.In other words, it could be an evolution of the payment system within iTunes to allow for rewards, and other flexibility.
But what about the other side of the coin? It’s fine if Apple builds NFC into their devices, but there still needs to be equipment to read them. There’s a bit on this as well:
Apple has created a prototype of a payment terminal that small businesses, such as hairdressers and mom-and-pop stores, could use to scan NFC-enabled iPhones and iPads, Doherty said. The company is considering heavily subsidizing the terminal, or even giving it away to retailers, to encourage fast, nationwide adoption of NFC technology and rev up sales of NFC-enabled iPhones and iPads, he said.You can expect Google to do the same. But again, Google doesn’t have the iTunes infrastructure in place to make this happen in a real way. Apple does. If they get a piece of that $6.2 trillion market, there’s no way they could downplay it as negligible revenue, as they try to do with the app and music sales cuts. It could conceivably be one of their biggest money-makers. And it could completely disrupt a number of industries.
But let’s not get ahead of ourselves here, he says 1,000 words later.
Verizon to Sell Apple IPad That Connects Directly to Its Network
January 11, 2011, 2:09 PM ESTMore From Businessweek
By Greg Bensinger
Jan. 11 (Bloomberg) -- Verizon Wireless will sell a version of Apple Inc.’s iPad tablet computer that can connect directly to its network, posing another challenge to AT&T Inc. as the carrier’s exclusive hold on the iPhone draws to a close.
Verizon will get an embedded chip in the iPad for use on its network, Francis Shammo, chief financial officer of Verizon Communications Inc., the parent of the wireless unit, said today in an interview in New York. IPad users currently need an extra device to connect to Verizon’s network. Shammo declined to say when the change may happen.
Verizon Wireless, the biggest U.S. mobile-phone carrier, began selling the iPad in its stores in a package with its credit card-sized Wi-Fi device in October for $629.99 to $829.99. Apple, which introduced the iPad in April, offers versions of the tablet that connect directly to AT&T’s network.
Apple, based in Cupertino, California, sold about 7.5 million iPads through September and, according to Goldman Sachs Group Inc., may sell more than 37 million of the devices this year.
Verizon Wireless, based in Basking Ridge, New Jersey, said today it will begin selling the iPhone on its network to all customers on Feb. 10. AT&T, based in Dallas, had been the exclusive carrier of the smartphone since 2007.
Verizon Communications, which co-owns the wireless unit with Vodafone Group Plc, fell 72 cents to $35.20 at 2 p.m. in New York Stock Exchange composite trading. AT&T declined 57 cents to $27.77.
--With assistance from Amy Thomson in New York. Editors: Ville Heiskanen, Nick Turner
To contact the reporter on this story: Greg Bensinger in New York at gbensinger1@bloomberg.net
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Peter Elstrom at pelstrom@bloomberg.net
So we have another feature to add to the speculative list of iPad2 features. Of course Apple Fans on Verizon can just buy a wi-fi only iPad and an iPhone 4 from Verizon and use the Personal hotspot feature in iOS 4.2.5 instead of purchasing a MiFi.
There could well be 3G connectivity in the forthcoming iSlate from Apple. Why do I say that? Here's my logic:
1. Announcing in January with availability to follow a few months later fits with requiring the device to go through FCC approval. Announcing before the submission puts Apple in control of the announcement rather than risk leaks from the FCC.
2. If it didn't have cellular capability then it would be just like a MacBook or iPod Touch and you would expect Apple to announce and ship simultaneously, or at worst case with just a few weeks delay.
3. Adding a 3G modem allows Apple to distribute through the wireless carriers. It could fit with releasing to Verizon on their new LTE network. The iSlate is not an iPhone and hence doesn't violate the AT&T exclusivity agreement in the USA.
4. Distributing through one or more wireless carriers allows Apple to get the price subsidized. Remember, the 32GB iPhone 3GS is a $699 phone, like many other smartphones - when you buy it without a contract.
