Currently there is no computer, in any form, that is successful because it can be used together with other people in a physical sense. I think this new product must be great to use alone or will not meet the masses.
So even if this vision can be reductive I continue to think at this new product as a larger more powerful version of the iPhone that is mainly a portable device.
Portalbe does not mean the only usage is to carry it around outside your home. It feels natural that such a device is something you can lean on the table while cooking to read the news from internet, or to watch a film while on the bed after a destructive 2010 party like I'm doing right now.
Also of course in the "outside" world it's a great experience if the device is light enough. For instance I never take my laptop outside in the plane when I flight, as I feel uncomfortable to do it, my macbook is too weight and requires too space. So what I use is my iPhone indeed, but it's totally inadequate to perform tasks like writing a blog post.
So actually I can see why this device can be a success.
I also can clearly see (it's years I think that I could start a startup about this issue) how people are not able to share an image with one click, but this is, IMHO, an entirely different problem that should be addressed in some other way.
When I heard about Google Wave the first time my first reaction was: now people will be free to share things with one click in real-time, but my feelings with Wave are not good, it's not as "simple" as I dreamed, so I guess we have to wait for a new solution.
>Currently there is no computer, in any form, that is successful because it can be used together with other people in a physical sense. I think this new product must be great to use alone or will not meet the masses.
Paul's ideas for what could be possible with this device are very interesting. But I can't help but wonder if Apple's new tablet could turn out to be the Google Wave of consumer devices: a super-hyped disappointment.
Apple has a very good track record, but sooner or later, they are going to release a device that will fall short - maybe even well short - of the fever pitch of hype that precedes it. Could this be that time? I doubt it...but you never know.
The author touched on something that has bothered me for years. It's been how long since Windows came out? Since te internet became common for home PCs?
And yet we still can't share files. I'm serous, we can't. Not out of the box, not on any of the common OSes.
Try this. You have a document - be it picture, PDF, whatever. You want to share it with someone in the same room as you. Can you, on a stock, out-of-the-box machine (i.e. no special software installed/configured) get the file to the other machine faster than using a memory stick? Nope. Windows File Sharing is a joke, Apple File Sharing a bit less so (thanks to Zeroconf/Bonjour) but still crappy...
The sort of ad-hoc file sharing problem has been grating on me for years - we've advanced so dramatically in every field, but still cannot manage this very simple problem.
I saw Avatar recently, and this split-second scene where one of the scientists grabbed an image on a desktop machine and "tossed" it onto his tablet... that blew my mind way more than it should have. Without the whiz-bang touchscreen holographic technology, the premise of this operation should be second nature to us by now.
Easy file sharing effectively was killed by network security back in the 1990s. In times of Windows 95 it wasn't too hard to share, if you forget about endless bugs, glitches and inadequacy in detecting computers around you in early versions of Windows. Since Microsoft realized security their networking has become even less adequate and less usable.
The best solution I came up with for my family was, so far, Skype. The fact that Skype is closed source and I otherwise wouldn't use it is regrettable, but it gets sharing right. In fact, better than anything else that I know.
Every time a family member wants to share something with me - a link or a file - my answer is short: open Skype, click on my name, grab the file and drop it "onto me". Most importantly, very little prior setup is needed: actually downloading Skype and opening an account, which novice users and kids who can't write usually need assistance in anyway. Once set up, Skype communication works even if you move to a different location. Actually any point in the world.
All in all, this is genius and simple in such a degree that a 3-4 year old child, if not younger, can understand and do easily.
Thankfully, Skype establishes direct connections between computers, although honestly I don't know how exactly this works behind the same NAT/firewall device, which is usually your WiFi router.
Back to Apple and Paul Buccheit, of course Paul gets the problem right as usual, I just wonder if Steve Jobs and his team think the same way. Something suggests Apple should be thinking in the same direction and so my expectations from iWhateverIsNext are high.
