The Web Is Dead. Long Live the Internet

It’s the same tired argument that has been out since the iPhone and has sped up since the iPad. “Apps” and online video streaming are going to take over the internet and surfing web pages as we know it will cease to exist. Basically Chris is channeling a Steve Jobs presentation (or even plagiarizing one).

As much as we love the open, unfettered Web, we’re abandoning it for simpler, sleeker services that just work. -Chris Anderson

At least he didn’t call the services “magical”.

The graphic showing a shrinking web is hard to ignore, and I heard that 95% of online stats aren’t made up or distorted.

The reasons to scoff at head editor Chris Anderson as a moron?

1. The diagram is from 1995 (i.e. 7 years before most people used the internet), to 2005 (i.e. half a decade ago, 2 years before Job’s iPhone app revolution).
In Chris’s defense, 2005 was before the magical apps and services Chris describes even existed so they wouldn’t show yet.
2. “Web” is used here for a general catch-all that fits alot of very different and dynamic services.
3. Anybody with an office job knows that email rules the word. Even including spam it shows up non-existent on this graph. Pointing to how this graph doesn’t reflect reality of the web.
4. Apps and services are just a frontend to parse web data. The web is still there, you’re just using a very specialized browser to access it. The Facebook app is nothing without the Facebook itself.
5. The MAIN problem with the graph is that it is a measurement of bits of traffic and not representative of the web experience.

Text on the internet is the smallest part of it. This entire article takes up the same space as a 1”x1” image. On a boring static webpage the images take up 90% of the space. To put this in perspective in 2006 Wikipedia (the entire thing) was 1.2 Terabytes in size; the whole thing could fit on one large hard drive (can you say real life HHG2G?).

Videos on the internet take up MUCH more space than anything else, especially if you’re watching a HQ youtube or hulu stream. 10 minutes of HQ youtube will pass as much traffic as all the surfing you’ll do on Wikipedia for the next few months.

Suddenly the above graph makes much more sense. Even if online video made up 90% of web traffic it would still mean that more time online is spent just surfing the web. And this is why it’s shocking the editor of Wired Magazine wrote this article, it horrible mis-represents the data provided by Cisco about web traffic. Much more useful would be how much time people spend on different web sites. However that’s much harder to measure.

Amazingly people seem to be really interested in the Courier, especially since the iPad turned out to be a big iPhone touch without flash. The big question is why?

First off is that the interface is much more different than existing interface on laptops and smartphones; I think this is what people were expecting from the iPad. There is naturally going to be some interesting things you can do with two screens that you can’t do with one. Although at home I’ve found the only thing I use a second screen for is to watch TV and get distracted while I’m trying to do real work on the other screen.

Matt Buchanan at Gizmodo seems a bit negative on the “devolution” of the device now that the iPad is out; maybe hoping against all hope that a device created by crazy Ballmer won’t turn out to be the Mac fan’s dream. But he makes a good point that the graphical interface that Courier seems to have a ton of complex hand gestures to operate. This is actually one of my gripes about the iPad is that it’s rumored to have a ton of new but needlessly complex touch gestures to do simple tasks that can be better served with simpler inputs. But when it’s on an iPad its revolutionary, when it’s on a MS device its needlessly complex (reality is it will suck on both).

As far as inputs are concerned I also like that it is going to have a stylus input. So much of the tech community seems to be anti-stylus now ever since the iPhone dropped it for big giant buttons that take up 1/4 of the screen. It’s actually a great interface and perfect for a tablet sized device. You don’t see lawyers and doctors walking around with notepad jabbing big giant crayons or markers onto the page. When you have a small interface you need some to do fine work.

I think the main draw for the courier and the reason why people seem so optimistic about it is that from the concepts it looks like it’s built to actually be used as a tool to make you more productive. Seriously, it’s cool that Microsoft sees this as a something that can do something other than watch youtube videos in bed. I think that either consciously or subconsciously the current zeitgeist in the handheld tech world is that we want something that that can make us better at doing actual work and not a recreational product. We’ve had enough fun with the fart apps and the smartphone lightsaber duels that with a larger device we want something that can be use to make work easier or at least less chaotic.