Recently I had to send my Apple MacBook Pro to the Apple Hospital for some Tender Loving Care. Thankfully after a new Logic Board everything is humming along nicely again. The incident did however underscore to me the hidden power of the MobileMe service.
If you have an iPhone you really should be using MobileMe. The Find my iPhone feature that was introduced with iPhone OS 3.0 is very cool but the real power is in the over the air syncing of Contacts and calendar information.
When my Mac was in the AppleCare Hospital I got my hands on a HPMini 1000 for a week and managed to install OS X. There were limitations to running OS X on the NetBook. For one thing I couldn't get sound working and the NetBook did not come with Bluetooth. However, once OS X was installed I was able to connect up to MobileMe and my preferences, calendars and contacts all came streaming down to the NetBook. With that core information the NetBook became far more valuable.
Why is this relevant to the MacBook Touch rumor? It's simple. While I have doubts that a Tablet will appear as "just one more thing" at the anticipated September Apple Music event. I do think we will see a Tablet arrive early next year.
The rumor is plausible that we will see a new product drop in around the $800-900 price range. A product with a large screen and that leverages MobileMe, the App Store and the beta development being done with iWork. Let's not forget that Apple has quietly been testing a web-based iWork platform. It has limitations but that and the iDisk app for the iPhone all point to an increasing capability to seamlessly connect to our data in the cloud.
A 10 inch MacBook Touch Tablet would be a great multi-tasking platform that could use 802.11n to stream movies from our iTunes libraries while also using the iPhone iTunes remote application to control a remote library.
Now will a tablet run OS X or a modified iPhone OS? I would hope it runs OS X. The Tablet could leverage the iPhone Multi-touch interface that has been built in to the OS X platform. Snow Leopard is about to launch with a streamlined core that makes OS X a lighter weight proposition. The Tablet could also run iPhone apps in emulation mode. Let's not forget that Apple has signed up thousands of iPhone App developers that are able to run an iPhone simulation on their Macs. What would it take for Apple to create an application that encapsulates an iPhone Application and run it on OS X? Surely not a lot. That would let the Tablet immediately leverage the library of iPhone Apps and be able to multi-task iPhone apps. With a full Safari browser the Tablet could leverage the cloud. Do you remember how the iPhone did this before Apple released the iPhone SDK?
The Tablet could run OS X without being dependent upon an Intel processor. Apple has already ported OS X once. Another migration to using a custom ARM processor would not be an unrealistic feat. The only downside to this is that support for existing OS X applications would be dependent upon Rosetta-style emulation as was the case in the transition from PowerPC to Intel processors.
The Fact that Apple is investing in data centers on a massive scale would also seem to reinforce the idea of a Tablet App store and a Tablet product that held most storage in the cloud. I think there would still be some local storage, for when a network connection is unavailable but Apple has been working with Sync services on MobileMe for a number of years now.
Will a Tablet include 3G network or WiMax support? I suspect not in the first iteration. I could see Apple doing so in the second iteration of the product after they have given Verizon some time to get their LTE 4G network up and running. The fact is that the vast majority of NetBooks are used inside the home. That makes it far more likely to include WiFi in 802.11g and 802.11n versions. With Wi-Fi Apple could also leverage their iPhone product line. It would be really easy for them to issue an up date to their iPhone OS that allowed you to setup a Wi-Fi sharing network between your Tablet and your iPhone and use the tethering feature on your existing iPhone data plan. This would also mean Apple could produce one version of the Tablet and not have to produce variations to meet the different wireless carrier needs. Don't forget that Sprint and Verizon are already carrying the Novatel Mi-Fi that I wrote about back in May - identifying the product as a game changer. That provides a personal Wi-Fi network. That would be ideal to match with a MacBook Touch with Wi-Fi. It would also allow Apple to build relationships with the other carriers in a way that promotes sales of those lucrative data plans. Can you imagine being able to go in to a Verizon or Sprint store and purchase a bundled Mi-Fi and MacBook Touch? There has also been talk about AT&T charging for Tethering on the Data Plan. Allowing unlimited tethering of a MacBook Touch via your iPhone might be an option that people would consider. AT&T could bundle that at a lower price point as an Add-on service than using the Mi-Fi service on a competitor carrier.
