“Booth Babe” Controversy

Posted on February 3, 2012 by alexandre

I posted the following to the class forums for my two sections of SOCI203 “Introduction to Society”.

This might be a useful context to discuss journalism, gender issues, feminism as equality between genders, and feminist sociology.

Especially when you get to a thoughtful yet very critical blog comment about the issue.

Some context…

As Wikipedia says, Violet Blue (her real name) is an author and sex educator.

(Blue’s main site is somewhat NSFW (“Not Safe For Work”, meaning containing some potentially-offensive material), so I won’t link to it in this context, since the point isn’t about risqué blogging.)

Blue has a column about technology and, as far as I can tell from mentions of her name in the “geek scene”, her reputation is quite positive overall.

Like many others, Blue has issues with what she has called “booth babes”. As stated in HollyHen’s aforelinked blog comment, Blue’s description of said “booth babes” specifically paints them as women whose sexuality, sexiness, or sexual attributes are exploited for marketing purposes during trade shows.

The controversy erupted (!) from a picture labeled “The Saddest Booth Babe In The World” which Blue posted in relation to a blogpost she wrote about a Mac-centric trade show. Reactions to that picture came quickly, especially from people who were questioning Blue’s labeling of someone in that picture as a “Booth Babe”. As, again, HollyHen said, it’s hard to interpret anyone in that picture as a “Booth Babe” and there’s even something strange about using such a label in this context.

Where it gets perhaps more interesting (or, at least, sadder) is that the woman labeled as a “Booth Babe” in the picture is likely to be a software developer and Blue has refrained from apologizing for calling her a “sad Booth Babe”. Maybe the label isn’t slanderous or even insulting, in Blue’s mind. But the overall feeling from many readers is that there’s a missed opportunity, here, especially since Blue didn’t dare talk to the subject of her picture.

Instead, Blue has taken a very defensive stance.

I eventually became aware of the controversy through Mac-centric blogs, firstvia John Gruber then via Shawn King. Both King and Gruber have posted followup comments about the controversy. (King’s followup is clearly sarcastic and includes some comments people may easily find offensive.) In my experience, Mac-centric bloggers and several of their readers tend to go through a fairly unique dynamic by which key figures in that scene are frequently defended vigorously in something of a counterattack. In many contexts, it can indeed feel like a “pile on” effect. But I haven’t noticed any occasion where claiming that one is a victim of a Mac-centric pile-on has had an overall positive effect on the conversation or on the person’s overall reputation.

(By the way, what I call “Mac-centric” blogging includes some work by people who have been labeled “Apple fanboys”, but my labeling isn’t meant to carry any specific connotation, whether positive or negative. I just mean people who write about diverse issues using the Mac and other Apple products as a basis for a number of their comments. In journalistic terms, you could say that these are people who have Apple as their “beat”.)

So… Where does that leave us? I already gave something of my opinion about this. I do think the “sad booth babe” label was negative, that it could easily be taken as an insult, and that it seems ill-suited as a description of a software developer who holds a booth at a trade show in order to show off her work. Even if it turns out that the woman in the picture isn’t the Hungarian developer people surmise she might be, I do find it strange that Violet Blue would use her image as a representation of a “sad booth babe”. While the label isn’t as negative as, say, “bimbo” or “ditzy blonde”, I have to agree with HollyHen and others that using it in the legend of that picture has little positive impact on discussion of the issues at hand (exploitation of women to sell computer-related products and services).

But you may disagree.

So, let me know.

Future of Learning Content

Posted on January 14, 2012 by alex

If indeed Apple plans to announce not just more affordable textbook options for students, but also more interactive, immersive ebook experiences…

Forecasting next week’s Apple education event (Dan Moren and Lex Friedman for Macworld)

I’m still in catchup mode (was sick during the break), but it’s hard to let this pass. It’s exactly the kind of thing I like to blog about: wishful thinking and speculation about education. Sometimes, my crazy predictions are fairly accurate. But my pleasure at blogging these things has little to do with the predictions game. I’m no prospectivist. I just like to build wishlists.

In this case, I’ll try to make it short. But I’m having drift-off moments just thinking about the possibilities. I do have a lot to say about this but we’ll see how things go.

Overall, I agree with the three main predictions in that MacWorld piece: Apple might come out with eBook creation tools, office software, and desktop reading solutions. I’m interested in all of these and have been thinking about the implications.

That MacWorld piece, like most media coverage of textbooks, these days, talks about the weight of physical textbooks as a major issue. It’s a common refrain and large bookbags/backpacks have symbolized a key problem with “education”. Moren and Friedman finish up with a zinger about lecturing. Also a common complaint. In fact, I’ve been on the record (for a while) about issues with lecturing. Which is where I think more reflection might help.

For one thing, alternative models to lecturing can imply more than a quip about the entertainment value of teaching. Inside the teaching world, there’s a lot of talk about the notion that teaching is a lot more than providing access to content. There’s a huge difference between reading a book and taking a class. But it sounds like this message isn’t heard and that there’s a lot of misunderstanding about the role of teaching.

It’s quite likely that Apple’s announcement may make things worse.

I don’t like textbooks but I do use them. I’m not the only teacher who dislikes textbook while still using them. But I feel the need to justify myself. In fact, I’ve been on the record about this. So, in that context, I think improvements in textbooks may distract us from a bigger issue and even lead us in the wrong direction. By focusing even more on content-creation, we’re commodifying education. What’s more, we’re subsuming education to a publishing model. We all know how that’s going. What’s tragic, IMHO, is that textbook publishers themselves are going in the direction of magazines! If, ten years from now, people want to know when we went wrong with textbook publishing, it’ll probably be a good idea for them to trace back from now. In theory, magazine-style textbooks may make a lot of sense to those who perceive learning to be indissociable from content consumption. I personally consider these magazine-style textbooks to be the most egregious of aberrations because, in practice, learning is radically different from content consumption.

So… If, on Thursday, Apple ends up announcing deals with textbook publishers to make it easier for them to, say, create and distribute free ad-supported magazine-style textbooks, I’ll be going through a large range of very negative emotions. Coming out of it, I might perceive a silverlining in the fact that these things can fairly easily be subverted. I like this kind of technological subversion and it makes me quite enthusiastic.

In fact, I’ve had this thought about iAd producer (Apple’s tool for creating mobile ads). Never tried it but, when I heard about it, it sounded like something which could make it easy to produce interactive content outside of mobile advertising. I don’t think the tool itself is restricted to Apple’s iAd, but I could see how the company might use the same underlying technology to create some content-creation tool.

“But,” you say, “you just said that you think learning isn’t about content.” Quite so. I’m not saying that I think these tools should be the future of learning. But creating interactive content can be part of something wider, which does relate to learning.

The point isn’t that I don’t like content. The point is that I don’t think content should be the exclusive focus of learning. To me, allowing textbook publishers to push more magazine-style content more easily is going in the wrong direction. Allowing diverse people (including learners and teachers) to easily create interactive content might in fact be a step in the right direction. It’s nothing new, but it’s an interesting path.

In fact, despite my dislike of a content emphasis in learning, I’m quite interested in “learning objects”. In fact, I did a presentation about them during the Spirit of Inquiry conference at Concordia, a few years ago (PDF).

A neat (but Flash-based) example of a learning object was introduced to me during that same conference: Mouse Party. The production value is quite high, the learning content seems relatively high, and it’s easily accessible.

But it’s based on Flash.

Which leads me to another part of the issue: formats.

I personally try to avoid Flash as much as possible. While a large number of people have done amazing things with Flash, it’s my sincere (and humble) opinion that Flash’s time has come and gone. I do agree with Steve Jobs on this. Not out of fanboism (I’m no Apple fanboi), not because I have something against Adobe (I don’t), not because I have a vested interested in an alternative technology. I just think that mobile Flash isn’t going anywhere and that. Even on the desktop, I think Flash-free is the way to go. Never installed Flash on my desktop computer, since I bought it in July. I do run Chrome for the occasional Flash-only video. But Flash isn’t the only video format out there and I almost never come across interesting content which actually relies on something exclusive to Flash. Flash-based standalone apps (like Rdio and Machinarium) are a different issue as Flash was more of a development platform for them and they’re available as Flash-free apps on Apple’s own iOS.

I wouldn’t be surprised if Apple’s announcements had something to do with a platform for interactive content as an alternative to Adobe Flash. In fact, I’d be quite enthusiastic about that. Especially given Apple’s mobile emphasis. We might be getting further in “mobile computing for the rest of us”.

Part of this may be related to HTML5. I was quite enthusiastic when Tumult released its “Hype” HTML5-creation tool. I only used it to create an HTML5 version of my playfulness talk. But I enjoyed it and can see a lot of potential.

Especially in view of interactive content. It’s an old concept and there are many tools out there to create interactive content (from Apple’s own QuickTime to Microsoft PowerPoint). But the shift to interactive content has been slower than many people (including educational technologists) would have predicted. In other words, there’s still a lot to be done with interactive content. Especially if you think about multitouch-based mobile devices.

Which eventually brings me back to learning and teaching.

I don’t “teach naked”, I do use slides in class. In fact, my slides are mostly bullet points, something presentation specialists like to deride. Thing is, though, my slides aren’t really meant for presentation and, while they sure are “content”, I don’t really use them as such. Basically, I use them as a combination of cue cards, whiteboard, and coursenotes. Though I may sound defensive about this, I’m quite comfortable with my use of slides in the classroom.

Yet, I’ve been looking intently for other solutions.

For instance, I used to create outlines in OmniOutliner that I would then send to LaTeX to produce both slides and printable outlines (as PDFs). I’ve thought about using S5, but it doesn’t really fit in my workflow. So I end up creating Keynote files on my Mac, uploading them (as PowerPoint) before class, and using them in the classroom using my iPad. Not ideal, but rather convenient.

(Interestingly enough, the main thing I need to do today is create PowerPoint slides as ancillary material for a textbook.)

In all of these cases, the result isn’t really interactive. Sure, I could add buttons and interactive content to the slides. But the basic model is linear, not interactive. The reason I don’t feel bad about it is that my teaching is very interactive (the largest proportion of classtime is devoted to open discussions, even with 100-plus students). But I still wish I could have something more appropriate.

I have used other tools, especially whiteboarding and mindmapping ones. Basically, I elicit topics and themes from students and we discuss them in a semi-structured way. But flow remains an issue, both in terms of workflow and in terms of conversation flow.