Edit: I just realized that there's actually one slight paradigm shift that makes sharing easier with Skype: that's a shift from sharing between computers to sharing between people. You have a person's name possibly (and better) with his/her picture. This works so much better than the archaic "computer name", "workgroup" or whatever else. What "workgroup" in my own house?
That's what I meant when I said less shitty - but still shitty.
More often than not, when I want to share a file with someone, I want to share a file, not the whole folder, and certainly not a specific folder. With OSX's file sharing you have to manually drag your file into the shared folder (assuming you've enabled it) - and unless you want anyone to be able to access it willy-nilly, you're going to have to password it (possibly resulting in creating a new account on your machine). Sound fun yet?
At least it beats Windows - Windows file sharing is equally convoluted, and on top of it will fail to connect in almost every single networking environment I've ever tried it in. So on top of being hard to use, it just doesn't WORK.
The solution is so convoluted, and fits the standard use case so poorly, that it may as well not exist at all. IMHO the bar to beat is the memory stick - if I can share a file with someone in the room for less effort than copying it onto a USB stick, we've won.
I will say that technically, that option is there, but in my experience, it very rarely works as well as it should. We've just reverted to using Dropbox.
I find it funny that Apple recently just provided an easy way to share music: you see the other computer's music library in iTunes and can just drag and drop songs from there.
One of the problems with Wave was that it was Google doing the hyping. They did a terrible job managing expectations. With the Tablet, Apple hasn't said word one about it even existing, let alone what we could expect from it. Anything pundits have claimed it could / should / would do is, for the most part, moot.
I like Paul's "sharing" concept. I'd love to be at a family gathering with my brothers-in-law, and all sit on the couch and toss MP3s at each others' Tablet disk images, creating a shared library of files.
Yes, Apple has released a bunch of shitty products before, but none of them received any hype. I think what the parent is saying is what happens if Apple can't meet the expectations and the hype that has been appearing in the mainstream press for some of Apple's latest products. Apple's reputation could really take a hit.
I always thought Apple TV was that mythical "failed Apple product."
I admit to being a big Apple fan, so certainly I am biased. But Apple has a knack for shaking things up and a great track record of doing it. I will admit I've held off on buying a netbook because I want to see Apple's response to them first. I don't mean I will necessarily buy their response, but I am confident their response will change the scenery a lot.
Apple TV is indeed like Google Wave in that everybody talked about it but noone cared.
Tapplet on the other hand is the (hypothetical) product that everyone is talking about and many people care. If Apple fails to meet expectations on this one it will be an epic FAIL.
(my personal opinion is that they're indeed bound to disappoint, as almost everyone have had so many differing expectations about this device that meeting those is impossible, and most probably it will just turn out to be iPhone/iPod touch with a bigger screen - zero novelty)
I disagree. The iPhone is a great example. It really did disappoint on a lot of levels: AT&T only, no multitasking, the draconian app approval process, still no multimedia SMS (this one boggles my mind), etc. But overall, it's been a huge success and threw the entire industry for a loop. I'm thinking the maclet will do about the same thing.
So even if this vision can be reductive I continue to think at this new product as a larger more powerful version of the iPhone that is mainly a portable device.
Portalbe does not mean the only usage is to carry it around outside your home. It feels natural that such a device is something you can lean on the table while cooking to read the news from internet, or to watch a film while on the bed after a destructive 2010 party like I'm doing right now.
Also of course in the "outside" world it's a great experience if the device is light enough. For instance I never take my laptop outside in the plane when I flight, as I feel uncomfortable to do it, my macbook is too weight and requires too space. So what I use is my iPhone indeed, but it's totally inadequate to perform tasks like writing a blog post.
So actually I can see why this device can be a success.
I also can clearly see (it's years I think that I could start a startup about this issue) how people are not able to share an image with one click, but this is, IMHO, an entirely different problem that should be addressed in some other way.
When I heard about Google Wave the first time my first reaction was: now people will be free to share things with one click in real-time, but my feelings with Wave are not good, it's not as "simple" as I dreamed, so I guess we have to wait for a new solution.