I increasingly believe that the Tablet will not be just another product from Apple. Instead I am convinced that Apple is looking to leverage everything they have learned with the iPod and the iPhone. They will leverage the cloud and the existing ecosystem. When the iPhone was released it built upon the iPod ecosystem and leveraged the iTunes store. Expect this new game changing product to take that a step further.
Do you think there is substance to the iTablet rumors? What are you looking for in a Mac Tablet?
Apple's recent rejection of Google Voice and the removal of existing Google Voice applications from the AppStore is a dangerous step that could backfire badly on them.
I voiced my concern to Apple, as suggested in "There's No App for That" and sent an feedback message to Apple. Why don't you do the same and post your message on the Internet for others to see. Here is what I wrote:
The recent decision to remove Google Voice related Applications from the AppStore is a short sighted decision that could have far reaching ramifications.
I currently use Skype over WiFi to be able to call my children overseas. I was hoping to switch to Google Voice to do the same thing. I have been using the original iPhone since the very first day it was released. For other complicated reasons my contract expires early next year. At that point I will seriously have to consider whether I upgrade my iPhone or purchase an Android-based phone.
The moves that Apple have recently taken in the arbitrary removal of apps or refusal to accept applications in to the AppStore jeopardizes the customer and developer relationship. Whether this is Apple's own decision or as a result of pressure from AT&T is irrelevant. The lack of transparency in the approval process will drive your developer and technical user base to consider alternative options.
The growing level of innovation that Apple has triggered with the release of the iPhone is finally seeing viable competitors emerge. This will make it easier for people like myself, who have been committed Apple supporters, to consider alternative options.
I urge Apple to reconsider their position and be more open with the processes around submission of applications to the AppStore. If Apple insists on treating their development community with such disdain it will be rewarded with a growing level of defections to platforms that are more supportive.
Is Apple planning to remove other IM and voice applications like Skype? Will you consider allowing Google Voice applications to work over WiFi? Apple has to tread very carefully here. Alienating the development community could have big repercussions on the ongoing growth of both the iPhone, iPod and Mac markets.
There has been a lot of talk in the past few days about Google launching their Latitude App as a browser app on the iPhone. I have to agree with Marshall Kirkpatrick who said "Google Latitude on the iPhone? It's Terrible, Try Brightkite." Brightkite, even as a web app, is streets ahead of Google's Latitude in terms of usability. Brightkite's iPhone App just takes their service to another level.
The interesting issues that emerge around all this discussion are those of background applications and push notification. Let's bring some threads together here:
I still use the original iPhone, complete with cracked screen. With all of these factors playing out at the same time I am considering a scenario where:
If these three things come together then the iPod Touch could revolutionize cell phone use. People who are currently tied to AT&T in the USA could go to Sprint or Verizon and purchase a Mi-Fi with an unlimited data plan. In 2010 NovaTel might even release a Mi-Fi that uses Verizon's emerging LTE network for even faster backhaul.
UPDATE: Nimbuzz does in fact support push notifications. Since it supports the Gizmo Project and Google Voice supports Gizmo it means (in theory) you can get push notifications on calls to your Google Voice number notified to you via Nimbuzz when a call is re-directed to Gizmo by Google Voice.
Verizon is launching the Novatel Mi-Fi this week. It is a game changing product. I currently have an original iPhone and a MacBook Pro. I have been considering getting a wireless broadband card so that I can access Twitter and Facebook more easily. The Mi-fi changes the choice dramatically.
I use Twitter as a major source for news and to stay in contact with people. However, Twitter's web site is now blocked by the Internet filters at work. Twitter is not the only blacklisted site. Facebook, YouTube and a plethora of video sites are on that list.