So if Apple were to come up with tools making it easy to create interactive content, I might integrate them in my classroom work. A “killer feature” here is if interaction could be recorded during class and then uploaded as an interactive podcast (à la ProfCast).

Of course, content-creation tools might make a lot of sense outside the classroom. Not only could they help distribute the results of classroom interactions but they could help in creating learning material to be used ahead of class. These could include the aforementioned learning objects (like Mouse Party) as well as interactive quizzes (like Hot Potatoes) and even interactive textbooks (like Moglue) and educational apps (plenty of these in the App Store).

Which brings me back to textbooks, the alleged focus of this education event.

One of my main issues with textbooks, including online ones, is usability. I read pretty much everything online, including all the material for my courses (on my iPad) but I find CourseSmart and its ilk to be almost completely unusable. These online textbooks are, in my experience, much worse than scanned and OCRed versions of the same texts (in part because they don’t allow for offline access but also because they make navigation much more difficult than in GoodReader).

What I envision is an improvement over PDFs.

Part of the issue has to do with PDF itself. Despite all its benefits, Adobe’s “Portable Document Format” is the relic of a bygone era. Sure, it’s ubiquitous and can preserve formatting. It’s also easy to integrate in diverse tools. In fact, if I understand things correctly, PDF replaced Display PostScript as the basis for Quartz 2D, a core part of Mac OS X’s graphics rendering. But it doesn’t mean that it can’t be supplemented by something else.

Part of the improvement has to do with flexibility. Because of its emphasis on preserving print layouts, PDF tends to enforce print-based ideas. This is where EPUB is at a significant advantage. In a way, EPUB textbooks might be the first step away from the printed model.

From what I can gather, EPUB files are a bit like Web archives. Unlike PDFs, they can be reformatted at will, just like webpages can. In fact, iBooks and other EPUB readers (including Adobe’s, IIRC) allow for on-the-fly reformatting, which puts the reader in control of a much greater part of the reading experience. This is exactly the kind of thing publishers fail to grasp: readers, consumers, and users want more control on the experience. EPUB textbooks would thus be easier to read than PDFs.

EPUB is the basis for Apple’s iBooks and iBookstore and people seem to be assuming that Thursday’s announcement will be about iBooks. Makes sense and it’d be nice to see an improvement over iBooks. For one thing, it could support EPUB 3. There are conversion tools but, AFAICT, iBooks is stuck with EPUB 2.0. An advantage there is that EPUBs can possibly include scripts and interactivity. Which could make things quite interesting.

Interactive formats abound. In fact, PDFs can include some interactivity. But, as mentioned earlier, there’s a lot of room for improvement in interactive content. In part, creation tools could be “democratized”.

Which gets me thinking about recent discussions over the fate of HyperCard. While I understand John Gruber’s longstanding position, I find room for HyperCard-like tools. Like some others, I even had some hopes for ATX-based TileStack (an attempt to bring HyperCard stacks back to life, online). And I could see some HyperCard thinking in an alternative to both Flash and PDF.

“Huh?”, you ask?

Well, yes. It may sound strange but there’s something about HyperCard which could make sense in the longer term. Especially if we get away from the print model behind PDFs and the interaction model behind Flash. And learning objects might be the ideal context for this.

Part of this is about hyperlinking. It’s no secret that HyperCard was among HTML precursors. As the part of HTML which we just take for granted, hyperlinking is among the most undervalued features of online content. Sure, we understand the value of sharing links on social networking systems. And there’s a lot to be said about bookmarking. In fact, I’ve been thinking about social bookmarking and I have a wishlist about sharing tools, somewhere. But I’m thinking about something much more basic: hyperlinking is one of the major differences between online and offline wriiting.

Think about the differences between, say, a Wikibook and a printed textbook. My guess is that most people would focus on the writing style, tone, copy-editing, breadth, reviewing process, etc. All of these are relevant. In fact, my sociology classes came up with variations on these as disadvantages of the Wikibook over printed textbooks. Prior to classroom discussion about these differences, however, I mentioned several advantages of the Wikibook:

Cover bases
Straightforward
Open Access
Editable
Linked

(Strangely enough, embedded content from iWork.com isn’t available and I can’t log into my iWork.com account. Maybe it has to do with Thursday’s announcement?)

That list of advantages is one I’ve been using since I started to use this Wikibook… excerpt for the last one. And this is one which hit me, recently, as being more important than the others.

So, in class, I talked about the value of links and it’s been on my mind quite a bit. Especially in view of textbooks. And critical thinking.

See, academic (and semi-academic) writing is based on references, citations, quotes. English-speaking academics are likely to be the people in the world of publishing who cite the most profusely. It’s not rare for a single paragraph of academic writing in English to contain ten citations or more, often stringed in parentheses (Smith 1999, 2005a, 2005b; Smith and Wesson 1943, 2010). And I’m not talking about Proust-style paragraphs either. I’m convinced that, with some quick searches, I could come up with a paragraph of academic writing which has less “narrative content” than citation.

Textbooks aren’t the most egregious example of what I’d consider over-citing. But they do rely on citations quite a bit. As I work more specifically on textbook content, I notice even more clearly the importance of citations. In fact, in my head, I started distinguishing some patterns in textbook content. For instance, there are sections which mostly contain direct explanations of key concepts while other sections focus on personal anecdotes from the authors or extended quotes from two sides of the debate. But one of the most obvious sections are summaries from key texts.

For instance (hypothetical example):

As Nora Smith explained in her 1968 study Coming Up with Something to Say, the concept of interpretation has a basis in cognition.

…

Smith (1968: 23) argued that Pierce’s interpretant had nothing to do with theatre.

These citations are less conspicuous than they’d be in peer-reviewed journals. But they’re a central part of textbook writing. One of their functions should be to allow readers (undergraduate students, mostly) to learn more about a topic. So, when a student wants to know more about Nora Smith’s reading of Pierce, she “just” have to locate Smith’s book, go to the right page, scan the text for the read for the name “Pierce”, and read the relevant paragraph. Nothing to it.

Compare this to, say, a blogpost. I only cite one text, here. But it’s linked instead of being merely cited. So readers can quickly know more about the context for what I’m discussing before going to the library.

Better yet, this other blogpost of mine is typical of what I’ve been calling a linkfest, a post containing a large number of links. Had I put citations instead of links, the “narrative” content of this post would be much less than the citations. Basically, the content was a list of contextualized links. Much textbook content is just like that.

In my experience, online textbooks are citation-heavy and take almost no benefit from linking. Oh, sure, some publisher may replace citations with links. But the result would still not be the same as writing meant for online reading because ex post facto link additions are quite different from link-enhanced writing. I’m not talking about technological determinism, here. I’m talking about appropriate tool use. Online texts can be quite different from printed ones and writing for an online context could benefit greatly from this difference.

In other words, I care less about what tools publishers are likely to use to create online textbooks than about a shift in the practice of online textbooks.

So, if Apple comes out with content-creation tools on Thursday (which sounds likely), here are some of my wishes:

Use of open standards like HTML5 and EPUB (possibly a combination of the two).
Completely cross-platform (should go without saying, but Apple’s track record isn’t that great, here).
Open Access.
Link library.
Voice support.
Mobile creation tools as powerful as desktop ones (more like GarageBand than like iWork).
HyperCard-style emphasis on hyperlinked structures (à la “mini-site” instead of web archives).
Focus on rich interaction (possibly based on the SproutCore web framework).
Replacement for iWeb (which is being killed along with MobileMe).
Ease creation of lecturecasts.
Deep integration with iTunes U.
Combination of document (à la Pages or Word), presentation (à la Keynote or PowerPoint), and standalone apps (à la The Elements or even Myst).
Full support for course management systems.
Integration of textbook material and ancillary material (including study guides, instructor manuals, testbanks, presentation files, interactive quizzes, glossaries, lesson plans, coursenotes, etc.).
Outlining support (more like OmniOutliner or even like OneNote than like Keynote or Pages).
Mindmapping support (unlikely, but would be cool).
Whiteboard support (both in-class and online).
Collaboration features (à la Adobe Connect).
Support for iCloud (almost a given, but it opens up interesting possibilities).
iWork integration (sounds likely, but still in my wishlist).
Embeddable content (à la iWork.com).
Stability, ease of use, and low-cost (i.e., not Adobe Flash or Acrobat).
Better support than Apple currently provides for podcast production and publishing.
More publisher support than for iBooks.
Geared toward normal users, including learners and educators.

The last three are probably where the problem lies. It’s likely that Apple has courted textbook publishers and may have convinced them that they should up their game with online textbooks. It’s clear to me that publishers risk to fall into oblivion if they don’t wake up to the potential of learning content. But I sure hope the announcement goes beyond an agreement with publishers.

Rumour has it that part of the announcement might have to do with bypassing state certification processes, in the US. That would be a big headline-grabber because the issue of state certification is something of wedge issue. Could be interesting, especially if it means free textbooks (though I sure hope they won’t be ad-supported). But that’s much less interesting than what could be done with learning content.

“User-generated content” may be one of the core improvements in recent computing history, much of which is relevant for teaching. As fellow anthro Mike Wesch has said:

We’ll need to rethink a few things…

And Wesch sure has been thinking about learning.

Problem is, publishers and “user-generated content” don’t go well together. I’m guessing that it’s part of the reason for Apple’s insufficient support for “user-generated content”. For better or worse, Apple primarily perceives its users as consumers. In some cases, Apple sides with consumers to make publishers change their tune. In other cases, it seems to be conspiring with publishers against consumers. But in most cases, Apple fails to see its core users as content producers. In the “collective mind of Apple”, the “quality content” that people should care about is produced by professionals. What normal users do isn’t really “content”. iTunes U isn’t an exception, those of us who give lectures aren’t Apple’s core users (even though the education market as a whole has traditionally being an important part of Apple’s business). The fact that Apple courts us underlines the notion that we, teachers and publishers (i.e. non-students), are the ones creating the content. In other words, Apple supports the old model of publishing along with the old model of education. Of course, they’re far from alone in this obsolete mindframe. But they happen to have several of the tools which could be useful in rethinking education.

Thursday’s events is likely to focus on textbooks. But much more is needed to shift the balance between publishers and learners. Including a major evolution in podcasting.