The very design of the courier makes it more work related than recreation; it’s hard to imagine using it in a traditional tablet use like watching videos or surfing the web with that split down the screen. However I’ve noticed that the interface is really only good for graphics artists or people who are making ads for Nike. 99% of my work involves punching things in with a keyboard, either writing, programming, or configuring via command line. Still coming from the PDA side of handhelds vs. feature rich dumbphones I really want a device that is suited towards productivity, kind of like how I’m really tempted to trade my phones for a Dell Mini 5.

However on the recreational side the courier would make a great e-reader being about the same size and form of a medium book. Engadget is even guessing that Microsoft is positioning this as their e-reader solution. And contrary to what some misguided people say I believe that the page by page form factor is the perfect way to read (but not with changing pages with stupid finger swipes on a screen). Reading really needs a break every few paragraphs for the mind to take a breath. I’m sure you’re seen a page online that was just a huge long scroll of text that went on far longer than you could bother to read. If you haven’t seen anything like that check out some of my older posts and some upcoming posts (or this post come to think of it).

Anyway the Courier really looks to be all that we had hoped that Steve might have made the iPad into. At the very least its’ another innovative and new product that Microsoft seems to be toying with. After a decade of being fat and lazy while the upstarts stole market share it looks like they could hit a few home runs out of the park this year and make 2010 the year of Microsoft. Or Windows Phone 7 could fizzle and this concept never become reality. We won’t know for sure until we actually some them hit the streets.

Everything I said when it was announced still holds true as much as it did half a year ago.
iTunes LP (possibly Cocktail) fails

The final reason this won’t work is that it doesn’t solve the core reason that people online only buy music a track at a time. People are sick of 2-3 good tracks and 10 “filler tracks” that are unwanted.

For getting people to buy LP’s instead of individual tracks EVERY full album purchase on iTunes should come like this by default at the normal album price. This is what iTunes should have been doing from the get-go to entice us into putting up with those 10 filler tracks. As a more expensive version of an normal track only album it’s not worth it.

On a side note I think Sekai Camera was one of the few Augumented reality apps that developed well. The comments places were far more location specific than Layar’s display.

By finding your location with nearby WiFi Access Points. Not such a big deal on iPhone since it has GPS but it just shows how useful a tool it is.

I think pulling all Porn and high Flesh to Clothing ratio apps is a little draconian but fair from a company point of view. However apps that help you find WiFi access points is a useful tool when mobile. Especially for a device that can be seriously limited if 3G reception is poor or you have an older phone with no 3G.

Porn apps are useless, and if Apple really wanted to make a statement and fix their image they’d pull all the fart apps. But legitimate apps that make a mobile phone a useful tool should be the apps to reward not remove.

It’s funny because everybody is always saying that the App Ecosystem that Apple has made with the iPhone is its greatest strength. But in reality the ecosystem is poisoned, and it’s only getting worse.

Talk about amazing prescience to coming events. Yesterday Mosspuppet ranted on the US Patent office’s asinine actions in granting Facebook a patent for “The Feed” and went on to talk about how it’s bad for business when companies make generalized patents to stifle competitor innovation (video below).

Today Apple filed suit with HTC for violating their patents.

If you’ve ever read the stream of patents that Apple constantly files it’s pretty obvious what is going on. Apple is basically working to patent every idea they have, in most cases things that they have never done and never will do. Just whatever random ideas they have that sound like good ideas. While I think putting patents on your creations is a good idea I think it’s a real dick move to patent an idea you never actually created. Then when somebody come a along and makes that idea a reality you shouldn’t be allowed to take them to court for innovating and creating something never existed.

Abstract idea patents in themselves are pretty bad to begin with; if it doesn’t exist you shouldn’t be allowed to patent it. The “we may do it someday.” argument doesn’t work. I dreamed of airplanes that flew into space full of passengers when I was 5; I shouldn’t be allowed to patent the idea so I could sue Virgin Galactic now.

There’s also the idea of putting a patent on something that is s basic many people have the same idea. Here’s some of the Apple ones involved in the HTC issue from the excellent breakdown at Engadget.

- Patent 7,362,331: Patents transition effect of opening or closing a window in a browser when it moves at a non-linear speed. Most modern browsers do this.
- Patent 7,469,381: Patents the effect of scrolling to the end of a list and having it snap back to the end with a little elastic bounce.
- Patent 5,920,726: Patents controlling the power usage of a device component to save battery power. Every hand-held device in the world does this.
- Patent 5,929,852: I believe this patents using an application to access an online database like most iPhones apps, all Google resources, and many desktop apps developed in the 90’s onward.