Since I spend much of my time in the Baltimore area the new XOHM Wi-Max service is an interesting option. It is a relatively low cost service with no long term contracts to sign. They currently offer a "Pick 2" option which could give me a home wireless broadband modem and a usb modem for $50 per month.
Another option is an AT&T 3G Wireless broadband card that I can tie to my iPhone contract. The cost is $60/month for 5Gb of bandwidth.
Verizon offering the Mi-Fi competes with that same service. $60/month for 5Gb of bandwidth. But I get a portable wi-fi zone. This offers intriguing possibilities. Broadband is not limited to one device. It will work with any Wi-Fi device. This means:
and allow my camera to upload photos to the Internet automaticallyI can connect that to the Mi-Fi and use it like an iPhone without needing to sign up for a new AT&T contract.With the Mi-Fi Verizon doesn't need to sell the iPhone. They could just start bundling the Mi-Fi with an iPod Touch
it will create intriguing possibilities. I could then use an iPod Touchwith a Mi-Fi and a Skype-In phone number and I have an iPhone like device I can carry with me.Ideo is presenting their learnings from operating in a collaborative manner at scale.
Common Enterprise Collaboration Issues:
Most organizations think about technology first:
The issue is that ROI does not appear because of other factors:
Design Thinking: Starts and ends with individuals
Human Factors link with technology Factors and Business Factors.
Understand these factors, then brainstorm and prototype then develop:
i.e. Understand, Explore and Develop.
Ideo experimented with Video conferencing by leaving it on all the time. eg. in team rooms and in public places.
Telepresence hasn't worked out effectively. Eye contact doesn't work.
Instead they experimented with adding an iMac on the table in the and a videographer.
May be they should look at Microsoft Roundtable which rpovides a 360 degree panoramic view.
It is hard to get data out of peoples heads and in to Databases. It looses the context that makes it valuable.Instead connect brains by creating:
iPhone - 6.5% market share for smartphones yet 63% of all mobile browsing.
You can't just deploy a system and be done.
Prototype early and prototype in context. Then iterate quickly.
Create Adaptive Intuitive People Centric systems that reward individual participation and integrate in to their daily workflow.
After five successive attempts at implementation they have implemented ThoughtFarmer
They wrote their own wrapper using Ruby on Linux. The blogging is built on SixApart's MoveableType's platform.
IDEO implements security based upon Trust and a 3 category qualification: Green = Open, Red = Internal only, Black = partitioned due to sensitivity eg. Customer anonymity or conflicts of interest across teams. The Wiki is for Green and Red projects.
Getting people to write valuable people and project pages:
To address this utilize:
This is leading to input to organizational design.
The Tools are a natural part of the workflow. eg. a digest of project status rather than dealing with email.
People are bad at describing tacit knowledge. This is what led to a focus on connecting people. People leave so they are working on extending tools through to Ideo affiliates (ie. clients, partners and alumni)
Tiers of knowledge Management (from McKinsey)
Labels:
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Architecture,
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Enterprise2.0,
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Web2.0,
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Louis Gray asks an interesting question in a post on his blog: "Is requiring a Plug-in akin to designing for IE Only?" Like Louis, I use the Safari browser for a lot of my browsing, which doesn't support plug-ins. The rise in popularity of Plug-ins for Firefox has occurred at the same time as the rapid adoption of the iPhone.
The iPhone is in the vanguard of mobile internet use. This trend will continue with the introduction of Android phones and the continued popularity of the Blackberry. The Mozilla foundation is working on a mobile version of Firefox but this is not a real solution. Mobile phones are not the only way we access the Internet. Games consoles and Internet Tablets, like the Nokia N810 are also entering the mix.
I believe that the future lies with developers creating cloud-based functionality that can be activated from a bookmark. Examples of this already exist with bookmarklets from services like delicious and bit.ly. The advantage of the bookmarklet is that it can be designed to be browser-platform independent and can also deliver functionality to mobile devices.
According to Mobile Crunch, Apple has reportedly changed their position on "Duplicate Functionality" applications on the iPhone and in the Apps Store.