Podcasting is especially relevant, here. I’ve often thought about what Apple could do to enhance podcasting for learning. Way beyond iTunes U. Into something much more interactive. And I don’t just mean “interactive content” which can be manipulated seamless using multitouch gestures. I’m thinking about the back-and-forth of learning and teaching, the conversational model of interactivity which clearly distinguishes courses from mere content.

iCloud Reality

Posted on June 6, 2011 by alex

This post is a follow-up to both the WWDC 2011 keynote and my previous post, in which I used iCloud as inspiration for some “cloud computing” dreams.

“Whoa!”, you say, ”two posts about iCloud within 24 hours? This guy must really about iCloud!”

Actually, I don’t care about iCloud itself. Now that it’s been announced, I can say that I’ll welcome it, as a replacement for MobileMe and enhancement to the “iTunes ecosystem”. But it’s not that major a thing, in my mind.

Point is, I don’t blog because I really care about specific things. I blog because it’s fun to do.

In this case, it’s pretty easy to do. Nothing groundbreaking in this blogpost, but it’s a neat context for blogging, in my mind. Almost like a writing exercise. And a placeholder for further thoughts on “cloud computing”, Apple, and mobile devices. I do “care” about all of these things in the sense that I’m curious to see what might come out of them. But my universe probably won’t collapse if these things all take an unexpected turn.

Why don’t I blog about Android? Well, mostly because I don’t have an Android device and don’t plan on getting a smartphone or a new tablet in the foreseeable future. I do follow Google news (especially through TWiG but also through some generalist tech blogs, like TNW) and there are some things I find interesting, in what Google offers. But that’ll have to wait for another day. (I do have a blogpost in mind for “What I Like about Google”.)

So… iCloud, eh?

Well, pretty much as rumours predicted, overall. Which is neither awe-inspiring nor so disappointing. I’m looking forward to some features which made it in and somewhat lukewarm about several of the things they announced. Not overwhelmed but not really underwhelmed either. So I’m “whelmed”.

An announcement about which I have positive feelings isn’t about iCloud: Mac OS X Lion will be available for download in July, at a reasonable price (30$). Since my 2006 Mac mini doesn’t support Lion, the news may not impact me that directly but it does mean that I’ll be able to install it on the MacBook of the person about whom I really care. And it might mean that we’ll see updated Mac minis in July. So, timing should be good, for me, in terms of getting a new computer before the semester starts.

Speaking of Lion, I’m rather puzzled by the announcement (rumoured a few days ago) that the server version will come at an extra cost. Guess I had misunderstood a previous announcement that Server was included in the normal version of Mac OS X to mean that it would be included at no extra cost. During the keynote, it was announced that Server would be an App Store purchase, though no price was mentioned. Looking on Apple’s site as I’m writing this, I find out that Mac OS X Lion Server will cost 50$. Not free, but not as bad as I feared, until a minute ago.

Now, about the iCloud and iOS5 announcements…

One thing I find remarkable (and which also applies to Mac OS X Lion) is how precisely rumours end up matching the actual announcement. For a company which is known as being so tightly sealed, it’s kind of unexpected. What’s more awkward, though, is that it doesn’t seem to have that much effect on dulling down audience reactions. Almost everything which was announced today has at least been rumoured yet the crowd was very enthusiastic at some points. Now, it’s a very specific crowd, which comprises a number of die-hard Apple enthusiasts (after all, their business may depend on Apple, to a fairly large extent). But I must admit I was surprised by some of these reactions, especially pertaining to iOS5. I can understand that the new notification system may be a big “wow factor”, to many of these developers. It might help them make their apps more useful. But I was genuinely surprised that tabbed browsing got such a positive response. I personally don’t miss tabbed browsing on iOS4 and almost wish we could keep the current approach to switching between preloaded pages. But members of the audience seemed quite happy about the change. Of course, their reactions are shaped by many factors, as in a tv show. But I felt like one who didn’t get the joke. “So, y’all wanted tabbed browsing, all this time? Ok…”

The announcement of a PC-free feature of iCloud was quite similar. I understand that it’s pretty neat, and it does correspond to a lot of things Gruber has been saying for a while. But how big of a deal is it, for developers? What am I missing, here? I’m sure I’ll be told, soon enough. Or the audience reaction was exaggerated because of other factors.

Speaking of Gruber. A statement of his, made before the keynote, got some people thinking (including myself):

Don’t think of iCloud as the new MobileMe; think of iCloud as the new iTunes.

I’d say it’s a bit of both. While iCloud does make iTunes optional in some cases, it doesn’t completely negate any need for it. On the other hand, iCloud will officially replace MobileMe.

What’s happening to MobileMe?
Effective June 6, 2011, if you had an active MobileMe account, your service has been automatically extended through June 30, 2012, at no additional charge. After this, the MobileMe service will no longer be available.

What will happen to the content I have on MobileMe?
Apple has announced a new service called iCloud which will be available this fall and free for iOS 5 and OS X Lion users.

Sounds to me like as direct a replacement as possible. And it makes all the sense in the world. No news on “Find My iPhone”, but I’d be surprised (and disappointed) if it were abandoned, the way eCards were abandoned in the transition from .Mac to MobileMe.

Not that Gruber was wrong or that his advice was misleading. It’s just that MobileMe users are directly impacted. As one of those rare people who purchased a MobileMe license since the iPad came out, I do welcome the news. If this hadn’t been announced, I probably wouldn’t have renewed my MobileMe license (due at the end of this month). So the timing is right, for me. While it was expected, based on rumours, it’s a “classy move”.

It must also mean that Apple isn’t finding much value in selling MobileMe, anymore. One might say that iCloud is more valuable as a selling point for iOS5 and OS X Lion devices than MobileMe was as its own revenue stream. We’ve heard from Apple Store employees (and I heard from other people dealing with Apple retail) that Apple was pushing MobileMe whenever it could. In this sense, the change is clueful.
In fact, there’s something about free, in this case. Now that MobileMe is free, I might actually start using it more.
As mentioned in my last post, I haven’t been making intensive or extensive use of MobileMe. I did use the “Find My iPhone” on occasion and the synchronization has been somewhat helpful, despite the fact that I use Gsync. But I wasn’t really using the other features, including email, gallery, and iDisk. Now that I know how it’ll fit in the coming year, I find it somewhat easier to “invest” in these tools.

That’s the rational argument, and it might not actually hold so well. For one thing, we still don’t know how seamless the transition to iCloud will be. And some MobileMe features have been left undiscussed. So, counting on the MobileMe to iCloud transition might be ill-advised.

There are some less-rational motivations behind my possibly-intensified use of MobileMe. One is that I feel almost an obligation to give free services a chance. And, though MobileMe itself hasn’t changed, doing more with it might give me a taste of what’s is likely to happen with iCloud.

Although some MobileMe features have not been mentioned in terms of iCloud.

One glaring omission is iWeb. As mentioned before, the web publishing application hasn’t been updated along with other parts of iLife (most notably, iPhoto, iMovie, and GarageBand). Unlike the other pieces of the iLife suite, it almost requires MobileMe to provide significant value (although you can also publish via FTP). I was daydreaming about iCloud becoming a webhost and it’s conceivable that Apple might follow that route at some point in the distant future. But, right now, it sounds like iWeb’s value proposition has become less interesting than it ever was. It’s possible that iWeb-created sites maintained through MobileMe will continue to be supported beyond the transition to iCloud. But it sounds unlikely.

And there might be a missed opportunity, here. As is often the case, with technology companies, iWeb sounds like an afterthought, for Apple. Maybe it’ll be like Apple TV and go from a “hobby” to something closer to the central strategy. But I doubt it. In part because iWeb doesn’t really fit in the “Digital Hub” vision which, as Jobs finally reminded us, has been central for Apple for the better part of the last decade.

Speaking of the digital hub… In a way, it was a very telling part of today’s presentation. It does demonstrate a clear vision for something which been carried out through iLife and the whole “iTunes ecosystem”. The picture of a Mac surrounded by PDas, digital cameras, and other peripherals requires some adjustment, to accommodate for iOS devices and wireless connections. Bul the idea has remain relatively unchanged, as we prepare for the so-called “post-PC era”.

Yet this “digital hub” notion shows some weaknesses, in terms of imagining the future of “cloud computing”, the alleged target of the iCloud announcement. Not that I have any idea whether or not Apple will succeed “in the cloud space”. I wouldn’t bet either way. But Apple’s “digital hub” shows a few signs of constraining the imagination.

For one thing, hubs are a rather specific way to organize things. The laptop or desktop computer is now “just a device”, and there’s a lot of insight hidden in this conception of “devices”. But it’s also more hub than spoke. Regardless of how important Apple products have been for road warriors, the notion is still that users have specific places where some devices remain. Several parts of the iCloud announcement make it possible to overcome this model, but I’d argue that the model remains dominant in the minds of many Apple employees and customers.

A better way to put it, perhaps, is that Apple is transitioning away from the digital hub model into a much more fluid structure. Addressing the digital hub model might have been a way to pave the road to an ethereal future, with “cloud computing ” and seamless integration of multiple devices. But I have my doubts. For instance, description of WiFi iTunes Sync in the iOS5 video has a mention of physical proximity to a machine running iTunes. It confuses me a bit, since it also sounds like it’ll be possible to use iOS5 devices without any access to a machine running iTunes, It might be that the description is inaccurate (you can sync your devices through “iTunes in the cloud”, wherever you are). Or the two types of synchronization are different, in that one pairs your iOS5 device with a given Mac or PC while the other lets you use your iOS5 with iCloud content. But I tend to link my confusion to a clash between two models. It’s more likely that I just “don’t get it”, and it all makes sense in the grand scheme of things. I’m fine with that.

In other words, feel free to disagree. Maybe the iCloud announcement means that the “digital hub” era is over and that what comes next bears only limited resemblance to the Mac surrounded by peripherals. Or the restrictions are more important than I imagine and the “cloud” is but a surface enhancement to what remains a decidedly “hub-centric model”.

Time will tell.

One part of the iCloud announcement that I find positive is about document sync. I recently started using iWork and iWork.com as a significant part of my workflow. Several things are missing from this, including an easy way to synchronize documents across iOS and Mac OS X devices. Unless I misunderstood, it sounds like iCloud will make this process seamless. I have my doubts as to how it might work in practice (synchronization is a relatively difficult problem, when there are multiple instances of the same context). But it might still be a time-saver, for me. In a way, it’s almost like taking away a pain point.