This is raising the question of whether we will see Flash appear on the iPhone. Personally, I believe that Apple is holding out against Flash on the iPhone for strategic rather than technical reasons. Here are my thoughts:
I am sure there are some technical reasons, such as processor load and battery life impact that can justify Apple's stance but at the heart of the issue is more likely the strategic battle with Adobe for control of video formats used by the entertainment industry.
Thoughts?
In the past few years the Advertising-based business model has been the approach of choice for many startups. Today TechCrunch carried the news that Jott, the "voice to action" web service is dropping it's free option. Jott's CEO, John Pollard was quoted saying "The terrible advertising market means every customer has to pay their own way."
Jott is a cool service that can be indispensable for some people. The ability to make a phone call and dictate a blog post or a tweet, or create an appointment or task is a great capability when typing on a phone keyboard is not an option.
Back in October, when Ping.fm went off the Internet for a brief period I raised the business model question. In this economy revenue is king. I see Jott's move as a confirmation of this trend away from Advertising support as the primary revenue model. Advertising will not go away. In fact I can see it getting more intrusive as a means to encourage serious users to upgrade to a fee-based advertising free service.
In that same Ping.fm post I also suggested that mobile application development could become an increasingly attractive option for developers since this provides an opportunity to generate revenue through sales with few distribution headaches.
We are heading in to an extremely interesting phase in the evolution of the Internet. Entrepreneurs are going to have to think much harder about their path to revenue. This should trigger some inventive business models but also consolidation around some of the giants in the business that have the audiences that generate substantial revenues from advertising. This won't necessarily reduce the pace of innovation but we may be entering a phase where the consumer's "free ride" is much less common place.
Apple released the 2.2 firmware update for the iPhone and iPhone 3G. Probably the most interesting feature is the ability to download podcasts over the air. Those podcasts are not just audio streams. They can be video podcasts too.
This may seem like an innocuous feature but it gives Apple the ability to offer an equivalent to the video streaming services offered by other phones and networks. Download speed will depend on network connectivity. The Edge network is going to be slow but the development here is that unlike music purchases through the iTunes Music Store on the iPhone you do not have to be on the wifi network. Podcasts download over the cellular data network.
This update arrived the same day as he new Blackberry Storm hit the Verizon Wireless stores. Hopefully RIM will give Apple a serious run for their money and may be that will force Apple to finally work out how to do Cut and Paste on the iPhone. Come on Apple we have only been asking for Cut and Paste since the very first iPhone arrived. If Apple fixes that and allows Qik in to the App Store then the iPhone will be video capable. This would be a quick way for Apple to counter the features of the new touchscreen Blackberry Storm which includes video on a 3.2MP camera.
I spent today at BarCamp Philly. You can check out the day through a number of routes. Try barcamphilly.org as the main site. Also do a search on twitter for the #bcphilly tag. The schedules are there on the barcamphilly.org site. The iphone app to track the schedule worked really well. Great work team! Is that software available for use at other events?
Roz (aka Stellargirl) and JPToto and others did a great job to organize a fantastic day at the University of the Arts in Philadelphia.
I ended up presenting a session on Data Portability in Health Care. The focus was on how to get consumer engagement. Let's drive a push for adoption of OpenID, OAuth and microformats from the consumer perspective. He have to take our health in to our own hands. There seems to be an increasing recognition that we need to address single sign-on and data portability in healthcare.
I talked with a number of great people like Mary Ann Geier and Phil Baumann. All are interested in Health Care issues. I know I have missed other names. If I did, please leave a comment below and register your interest on the subject of Health. The bottom line is that there is a real interest in launching a HealthCampPhilly. The HealthCamp movement is growing like crazy. We have HealthCampUK happening this coming Monday (November 10th). We have HealthCampMd, to be held at Stevenson University (formerly Villa Julie College) in January. HealthCampDc set for February at CareFirst in Washington DC. HealthCampWv courtesy of Bob Coffield happening in March 2009 in Charleston, WV. Last week HealthCampNash also got proposed for Spring 2009 in Nashville, TN. I am also looking at hosting a HealthCampBoston on April 24th, 2009 - alongside the Health 2.0 conference.