At the same time, no mention has been made of collaboration, in any way, shape, or form. As it stands, iWork.com makes it possible to share documents but collaboration is extremely limited in that case. In fact, unless I’m mistaken, it’s not even possible to allow public downloads of these documents. Unlike, say, Slideshare. In this sense, GDocs is very likely remain a much more desirable solution for any form of collaboration. And since GDocs doesn’t handle iWork documents so well, sharing document for further collaboration will long remain a sticking point,in my workflow.

What’s more promising, though, is document sync as a replacement for some uses of Dropbox. I’m sure the GoodReader developer(s) have been giving iCloud a lot of thought. After all, the app can already use iDisk, Dropbox, WebDAV, GDocs, and other “cloud services”. I also hope that Jesse Grosjean at Hog Bay Software will add iCloud to TaskPaper sync, along with Dropbox. And I’m guessing that other apps will spring out, making good use of iCloud’s document sync. The WWDC crowd sounded fairly enthusiastic about this. And I’m sure advantages over iDisk are painfully obvious to several people. I’m mostly glad that it’ll be available for free to all iOS5 and OS X Lion users.

(By the by… I’m assuming that iCloud will be free to iOS5 users without Mac OS X machines and to OS X Lion users without iOS devices. It’d be very surprising but also very frustrating if it weren’t the case. Official mentions I’ve seen didn’t address this and I’ve learnt to be wary of assumptions about that which “goes without saying”, in Apple announcements.)

(Also by the by… Is “OS X Lion” the official name of the OS? Sounds like it. Not sure it’s significant but it could make sense in a “post-PC era”, with the Mac as “just another device”.)

Something iCloud doesn’t do, in this context, is completely replace Dropbox, in most use cases. For one thing, with documents in general as with iWork documents specifically, no mention has been made of collaboration and it sounds like it won’t really be possible to use iCloud to share documents efficiently.

This is where I would have let my mind wander, despite the fact that Apple has a spotty track record in collaboration. Basically, iCloud makes me wish for an integrated solution which combines: real-time collaboration in document editing (GDocs), seamless document sharing (Dropbox), online identity (Twitter/Facebook), and fluid group formation (Apache Wave, née Google Wave). Apple wasn’t going to create this, but the iCloud announcement was a context for me to think about such things.

Google is much more likely to do something like this. GDocs already has many of the required features, and we keep hoping that the “social Web” projects grouped under the “Google Me” label will benefit Google products more generally. But there seems to be an arbitrary separation between work collaboration and “social features”, for some reasons. So I’m not holding my breath. I’m just dreaming of an openly available solution making it even easier to collaborate with diverse people in diverse contexts.

Anyhoo… Back to the keynote.

An intriguing announcement during the iOS5 section was News Stand. It sounds like it’s mostly about the distribution mechanism but I wonder if it may not also mean that Apple is giving publishers some tools to make it easier to create iOS content. Apart from Apple’s relationship with publishers (which sounds more lovey-dovey than some publishers’ rhetoric makes us believe), there’s something about content creation that I really wish could be put in the hands of normal individuals.

In a way, it goes back to the iWeb issue. The rest of iLife can be quite useful, in terms of “user-generated content”. But given the number of professional, amateur, and would-be developers using Apple devices, one might expect some content creation tools, especially in terms of Web content. Tumult Hype is a neat example of an app which could be part of the content creator’s arsenal. But I could just imagine some Apple-crafted software app to handle Web content the way other contents are handled in GarageBand and Logic Studio; iPhoto and Aperture; iMovie and Final Cut Studio. iPhoto is the only one of these which was addressed in the keynote. But they could all be part of a broader strategy, helping people get creative and share their creativity. Given that something as basic as WYSIWYG HTML is very difficult on iOS, the lack of Apple-built Web tools becomes something of a thorn.

Speaking of “user-generated content”… Photo Stream was announced, as part of iCloud. Apart from “iTunes in the Cloud”, it’s one of the biggest sections of the iCloud feature set. Problem is, it’s pretty much a blindspot, for me. I might not be the only one, judging yet again from audience reactions during the keynote. But I’m specifically immune to enthusiasm about photo-related features.

I mean, I’m sure Photo Stream can become very popular. It’s almost stereotypical as the kind of feature which gets “normal people” excited. And by “normal people” I don’t mean non-geeks. I mean people who react positively to pictures. I just don’t have the same relationship with anything visual. I rarely use my phone or iPod touch’s cameras. When I do, it’s mostly about documenting something (à la Evernote) or scanning a QR/barcode. So Photo Stream is wasted on me.

The one feature I was possibly most excited about is one which wasn’t mentioned but that I still think might be part of the iCloud reality: OTA podcasts. I listen to a number of podcasts and synchronization remains an issue. It’s the main (though not single) reason I connect my iPod touch to my Mac mini. I’d really benefit from being able to synchronize podcasts while “on the road”, using any reliable WiFi connection. To be honest, if it’s not included in iCloud/iOS5, I’ll be disappointed. Not to the point of abandoning the platform. But I admit that my expectations are that it’ll happen, and I see it as relatively important.

Much of it is a convenience feature, as I won’t have to go back to my “home base” just to get updated podcasts. But it may change my relationship to said podcasts, as I’ll be getting them more regularly, the way I’m now able to follow a large number of blogs using Reeder and Instapaper. Problem is, podcasts aren’t the type of content iCloud will host and it’s possible that the omission from the keynote was purposeful. Five years after transforming iTunes into the dominant “podcatcher”, it’s possible that Apple may be marginalizing podcasts in a rather serious way. I sure hope the opposite is true, and there’s a lot which could be done to make podcasts (and iTunes U) shine in the iCloud ecosystem.

But, again, I’ve been learning not to get my hopes up.

iCloud Dreams

Posted on June 6, 2011 by alexandre

Got lots more to blog, including something about “received knowledge”. And a list of things I love about Google. (I’m also getting started on “logical punctuation”, as you may already be noticing…)

But, at the risk of attracting trolls and Apple haters, I thought I’d post some notes from a daydreaming session. In some ways, it’s easier to write than the rest. And it’s more “time-sensitive”, in that my thoughts will likely sound very silly, very soon.

But I don’t care.

So, yes, this post is about iCloud, which will be officially unveiled in a few hours. No, it doesn’t mean that I expect anything specific from iCloud or that I trust Apple to deliver something awesome.

Contrary to what some people seem to think, I’m no Apple fanboi. I use a number of Apple products and I find several of them to be close to the ideal in my workflow, but I don’t have any sort of deep involvement in “the Cult of Mac”, Apple Inc., AAPL, or even Apple-focused development. I use the tools and like them, but I don’t think Apple will save us any more than will Facebook, Dell, Google, Amazon, Twitter, HP, or Microsoft.

[Automattic, on the other hand… ]

So, back to iCloud…

According to many, “cloud computing” (whatever that means) is a domain in which Apple has been relatively weak. I tend to share that opinion, despite the fact that a number of tools that I use have to do with either “the cloud”, Apple, or both. What might give trolls and haters some ammo is that I do have a MobileMe subscription. But there’s a lot I dislike about it and the only features I really find valuable are “over-the-air” syncing (henceforth “OTA”) and “Find My iPhone”. And since I use GSync on my iPod touch, MobileMe’s OTA isn’t that incredibly important. Depending on what iCloud may be, my MobileMe renewal (which comes up in a few days) could be a very hard sell. I don’t regret having it as it did help me retrieve my iPad. But it’s rather expensive if it’s the only thing it does. (Then again, so is insurance of any kind, but I digress…)

So, I’m no MobileMe poweruser. Why would I care about iCloud?

In some ways, I don’t. Or, at least, I didn’t. Until very recently, though I saw rumours about Apple’s new “cloud services”, I was only vaguely intrigued about it. I did think that it might solve my MobileMe issue. But I treated these rumours with a lot of skepticism and a rather low level of interest.

Yet, today, iCloud has been giving me a drift-off moment. Like Android did, at some point.

It’s not that I have predictions to make about iCloud. I’m not even speculating, really. But it got me to think. And, I admit, I enjoy thinking.

Without further ado (about nothing), my fanciful thoughts stemming from a short daydreaming session about iCloud…

The main thing people seem to be expecting (based on rumoured negotiations with music publishers) is a music streaming service similar to Music Beta by Google or a digital file storage service similar to Amazon Cloud Drive. Both of these are quite neat and I could see myself using something like this. But it’s not exactly what makes me dream. While iTunes integration might make Apple’s version of a music streaming service somewhat more useful than the others. Besides, rumours have it that, through agreements with the recording industry, iCloud might sync music without requiring long uploads. It’s quite possible that this only works with tracks purchased on iTunes, which would upset those whose expectations are high, but could already be useful to some.

Where I’m beginning to drift off, though, is when I start thinking about OTA for podcasts. It’s been high up on my wishlist, as a feature, and you might say that it’s a pet peeve with iOS devices for podcatching. Having to sync my iPod touch to my main desktop just to have my podcast list up-to-date is a major hassle. Sure, there are apps which sync podcasts OTA. Problem is, they can’t add podcasts to the native iOS media player, which is a dealbreaker in my case. (As absurd as it may sound to others, one reason this is a dealbreaker is that I now listen to everything at doublespeed. Hey, it’s my podcast library and I listen to it as I want, ok?)

So, OTA podcasts would constitute a significant enhancement to my experience. Nothing absolutely required and possibly not that significant for others, but it’d really help me in more ways than one could imagine.

Thing is, syncing my iPod touch isn’t just about podcasts, even though podcatching is my main motivation to sync. After all, I don’t listen to podcasts yet I still sync my iPad. So, what else? Well, backing up is the main other thing, and it might be one of the core reason for Apple’s implicit insistence on syncing. That’d be classic Apple. Data loss can be such a big problem that they’d “do what they can” to prevent users from losing data. Far from perfect, in my experience (I ended up having some problems when I lost my “iTunes Library” file). And quite annoying when it meant that the sync would take a very long time to finish at precisely the point when I’m trying to leave home. But a classic Apple move, even in the way Apple haters may mean it.

So OTA synchronization of the whole iOS device, and not just podcasts or music, would be a definite plus, in this perspective. If it does end up coming with iCloud, it’d provide support to the idea that the tethering of iOS devices to desktop computers is really about ensuring that users back up their devices…

…and stay up to date. Firmware updates aren’t that frequent, but they’re probably a major part of the equation for Apple.