The momentum that is growing around HealthCamp just reflects the consumer dissatisfaction with the current state of HealthCare and the recognition that we, the consumer, can make a difference if we demand change.
At BarCampPhilly I also gave a couple of sessions on the use of JackBe's Presto platform. This is a mature Enterprise Mashup Platform that recently revamped it's development licensing. They now offer free perpetual development licenses. This is a great move to stimulate the developer community. The feedback I got on the platform was overwhelmingly positive. I would really like to see the JackBe platform at the Boston Health 2.0 conference providing demonstrations of how their platform can integrate information across disparate Health care sites. I definitely need to work on this as an idea.
Labels:
Barcamp,
data portability,
Dataportability,
Healthcamp,
iPhone,
microformats,
oauth,
openID
First a series of demonstrations from:
One of the things that came across in these exceedingly brief 3.5 minute demonstrations is the potential to integrate these tools together to add new value. In particular the opportunity to take some of these services mobile.
Zumelife looks to be a fascinating development because it embraces more than just prescription drug monitoring. It allows the users to manage diet and other aspects that address the whole wellness management for an individual.
There is a fascinating discussion in the comments on Paul Beard's blog about capabilities for iTunes. The post was pointed to by the TUAW blog because Paul provides some detailed instructions on how to move an iTunes library. Something I have experienced much pain with after upgrading to a new Mac.
The challenge with all this is to retain the play count and ratings information. Moving or importing songs in to a library is the easy part. Apple handle's that with ease.
This points to Apple needing to update iTunes to recognize a growing trend - The family music and photo library.
We should be able to consolidate music and photo collections and then be easily able to create a subset of those libraries that we can carry with us on our laptops and still sync the full library to our iPods.
I reached a point a while ago where I couldn't carry my entire library on my Laptop. I am sure there are many MacBook Air users that faced the same problem. Solving this problem would make the Macbook Air more attractive as a second machine.
What I want is to be able to create an extract of my main music and photo library and yet be able to sync my iPod using the combined libraries from my laptop.
I developed a work around for this. I setup a central iTunes Music Library and made the drive/folder shareable. I then map to the drive from my local machine. Then open the shared folder and drag and drop the tracks in to the library on my laptop. For this to work you need to go in to the iTunes Preferences Advanced Tab and make sure that the option to "Copy files to iTunes Music Folder when adding to library" is unchecked. This creates a pointer to the original track on the shared folder. It may not be pretty but it works.
Come on Apple, if you really want to be the hub of the family entertainment system then make these more complex scenarios work. Streaming from different libraries just doesn't cut it. We, the people have invested heavily in our digital media collections and if you want to be the preferred platform then you need to make it easier for us to protect and share within the family unit at least.
For some time I have been thinking about Twitter's business model. The best clue came months ago when Twitter started playing with the throttling value for the API.
Since then it has become clear that a few select partners have access to the unfiltered XMPP feed. Summize, who Twitter recently acquired, being one of them.
Twitter has been struggling to avoid the fail whale for months now as growth surges. Louis Gray covered the latest change in his blog as Twitter chokes unauthenticated API requests by IP.
When Twitter first started playing with throttling my first thought was to their business model. I can see Twitter working like real-time stock quotes. If I want to get an "up to the second" feed then that is a service to pay for. If I am happy to wait 15 minutes then I can have it for free.
I think Twitter could implement this model relatively easily. Replies and Direct messages would be delivered to you immediately but your public timeline would be delayed 15 minutes, unless you paid for it. This approach might also enable performance tuning and scaling to be implemented. Imagine Twitter analyzing the feeds of the most popular users. It might be able to detect tweets that might trigger a tweet storm. With a 15 minute window they might have time to ramp up additional temporary capacity to manage the storm.
For sites that want to build their own business on top of twitter it seems reasonable that they would want to pay for a real-time feed - with service levels commitments wrapped around their feed. Twitter could even allow a capped real-time feed so that developers could test their applications. The cap could be based upon a set number of calls or volume of data. If you read the small print of Yahoo and Google's API services you often find a cap on the number of calls that can be made in a given time period.
So, Twitter, what are your next steps?
You seem to have bungled your handling of the throttling of unauthenticated APIs. You need to lay out a roadmap quickly. If you simply cut off the data supply to developers without giving them options then you will force them to define their own roadmap which will no doubt exclude Twitter and you will see an exodus to emerging services like plurk and identi.ca. This is the last thing you want if Twitter is to become another essential communications utility. You need to provide the developer community with options so that new services can continue to evolve in the Twitter ecosystem. It is the ecosystem that makes Twitter so valuable.
Twitter Acquires Breathing Space
Given the reliability troubles at Twitter the purchase of Summize was a critical strategic move. With the loss of the Replies feature in Twitter on occasions I have often used Summize to do a search on @ekivemark. May be Twitter will modify the Home page to make that same call.
As the leading search service for Twitter I would have expected Summize to come under increasing pressure to integrate search for other services. As federated micro-blogging takes off Twitter would have been marginalized. The acquisition nips that in the bud.
Ecosystem diversity
Dave Winer has been advocating for a Federated Twitter for some time. The latest throttling move may alienate the developer community and promote the federated model if Twitter is not careful. I have been waiting for the API interface from identi.ca. A plug compatible API for the federated micro-blogging world would enable the Twitter ecosystem to provide diverse routing. This would also open up a host of new client and middleware opportunities. Middleware platforms could provide a useful service "de-duping" messages that are delivered via multiple routes.
Adding the Meta Layer to the Flow
Stowe Boyd talks frequently about the flow. However we need to manage the signal-to-noise ratio in the flow. As middleware platforms expand they can address this need for the micro-blogging world. They can provide a meta layer that could filter the flow to provide context. For example, surfacing just the useful gems of comments from a noisy self-publicist, or filtering the flow based upon a combination of interests, current location, time of day and other contextual parameters. This type of filtering could get around the need to follow and un-follow people.
In the short term I see a lot of opportunity for services like Ping.fm that enable posting to multiple sites. I am starting to experiment with Ping to see if I can post to Twitter, Plurk, Identi.ca and BrightKite. The proliferation of sites is making it harder to keep up. I find Twitter and Brightkite to be my preferred sites at the moment because they the web based applications from Hahlo and Brightkite are a joy to use.
What do you see as the future for Twitter and the Micro-blogging world?
Apple may have done it again - without even trying. They may just have turned radio on it's head. More specifically, car radio.
AOL was a launch partner in the App store delivering CBS Radio via the iPhone. Last.FM and my favorite - Pandora have also arrived. There are in fact a handful of other radio applications, most of which require you to purchase the application.
Th great thing about Last.FM and Pandora is that they learn your musical preferences and tailor your listening experience to your tastes. They critical development is that these applications will stream music over the WiFi, 3G or EDGE networks.
Pandora's iPhone application is really neat. You can use your same account from the web. Pandora retains the same ultra simple interface from the web. They have also added a really neat option to bookmark songs or purchase them from the iTunes store.
Now all I need to do is to find an interface for the iPhone that will eliminate the static buzz from the cellular radio and the car radio gets a new lease of life. It is now possible to drive to work listening to Pandora.
One of the discussions at the VRM workshop got in to the mechanisms around implementing the RelButton
One of the suggestions was to implement plug-ins. The problem is that plug-ins are browser specific and customers don't all know how to implement and use plug-ins.
An alternative is the Javascript bookmark.
I am not a fan of Plug-ins since these typically don't work on all browsers and also don't tend to work on mobile devices.
My preference is therefore for integration to be based around bookmarklets in any situation where capability has to be incorporated in to a browser.
What are your thoughts?
Is there another solution?