But not so much for me. If OTA podcasts were available, I’d still sync my iOS devices on occasion, through whatever means necessary. In fact, were I to use an Android device, a backup app would be essential, to me. So still not much dreaming from the backup aspect of iCloud.

Although… Sync is much broader than preventing device-specific data loss and making sure your device has the latest firmware.

For one thing, it does encompass some of the aforementioned OTA functionalities in MobileMe. Useful, but still not dreamworthy.

We get a bit closer to a “dream come true” if we talk about Xmarks, a bookmark-sync service originally meant for Firefox. Sure, it sounds incredibly prosaic. But OTA bookmarks would open up a wide range of possibilities. This is about a qualitative difference from going OTA. In the case of backups, it’s about avoiding an annoyance but, arguably, it’s not really about changing something major about our behaviour. (Then again, maybe it is, with people who don’t back their devices up.) Point is, with something as simple as bookmarks, OTA is “disruptive”. At least, it gets me to daydream. One reason is that:

…no matter how fundamental they have been for the Web, links and bookmarks have yet to find their full value.

Hmm… Ok, perhaps a bit hyperbolic… So let me rephrase…

There’s still a lot to be done with URLs and, as simple as they are, I love thinking about links. Maybe I’m just obsessed with URLs.

As it so happens, I have a full list of thoughts about “link processing” and I’ve already blogged about related topics (on more than one occasion, in different contexts, going back to relatively early blogposts). And I even think social science can help.

I mean, think about it! There’s so much you can do, with links! Much of it is obvious, but I’d argue, rarely discussed. For instance, it’s very clear that we can post links pretty much anywhere. Doing so, we’re sharing their “content”. (In a semiotic sense, links are indices. I wish we can move from the “semantic Web” to the “semiotic Web”. But that’s another issue.) Sharing a link is the basic act of the social Web. It’s so obvious and frequent that it seems not to require discussion”.

Another obvious thing about links: we can measure the number of times they’re followed. In 2011, more than thirty years after hypertext has been introduced as a stable concept, much of the Web’s finances still relies on “clickthroughs”. Seems important.

And there’s a lot of processing which can be done with URLs: shortening them, adding them to “to do” lists, checking them for validity, keeping them in link libraries, archiving their “content”, showing them as external or internal links, preventing them from “rotting away”, showing the wordcount or reading time of the item they “target”, display them as QR codes, abuse them, etc.

As you can notice, it’s easy to get me on a tangent simply thinking about URLs. What’s this have t’do with iCloud, you ask? Probably not much, in terms of the actual service which will be announced at Moscone. But I’ve been dreaming about iCloud as a way to integrate Diigo, Instapaper, Delicious, reddit, digg, Slashdot, StumbleUpon, Spurl, The Nethernet, Xmarks…

Hey, I told you I was dreaming! Something as simple as managing, processing, sharing, and archiving links in iCloud could lead to just about anything, in my imagination.

And speaking of Xmarks… It’s now owned by Lastpass, a company which focus on password management. IMHO, some Lastpass-like features could make their way in diverse products, including iCloud. Is this far-fetched? Possibly. But secure handling of passwords can be a major issue in both of Apple’s new operating systems (Mac OS X Lion and iOS5). From “keychains” to SSO, there’s a lot of work to be done which relates to password management, in my mind.

Which leads me to think about authentication in general and the rumours about “deep Twitter integration in iOS 5”. (Not directly related to iCloud, but who knows?) Again, something which can send me (and others) on drift-off moments. What if this integration suddenly made iOS devices more useful in terms of social networking services? Something to ponder, if one has a propensity for pondering.

At the same time, given the relative lack of activity on iTunes Ping, I wouldn’t bet on Twitter integration having that major an impact by itself. Not unlike Google, Apple has a hard time making a mark on the social Web. Now, if Twitter integration does connect to everything else Apple does, it could lead to interesting things. A full-fledged online identity? Access to contacts for not only messaging and photo sharing but for collaboration, group management, and media sharing? Not betting on any of this, but it could be fun. Again, not specific to iCloud, but quite related to “The Cloud”. If Twitter integration is deep enough, in iOS 5, it’d be possible to use iOS devices for “cloud computing”, getting further into the “post-PC era”.

An iCloud feature which is expected by several people, is something like an OTA version of the “iTunes file sharing” feature in iOS. Several apps (especially Apple’s own apps) use iTunes and a USB cable to share files. It was a welcome addition to iTunes 9.1 but it’s rather inconvenient. So many other apps rely on Dropbox for file sharing.

Which leads me to dream about iCloud as a replacement for Dropbox. Sounds extremely unlikely that it’ll have the full Dropbox feature set, especially if one thinks about the “Pro 50” and “Pro 100” plans on Dropbox. But I dream of the day when Apple’s iDisk will compete with Dropbox. Not that I’m convinced it ever will. But it’d make Apple’s devices all the more useful if it did.

Something similar, which isn’t frequently discussed directly, in connection with iCloud rumours, but which would rock: Mozy- or Carbonite-style backup, for Mac OS X machines. Sounds very unlikely that Apple will ever offer something like this but, as crazy as it may sound, the connection between Time Capsule and iCloud would be great if it went that far. From a user’s perspective, the similarities between Time Machine backup and “backing up in the cloud” (à la Mozy/Carbonite) are quite obvious. The advantages of both are clear. And while no hardware announcement is supposed to make its way to the WWDC 2011 keynote, I’d give the Time Capsule some consideration if it provided me with the equivalent of what I currently have with Mozy. Not to mention that Mozy has already sparked some drift-off moments, in me, before they announced their new plans. What if I could have a single service which combines features from Mozy, Time Machine, Dropbox, and YouSendIt?

I even think about the possibilities in terms of web hosting. As it stands, MobileMe does allow for some Web publishing through the iWeb application in its iLife suite. But iWeb has never been a major effort for Apple and it hasn’t been seen a significant update in quite a while. What if iCloud could become a true webhost just like, say… iWeb.com? (Semi-disclaimer: I won a free account with iWeb.com, last Fall, and I host some sites there. I also know some of the people who work there…)

Yet again, I don’t expect this to happen. It’s not speculation, on my part. It’s a daydream.

The reason this makes me dream is that I find all these things to be related and I wish they were integrated more seamlessly. Something about which Apple haters may not care much is the type of integration represented by iTunes. As clunky as iTunes may be, in some respects, it’s quite a success in terms of integrating a lot of different things. In fact, it probably overextended its reach a bit too much and we need to replace it. Apple needs to replace iTunes and we should also replace iTunes in our lives.

Like Gruber, I end up thinking about iCloud in relation to iTunes more than in relation to MobileMe. But I also dream about the ideal cloud service, which would not only sync and backup files between iOS devices, hundreds of millions of iTunes store accounts, and Macs, but replace several of the services for which I’m paying monthly fees.

Here’s to dreaming…

Other parts of this crazy, iCloud-infused daydream, in notes form:

Authentication and payment systems
Twitter and identity: verified, private/public, pseudonym, tied to credit card
GarageBand as collaborative musicking
Soundcloud as model for creation, user engagement, sharing
Interactive podcasts and annotations
Group collaboration through iWork
Replacing iWork.com
Sync, share, and manage user-generated content
SimpleText.ws Sync for Hog Bay Software (Taskpaper, WriteRoom)
Competing with Amazon S3
Media sync: retrieve Genius-recommended tracks, wishlists, buy later…
Whispersync-like for diverse media, including podcasts, TV series, movies, iBooks…
Streaming media makes DRM and device capacity moot?
PIM features: integrating contacts from Address Book, Twitter, Skype…
iSync revival
Rich notes, sync, publishing
Voicenotes
Evernote-like capture and processing
Reading list items archived, summarized, reformatted, cached…

Buying Apps

Posted on January 5, 2011 by alex

Been mulling over this for a while, now. Before the Mac App Store was announced, I was thinking about “mobile apps” (mostly the iTunes/iOS App Store, but also Android Marketplace). Since the MAS announcement, though, I’ve been thinking about something which may be a broader shift. And because the MAS is opening tomorrow, now might be a good time to put some of these ideas out there.

The following blogpost, by Markus Nigrin, provides important insight from the perspective of some iOS developers.

Mac App Store – Sneak Peak

I tend to agree with the underlying idea: “traditional” Mac OS X developers run the risk of missing the boat, with the Mac App Store.

This point is made even more graphically by David Gewirtz on ZDNet.

While I do care about the fate of Mac developers, I’m really thinking about the users’ side of the equation. And I’m not really caught up in the Manichean “is it a good thing or a bad thing for us” kind of thinking.

Now, I do still think about the business side of things. Not that I have “a dog in this race,” but I do think about the business models, including app costs and “Free As In Beer”/No-Cost Software. Partly because, until recently, I rarely bought applications.

A few things changed, recently. One is that I’ve been able to allocate more money to my computing needs (partly because I do freelance work, much of it related to online stuff). Another is that I started paying more attention to software bundles like MacUpdate Promo and MacHeist. Yet another is that (very recently) I started buying games on Steam. And, finally, I’ve been getting a rather large number of iOS apps on the App Store, including some paid ones (despite my frustrating experience, initially).

One thing I notice is that there does seem to be a distinction between mobile-style “apps” and “traditional software packages.” While “app” is short for “application” and there may not be a very strong distinction between the type of software distributed through the Mac App Store and other applications, “apps” may be emerging as something of a new category. Partly in terms of business, partly in terms of development models, partly in terms of users’ expectations.

It may be a bit confusing, especially since Apple itself is selling pieces of software on both sides. For instance, they will distribute their iWork productivity suite (Keynote, Pages, and Numbers) through six (6) different ways.

You can buy it as a productivity suite.
You can get it through an education licensing program.
You can get it as part of a box set (with Mac OS X and iLife).
You can get it preinstalled on new hardware.
You can buy iPad versions of individual apps (through the iOS App Store).
And you’ll soon be able to buy Mac versions of the individual applications on the Mac App Store.

There are significant (and frustrating) differences between the Mac and iPad versions of these three programs. But Apple still markets the iPad apps as directly equivalent to the Mac applications. It might work as a marketing strategy, but it can be quite confusing. For instance, it can be difficult to find information about features which may or may not be present in the iPad version, such as the ability to change master slides (was looking for this just last night).

In mind, there might be a distinction between apps and applications in terms of user behaviour. When I get something from the (iOS) App Store, it’s usually a matter of curiosity. Sure, there are occasions where I look for and get a very specific app for a very specific need. But, most of the time, my behaviour is “impulsive.”

If it’s a free app, I don’t think twice about it, it’s almost on the order of a reflex. If the app is inexpensive (or if AppShopper warned me that it decreased in price quite significantly), chances are that I’ll buy it even if I’m just vaguely interested in it. If it’s more expensive, I may add it to my AppShopper wishlist, look for cheaper equivalents, or make a headnote to look later in that category.

In my mind, free and inexpensive apps need almost no justification. But, after a certain threshold (which may be as low as 5$ in certain categories), I need a rather strong incentive to invest in an app.

In many ways, the same is true with (non-mobile) applications. The threshold might be different, within the same category. But there’s a point at which I go from “sure, I’ll download this” to “do I really need it?” And cost isn’t the only factor. I won’t download a no-cost application if I get the impression that it’ll be difficult to use or take too much disk space.

Apparent simplicity is important, here. Even if an app merely looks simple, I might get it, just to explore and experiment. If, at first blush, an application looks unnecessarily complicated, chances are that I won’t g

Thinking about this, I’m predicting my own behaviour with the Mac App Store. I’ll probably start trying out all sorts of free and low-cost “apps” if they look like they can provide me with instant gratification. (Especially if I can use an external hard drive to store them.) And I’ll probably buy a few “apps” that I can justify, in terms of effort and cost. But I might give up quickly on these if my initial experience isn’t optimal (if the apps in question aren’t worth the cost or effort). And I’ll try different things associated with these apps I do enjoy.

Which, in a way, is my main thought: apps aren’t really like applications, in this case. They’re a “hook” for something else.

There are useful examples with Web applications and services. Especially things like Foursquare, Twitter, and ToodleDo. I wouldn’t spend fortunes on apps for use with these services. But I do spend a fair bit of time using these services. Mixed models like those for InstaPaper and TaskPaper are also important to keep in mind.

I actually have a lot more to say about all of this, but it’s probably better if I post it now. We’ll see how things go, tomorrow.

Getting Started with Sorbet, Yogurt, Juice

Posted on September 14, 2010 by dispar

Got a sorbet maker yesterday and I made my first batch today.

Had sent a message on Chowhounrd:

Store-Bought Simple Syrup in Sorbet? – Home Cooking – Chowhound.

Received some useful answers but didn’t notice them until after I made my sorbet.

Here’s my follow-up:

Hadn’t noticed replies were added (thought I’d receive notifications). Thanks a lot for all the useful advice!

And… it did work.

My lemon-ginger sorbet was a bit soft on its way out of the machine, but the flavour profile is exactly what I wanted.

I used almost a liter of this store-bought syrup with more than a half-liter of a ginger-lemon concoction I made (lemon juice and food-processed peeled ginger). All of this blended together. The resulting liquid was more than the 1.5 quart my sorbet-maker can withstand so I reserved a portion to mix with a syrup made from ginger peel infused in a brown sugar and water solution. I also did a simple sugar to which I added a good quantity of lemon zest. These two syrups I pressure-cooked and will use in later batches.

Judging the amount of sugar may be tricky but, in this case, I decided to go by taste. It’s not sweet enough according to some who tried it but it’s exactly what I wanted. Having this simple syrup on hand (chilled) was quite helpful, as I could adjust directly by adding syrup to the mix.

One thing is for sure, I’ll be doing an apple-ginger sorbet soon. The ginger syrup I made just cries out “apple sauce sorbet.” Especially the solids (which I didn’t keep in the syrup). I might even add some homemade hard cider that I like.

As for consistency, it’s not even a problem but I get the impression that the sorbet will get firmer as it spends time in the freezer. It’s been there for almost two hours already and I should be able to leave it there for another two hours before I bring it out (actually, traveling with it). The machine’s book mentions two hours in the freezer for a firmer consistency and I’ve seen several mentions of “ripening” so it sounds like it’d make sense to do this.

Also, the lemon-ginger mixture I used wasn’t chilled, prior to use. It may have had an impact on the firmness, I guess…

As a first attempt at sorbet-making, it’s quite convincing. I’ve had a few food-related hobbies, in the recent past, and sorbet-making might easily take some space among them, especially if results are this satisfying without effort. I was homebrewing beer until recently (and will probably try beer sorbets, as I’ve tasted some nice ones made by friends and I have a lot of leftover beer from the time I was still brewing). By comparison to homebrewing, sorbet-making seems to be a (proverbial) “piece of cake.”

Dunno if such a long tirade violates any Chow forum rule but I just wanted to share my first experience.

Thanks again for all your help!

–

Alex

Among links given in this short thread was the sorbet section of the French Cooking guide on About.com. I’ve already had good experiences with About’s BBQ Guide. So my preliminary impression of these sorbet recipes is rather positive. And, in fact, they’re quite inspiring.

A sampling:

Apple and Calvados
Beet
Cardamom/Pear
Pomegranate/Cranberry
Spiced Apple Cider
…

It’s very clear that, with sorbet, the only limit is your imagination. I’ll certainly make some savoury sorbets, including this spiced tomato one. Got a fairly large number of ideas for interesting combinations. But, perhaps unsurprisingly, it seems that pretty much everything has been tried. Hibiscus flowers, hard cider, horchata, teas…

And using premade syrups is probably a good strategy, especially if mixed with fresh purées, possibly made with frozen fruit. Being able to adjust sweetness is a nice advantage. Although, one comment in that Chowhound thread mentioned a kind of “homemade hydrometer” technique (clean egg floating in the liquid…), the notion apparently being that the quantity of sugar is important in and of itself (for texture and such) and you can adjust flavour with other ingredients, including acids.

One reason I like sorbets so much is that I’m lactose intolerant. More specifically: I discovered fairly recently that I was lactose intolerant. So I’m not completely weaned from ice cream. It’s not the ideal time to start making sorbet as the weather isn’t that warm, at this point. But I’ve never had an objection to sorbet in cold weather.

As happened with other hobbies, I’ve been having some rather crazy ideas. And chances are that this won’t be my last sorbet making machine.

Nor will it only be a sorbet machine. While I have no desire to make ice cream in it, it’s already planned as a “froyo” maker and a “frozen soy-based dessert” maker. In some cases, I actually prefered frozen yogurt and frozen tofu to ice cream (maybe because my body was telling me to avoid lactose). And I’m getting a yogurt maker soon, which will be involved in all sorts of yogurt-based experiments from “yogurt cheese” (lebneh) to soy-milk “yogurt” and even whey-enhanced food (from the byproduct from lebneh). So, surely, frozen yogurt will be involved.

And I didn’t mention my juicer, here (though I did mention it elsewhere). Not too long ago, I was using a juicer on a semi-regular basis and remember how nice the results were, sometimes using unlikely combinations (cucumber/pineapple being a friend’s favourite which was relatively convincing). A juicer will also be useful in preparing sorbets, I would guess. Sure, it’s probably a good idea to have a thicker base than juice for a firm sorbet, but I might actually add banana, goyava, or fig to some sorbets. Besides, the solids left behind by the juice extraction can be made into interesting things too and possibly added back to the sorbet base. I can easily imagine how it’d work with apples and some vegetables.

An advantage of all of this is that it’ll directly increase the quantity of fruits and vegetables I consume. Juices are satisfying and can be made into soups (which I also like). Yogurt itself I find quite appropriate in my diet. And there surely are ways to have low-sugar sorbet. These are all things I enjoy on their own. And they’re all extremely easy to make (I’ve already made yogurt and juice, so I don’t foresee any big surprise). And they all fit in a lactose-free (or, at least, low-lactose) diet.

Food is fun.

Moving On

Posted on August 6, 2010 by dispar

[I'm typically not very good at going back to drafts and I don't have much time to write this. But I can RERO this. It's an iterative process in any case....]

Been thinking about different things which all relate to the same theme: changing course, seizing opportunities, shifting focus, adapting to new situations, starting over, getting a clean slate… Moving on.

One reason is that I recently decided to end my ethnography podcast. Not that major a decision and rather easy to make. Basically, I had stopped doing it but I had yet to officially end it. I had to make it clear, in my mind, that it’s not part of the things I’m doing, these days. Not that it was a big thing in my life but I had set reminders every month that I had to record a podcast episode. It worked for ten episode (in ten months) but, once I had missed one episode, the reminder was nagging me more than anything else.

In this sense, “moving on” is realistic/pragmatic. Found something similar in Getting Things Done, by David Allen.

It’s also similar to something Larry Lessig called “email bankruptcy,” as a step toward enhanced productivity.

In fact, even financial bankruptcy can relate to this, in some contexts. In Canada, at least, bankruptcy is most adequately described as a solution to a problem, not the problem itself. I’ve known some people who were able to completely rebuild their finances after declaring bankruptcy, sometimes even getting a better credit rating than someone who hadn’t gone bankrupt. I know how strongly some people may react to this concept of bankruptcy (based on principle, resentment, fears, hopes…). It’s an extreme example of what I mean by “moving on.” It goes well with the notion, quite common in North American cultural contexts, that you always deserve a second chance (but that you should do things yourself).

Of course, similar things happen with divorces which, similarly, can often be considered as solutions to a problem rather than the problem itself. No matter how difficult or how bad divorce might be, it’s a way to start over. In some sense, it’s less extreme an example as the bankruptcy one. But it may still generate negative vibes or stir negative emotions.

Because what I’m thinking about has more to do with “turning over a new leaf.” And taking the “leap of faith” which will make you go where you feel more comfortable. I’m especially thinking about all sorts of cases of people who decided to make radical changes in their professional or personal lives, often leaving a lot behind. Whether they were forced to implement such changes or decided to jump because they simply wanted to, all of the cases I remember have had positive outcomes.

It reminds me of a good friend of mine with whom I went through music school, in college. When he finished college, he decided to follow the music path and registered for the conservatory. But, pretty quickly, he realized that it wasn’t for him. Even though he had been intensely “in music” for several years, with days of entering the conservatory, he saw that music wasn’t to remain the central focus of his career. Through a conversation with a high school friend (who later became his wife and the mother of his children), he found out that it wasn’t too late for him to register for university courses. He had been thinking about phys. ed., and thought it might be a nice opportunity to try that path. He’s been a phys. ed. teacher for a number of years. We had lunch together last year and he seems very happy with his career choice. He also sounds like a very dedicated and effective phys. ed. teacher.

In my last podcast episode, I mentioned a few things about my views of this “change of course.” Including what has become something of an expression, for me: “Done with fish.” Comes from the movie Adaptation. The quote is found here (preceded by a bit of profanity). Basically, John Laroche, who was passionately dedicated to fish, decided to completely avoid anything having to do with fish. I can relate to this at some rather deep level.

I’m also thinking about the negative consequences of “sticking with” something which isn’t working, shifting too late or too quickly, implementing changes in inappropriate ways. Plenty of examples there. Most of the ones which come to my mind have to do with business settings. One which would require quite a bit of “explaining” is my perception of Google’s strategy with Wave. Put briefly (with the hope of revisiting this issue), I think Google made bad decisions with Wave, including killing it both too late and too early (no, I don’t see this as a contradiction; but I don’t have time to explain it). They also, I feel, botched a few transitions, in this. And, more importantly, I’d say that they failed to adapt the product to what was needed.

And the trigger for several of my reflections on this “moving on” idea have to do with this kind of adaptation (fun that the movie of that name should be involved, eh?). Twitter could be an inspiration, in this case. Not only did they, like Flickr, start through a switch away from another project, but Twitter was able to transform users’ habits into the basis for some key features. Hashtags and “@replies” are well-known examples. But you could even say that most of the things they’ve been announcing have been related to the way people use their tools.

So, in a way, it’s about the balance between vision and responsiveness. Vision is often discussed and it sounds to some people as a key thing in any “task-based group (from a team to a corporation). But the way a team can switch from one project to the next based on feedback (from users or other stakeholders) seems underrated. Although, there is some talk about the “startup mentality” in many contexts, including Google and Apple. Words which fit this semantic field include: “agile,” “flexible,” “pivot,” “lean,” and “nimble” (the latter word seemed to increase in currency after being used by Barack Obama in a speech).

Anyhoo… Gotta go.

But, just before I go: I am moving on with some things (including my podfade but also a shift away from homebrewing). But the key things in my life are very stable, especially my sentimental life.

Actively Reading: Organic Ideas for Startups

Posted on April 18, 2010 by dispar

Been using Diigo as a way to annotate online texts. In this case, I was as interested in the tone as in the text itself. At the same time, I kept thinking about things which seem to be missing from Diigo.

Organic Startup Ideas

http://www.paulgraham.com/organic.html

One thing I like about this text is its tone. There’s an honesty, an ingenuity that I find rare in this type of writing.

startup ideas

The background is important, in terms of the type of ideas about which we’re constructing something.

what do you wish someone would make for you?

My own itch has to do with Diigo, actually. There’s a lot I wish Diigo would make for me. I may be perceived as an annoyance, but I think my wishlist may lead to something bigger and possibly quite successful.

The difference between this question and the “scratch your own itch” principle seems significant, and this distinction may have some implications in terms of success: we’re already talking about others, not just running ideas in our own head.

what do you wish someone would make for you?

It’s somewhat different from the well-known “scratch your own itch” principle. In this difference might be located something significant. In a way, part of the potential for this version to lead to success comes from the fact that it’s already connected with others, instead of being about running ideas in your own mind.

grow organically

The core topic of the piece, put in a comparative context. The comparison isn’t the one people tend to make and one may argue about the examples used. But the concept of organic ideas is fascinating and inspiring.

you decide, from afar,

What we call, in anthropology, the “armchair” approach. Also known as “backbenching.” For this to work, you need to have a deep knowledge of the situation, which is part of the point in this piece. Nice that it’s not demonizing this position but putting it in context.

Apple
was the first type

One might argue that it was a hybrid case. Although, it does sound like the very beginnings of Apple weren’t about “thinking from afar.”

class of users other than you

Since developers are part of a very specific “class” of people, this isn’t insignificant a way to phrase this.

They still rely on this principle today, incidentally.
The iPhone is the phone Steve Jobs wants.

Apple tends to be perceived in a different light. According to many people, it’s the “textbook example” of a company where decisions are made without concerns for what people need. “Steve Jobs uses a top-down approach,” “They don’t even use focus groups,” “They don’t let me use their tools the way I want to use them.” But we’re not talking about the same distinction between top-down and bottom-up. Though “organic ideas” seem to imply that it’s a grassroots/bottom-up phenomenon, the core distinction isn’t about the origin of the ideas (from the “top,” in both cases) but on the reasoning behind these ideas.

We didn’t need this software ourselves.

Sounds partly like a disclaimer but this approach is quite common and “there’s nothing wrong with it.”

comparatively old

Age and life experience make for an interesting angle. It’s not that this strategy needs people of a specific age to work. It’s that there’s a connection between one’s experience and the way things may pan out.

There is no sharp line between the two types of ideas,

Those in the “engineering worldview” might go nuts, at this point. I can hear the claims of “hand waving.” But we’re talking about something complex, here, not a merely complicated problem.

Apple type

One thing to note in the three examples here: they’re all made by pairs of guys. Jobs and Woz, Gates and Allen, Page and Brin. In many cases, the formula might be that one guy (or gal, one wishes) comes up with ideas knowing that the other can implement them. Again, it’s about getting somebody else to build it for you, not about scratching your own itch.

Bill Gates was writing something he would use

Again, Gates may not be the most obvious example, since he’s mostly known for another approach. It’s not inaccurate to say he was solving his own problem, at the time, but it may not be that convincing as an example.

Larry and Sergey when they wrote the first versions of Google.

Although, the inception of the original ideas was academic in context. They weren’t solving a search problem or thinking about monetization. They were discovering the power of CitationRank.

generally preferable

Nicely relativistic.

It takes experience
to predict what other people will want.

And possibly a lot more. Interesting that he doesn’t mention empirical data.

young founders

They sound like a fascinating group to observe. They do wonders when they open up to others, but they seem to have a tendency to impose their worldviews.

I’d encourage you to focus initially on organic ideas

Now, this advice sounds more like the “scratch your own itch” advocation. But there’s a key difference in that it’s stated as part of a broader process. It’s more of a “walk before you run” or “do your homework” piece of advice, not a “you can’t come up with good ideas if you just think about how people will use your tool.”

missing or broken

It can cover a lot, but it’s couched in terms of the typical “problem-solving” approach at the centre of the engineering worldview. Since we’re talking about developing tools, it makes sense. But there could be a broader version, admitting for dreams, inspiration, aspiration. Not necessarily of the “what would make you happy?” kind, although there’s a lot to be said about happiness and imagination. You’re brainstorming, here.

immediate answers

Which might imply that there’s a second step. If you keep asking yourself the same question, you may be able to get a very large number of ideas. The second step could be to prioritize them but I prefer “outlining” as a process: you shuffle things together and you group some ideas to get one which covers several. What’s common between your need for a simpler way to code on the Altair and your values? Why do you care so much about algorithms instead of human encoding?

You may need to stand outside yourself a bit to see brokenness

Ah, yes! “Taking a step back,” “distancing yourself,” “seeing the forest for the trees”… A core dimension of the ethnographic approach and the need for a back-and-forth between “inside” and “outside.” There’s a reflexive component in this “being an outsider to yourself.” It’s not only psychological, it’s a way to get into the social, which can lead to broader success if it’s indeed not just about scratching your own itch.

get used to it and take it for granted

That’s enculturation, to you. When you do things a certain way simply because “we’ve always done them that way,” you may not create these organic ideas. But it’s a fine way to do your work. Asking yourself important questions about what’s wrong with your situation works well in terms of getting new ideas. But, sometimes, you need to get some work done.

a Facebook

Yet another recontextualized example. Zuckerberg wasn’t trying to solve that specific brokenness, as far as we know. But Facebook became part of what it is when Zuck began scratching that itch.

organic startup ideas usually don’t
seem like startup ideas at first

Which gets us to the pivotal importance of working with others. Per this article, VCs and “angel investors,” probably. But, in the case of some of cases cited, those we tend to forget, like Paul Allen, Narendra, and the Winklevosses.

end up making
something of value to a lot of people

Trial and error, it’s an iterative process. So you must recognize errors quickly and not invest too much effort in a specific brokenness. Part of this requires maturity.

something
other people dismiss as a toy

The passage on which Gruber focused and an interesting tidbit. Not that central, come to think of it. But it’s important to note that people’s dismissive attitude may be misled, that “toys” may hide tools, that it’s probably a good idea not to take all feedback to heart…

At this point, when someone comes to us with
something that users like but that we could envision forum trolls
dismissing as a toy, it makes us especially likely to invest.

the best source of organic ones

Especially to investors. Potentially self-serving… in a useful way.

they’re at the forefront of technology

That part I would dispute, actually. Unless we talk about a specific subgroup of young founders and a specific set of tools. Young founders tend to be oblivious to a large field in technology, including social tools.

they’re in a position to discover
valuable types of fixable brokenness first

The focus on fixable brokenness makes sense if we’re thinking exclusively through the engineering worldview, but it’s at the centre of some failures like the Google Buzz launch.

you still have to work hard

Of the “inspiration shouldn’t make use forget perspiration” kind. Makes for a more thoughtful approach than the frequent “all you need to do…” claims.

I’d encourage anyone
starting a startup to become one of its users, however unnatural it
seems.

Not merely an argument for dogfooding. It’s deeper than that. Googloids probably use Google tools but they didn’t actually become users. They’re beta testers with a strong background in troubleshooting. Not the best way to figure out what users really want or how the tool will ultimately fail.

It’s hard to compete directly with open source software

Open Source as competition isn’t new as a concept, but it takes time to seep in.

there has to be some part
you can charge for

The breach through which old-school “business models” enter with little attention paid to everything else. To the extent that much of the whole piece might crumble from pressure built up by the “beancounter” worldview. Good thing he acknowledges it.

No Office Export in Keynote/Numbers for iPad?

Posted on March 13, 2010 by dispar

To be honest, I’m getting even more excited about the iPad. Not that we get that much more info about it, but:

It’s now clear that it isn’t vapourware.
AT&T’s 3G Data Plans management look even more interesting than expected. (Wishing very hard we’ll get something similar in Canada!)
It’s confirmed that MobileMe will do Remote Swipe on the iPad.
A few more interface elements have been revealed and they make me drift off into dreams, yet again.
And iWork for iPad promises to be a useful set of tools.

For one thing, the Pages for iPad webpage is explicitly stating Word support:

Attach them to an email as Pages files for Mac, Microsoft Word files, or PDF documents.

Maybe this is because Steve Jobs himself promised it to Walt Mossberg?
Thing is, the equivalent pages about Keynote for iPad and about Numbers for iPad aren’t so explicit:

The presentations you create in Keynote on your iPad can be exported as Keynote files for Mac or PDF documents

and…

To share your work, export your spreadsheet as a Numbers file for Mac or PDF document

Not a huge issue, but it seems strange that Apple would have such an “export to Microsoft Office” feature on only one of the three “iWork for iPad” apps. Now, the differences in the way exports are described may not mean that Keynote won’t be able to export to Microsoft PowerPoint or that Numbers won’t be able to export to Microsoft Excel. After all, these texts may have been written at different times. But it does sound like PowerPoint and Excel will be import-only, on the iPad.

Which, again, may not be that big an issue. Maybe iWork.com will work well enough for people’s needs. And some other cloud-based tools do support Keynote. (Though Google Docs and Zoho Show don’t.)

The reason I care is simple: I do share most of my presentation files. Either to students (as resources on Moodle) or to whole wide world (through Slideshare). My desktop outliner of choice, OmniOutliner, exports to Keynote and Microsoft Word. My ideal workflow would be to send, in parallel, presentation files to Keynote for display while on stage and to PowerPoint for sharing. The Word version could also be useful for sharing.

Speaking of presenting “slides” on stage, I’m also hoping that the “iPad Dock Connector to VGA Adapter” will support “presenter mode” at some point (though it doesn’t seem to be the case, right now). I also dream of a way to control an iPad presentation with some kind of remote. In fact, it’s not too hard to imagine it as an iPod touch app (maybe made by Appiction, down in ATX).

To be clear: my “presentation files” aren’t really about presenting so much as they are a way to package and organize items. Yes, I use bullet points. No, I don’t try to make the presentation sexy. My presentation files are acting like cue cards and like whiteboard snapshots. During a class, I use the “slides” as a way to keep track of where I planned the discussion to go. I can skip around, but it’s easier for me to get at least some students focused on what’s important (the actual depth of the discussion) because they know the structure (as “slides”) will be available online. Since I also podcast my lectures, it means that they can go back to all the material.

I also use “slides” to capture things we build in class, such as lists of themes from the readings or potential exam questions. Again, the “whiteboard” idea. I don’t typically do the same thing during a one-time talk (say, at an unconference). But I still want to share my “slides,” at some point.

So, in all of these situations, I need a file format for “slides.” I really wish there were a format which could work directly out of the browser and could be converted back and forth with other formats (especially Keynote, OpenOffice, and PowerPoint). I don’t need anything fancy. I don’t even care about transitions, animations, or even inserting pictures. But, despite some friends’ attempts at making me use open solutions, I end up having to use presentation files.

Unfortunately, at this point, PowerPoint is the de facto standard for presentation files. So I need it, somehow. Not that I really need PowerPoint itself. But it’s still the only format I can use to share “slides.”

So, if Keynote for iPad doesn’t export directly to PowerPoint, it means that I’ll have to find another way to make my workflow fit.

Ah, well…

Why I Need an iPad

Posted on January 28, 2010 by dispar

I’m one of those who feel the iPad is the right tool for the job.

This is mostly meant as a reply to this blogthread. But it’s also more generally about my personal reaction to Apple’s iPad announcement.

Some background.

I’m an ethnographer and a teacher. I read a fair deal, write a lot of notes, and work in a variety of contexts. These days, I tend to spend a good amount of time in cafés and other public places where I like to work without being too isolated. I also commute using public transit, listen to lots of podcast, and create my own. I’m also very aural.

I’ve used a number of PDAs, over the years, from a Newton MessagePad 130 (1997) to a variety of PalmOS devices (until 2008). In fact, some people readily associated me with PDA use.

As soon as I learnt about the iPod touch, I needed one. As soon as I’ve heard about the SafariPad, I wanted one. I’ve been an intense ‘touch user since the iPhone OS 2.0 release and I’m a happy camper.

(A major reason I never bought an iPhone, apart from price, is that it requires a contract.)

In my experience, the ‘touch is the most appropriate device for all sorts of activities which are either part of an other activity (reading during a commute) or are simply too short in duration to constitute an actual “computer session.” You don’t “sit down to work at your ‘touch” the way you might sit in front of a laptop or desktop screen. This works great for “looking up stufff” or “checking email.” It also makes a lot of sense during commutes in crowded buses or metros.

In those cases, the iPod touch is almost ideal. Ubiquitous access to Internet would be nice, but that’s not a deal-breaker. Alternative text-input methods would help in some cases, but I do end up being about as fast on my ‘touch as I was with Graffiti on PalmOS.

For other tasks, I have a Mac mini. Sure, it’s limited. But it does the job. In fact, I have no intention of switching for another desktop and I even have an eMachines collecting dust (it’s too noisy to make a good server).

What I miss, though, is a laptop. I used an iBook G3 for several years and loved it. For a little while later, I was able to share a MacBook with somebody else and it was a wonderful experience. I even got to play with the OLPC XO for a few weeks. That one was not so pleasant an experience but it did give me a taste for netbooks. And it made me think about other types of iPhone-like devices. Especially in educational contexts. (As I mentioned, I’m a teacher)

I’ve been laptop-less for a while, now. And though my ‘touch replaces it in many contexts, there are still times when I’d really need a laptop. And these have to do with what I might call “mobile sessions.”

For instance: liveblogging a conference or meeting. I’ve used my ‘touch for this very purpose on a good number of occasions. But it gets rather uncomfortable, after a while, and it’s not very fast. A laptop is better for this, with a keyboard and a larger form factor. But the iPad will be even better because of lower risks of RSI. A related example: just imagine TweetDeck on iPad.

Possibly my favourite example of a context in which the iPad will be ideal: presentations. Even before learning about the prospect of getting iWork on a tablet, presentations were a context in which I really missed a laptop.

Sure, in most cases, these days, there’s a computer (usually a desktop running XP) hooked to a projector. You just need to download your presentation file from Slideshare, show it from Prezi, or transfer it through USB. No biggie.

But it’s not the extra steps which change everything. It’s the uncertainty. Even if it’s often unfounded, I usually get worried that something might just not work, along the way. The slides might not show the same way as you see it because something is missing on that computer or that computer is simply using a different version of the presentation software. In fact, that software is typically Microsoft PowerPoint which, while convenient, fits much less in my workflow than does Apple Keynote.

The other big thing about presentations is the “presenter mode,” allowing you to get more content than (or different content from) what the audience sees. In most contexts where I’ve used someone else’s computer to do a presentation, the projector was mirroring the computer’s screen, not using it as a different space. PowerPoint has this convenient “presenter view” but very rarely did I see it as an available option on “the computer in the room.” I wish I could use my ‘touch to drive presentations, which I could do if I installed software on that “computer in the room.” But it’s not something that is likely to happen, in most cases.

A MacBook solves all of these problems. and it’s an obvious use for laptops. But how, then, is the iPad better? Basically because of interface. Switching slides on a laptop isn’t hard, but it’s more awkward than we realize. Even before watching the demo of Keynote on the iPad, I could simply imagine the actual pleasure of flipping through slides using a touch interface. The fit is “natural.”

I sincerely think that Keynote on the iPad will change a number of things, for me. Including the way I teach.

Then, there’s reading.

Now, I’m not one of those people who just can’t read on a computer screen. In fact, I even grade assignments directly from the screen. But I must admit that online reading hasn’t been ideal, for me. I’ve read full books as PDF files or dedicated formats on PalmOS, but it wasn’t so much fun, in terms of the reading process. And I’ve used my ‘touch to read things through Stanza or ReadItLater. But it doesn’t work so well for longer reading sessions. Even in terms of holding the ‘touch, it’s not so obvious. And, what’s funny, even a laptop isn’t that ideal, for me, as a reading device. In a sense, this is when the keyboard “gets in the way.”

Sure, I could get a Kindle. I’m not a big fan of dedicated devices and, at least on paper, I find the Kindle a bit limited for my needs. Especially in terms of sources. I’d like to be able to use documents in a variety of formats and put them in a reading list, for extended reading sessions. No, not “curled up in bed.” But maybe lying down in a sofa without external lighting. Given my experience with the ‘touch, the iPad is very likely the ideal device for this.

Then, there’s the overall “multi-touch device” thing. People have already been quite creative with the small touchscreen on iPhones and ‘touches, I can just imagine what may be done with a larger screen. Lots has been said about differences in “screen real estate” in laptop or desktop screens. We all know it can make a big difference in terms of what you can display at the same time. In some cases, two screens isn’t even a luxury, for instance when you code and display a page at the same time (LaTeX, CSS…). Certainly, the same qualitative difference applies to multitouch devices. Probably even more so, since the display is also used for input. What Han found missing in the iPhone’s multitouch was the ability to use both hands. With the iPad, Han’s vision is finding its space.

Oh, sure, the iPad is very restricted. For instance, it’s easy to imagine how much more useful it’d be if it did support multitasking with third-party apps. And a front-facing camera is something I was expecting in the first iPhone. It would just make so much sense that a friend seems very disappointed by this lack of videoconferencing potential. But we’re probably talking about predetermined expectations, here. We’re comparing the iPad with something we had in mind.

Then, there’s the issue of the competition. Tablets have been released and some multitouch tablets have recently been announced. What makes the iPad better than these? Well, we could all get in the same OS wars as have been happening with laptops and desktops. In my case, the investment in applications, files, and expertise that I have made in a Mac ecosystem rendered my XP years relatively uncomfortable and me appreciate returning to the Mac. My iPod touch fits right in that context. Oh, sure, I could use it with a Windows machine, which is in fact what I did for the first several months. But the relationship between the iPhone OS and Mac OS X is such that using devices in those two systems is much more efficient, in terms of my own workflow, than I could get while using XP and iPhone OS. There are some technical dimensions to this, such as the integration between iCal and the iPhone OS Calendar, or even the filesystem. But I’m actually thinking more about the cognitive dimensions of recognizing some of the same interface elements. “Look and feel” isn’t just about shiny and “purty.” It’s about interactions between a human brain, a complex sensorimotor apparatus, and a machine. Things go more quickly when you don’t have to think too much about where some tools are, as you’re working.

So my reasons for wanting an iPad aren’t about being dazzled by a revolutionary device. They are about the right tool for the job.

Disparate

A bilingual blog on disparate subjects. / Un blogue disparate bilingue.

Category Archives: Apple