One famous Apple patent is the idea of “Multi-touch”; interacting with a screen with more than one input is a basic idea and one that existed before Apple popularized it. But Apple has the patent, and now that more devices have it they want their cut of the income others are making with this basic idea.

In fact one commenter on Engadget pointed out that Apple held off suing other companies using multi-touch for years until they had all established it as a common use and made loads of money off it so as to maximize Apple’s gain when they finally lashed out with their lawyer armies.

In the end all I have to say is that I agree with Walt Mosspuppet. It’s stupid to grant these vague patents and detestable for companies to use them as clubs to beat on competitors that are innovating in the market.

Apple isn’t doing this out of fairness, they’re not doing this because they’re losing money, and they’re not doing this to improve the market for their consumers. It is a purely selfish move to solidify their market lead, and leach money from the companies struggling to compete. And the people who suffer most are the consumers, the innovation in technology, and the free market itself.

Firstly, I agree that the UI looks absolutely beautiful for properly bringing together Social Media info, Games, Music, and Photos. Even Jesus Diaz, one of the big pro-iPhone fans on Gizmodo is saying that “Microsoft Has Out-Appled Apple” and I agree 100%.

They do a really good job of pulling in info from multiple disparate sources and putting them together nicely on their “hubs” this very idea is basically what many people think the future of computing will entail; instead of separate apps for each outlet it can all come together in one place.

And it looks so advanced compared to iPhone with good reason. iPhone is still the basic app menu homescreen it has been for the last 3 years; Windows Mobile has always been derided because it seems sold compared to iPhone. Now Microsoft has leap fogged Apple and makes iPhone look like it is, an interface design that is nearly a third of a decade old.

And here is my first problem with Windows Phone 7 (WP7), I didn’t like how restrictive iPhone was. When it’s apps came out it got better but it’s still what Apple wants you to do and nothing else. WP7 is starting to look like the exact same thing. Microsoft’s integration of Social Media, Games, and Photos is damn near perfect; however I shun social media, never use my phone for games (I don’t even have an xbox 360 and no live account), and I think photos taken from phones are a waste where a real camera should have been used.

The only thing in Microsoft’s hubs I’d really use is Zune. And when I tried Zune out on my computer I hated it; it’s the last thing I want to be FORCED to sync music through. It’s as bad as iTunes but with a different look.

And a lot of the nasty rumors that I think are no-gos for a phone for me are now official are pretty much a given.

No custom skinning by third party manufacturers (HTC Sense, Toshiba 3D, TAT Home).
Apps only come through Windows Marketplace.
No Backward Compatibility for old programs.
Limited Multitasking.
Possibly no stylus support.
Possibly no keyboard.
Possibly no COPY AND PASTE!
Yes, TechCrunch hinted at limited to no C&P. Although that’s not certain at all.

My gripes with the phone are the same as my iPhone gripes. For all the slick, pretty, shock and awe interface stuff at the end of the day I want functionality. Unfortunately all the WP7 functionality seems to be focused on helping you waste time on social media, or waste time playing games, or waste time staring at pictures (I’m single with no kids, I understand this sentiment changes with children).

I came from PDAs, for me my phone is a computer in my pocket, a resource I can look up important data, keep my life in order with PIM applications, track when I’ve spent too much time on a subject and need to move on, translate info or languages I don’t know, remotely connect to server resources I don’t have direct access to, etc. Just about every use I’m going to have for my smartphone are things that don’t exist on the WP7 phone as it stands. They’re going to need to create a lot of apps to be able to keep up with the functionality of my Windows Mobile 6.5 phone.

So ironically it looks like I may be transitioning to Android in the near future to have a phone that is diverse as the Windows Phone I have now. However it’s too early to tell on anything, so many amazing things are happening in the handheld device space this year that all we can do is wait.

The only current phone up for play is the Nexus One that looks like a killer Android device. The HTC HD2 isn’t released yet but may be the pinnacle of what Windows Mobile reached before moving to WP7. Dell is creating a smartphone-tablet transitional with the Mini 5 that looks incredibly tempting if I can justify carrying around something that big. Windows Phone 7 Series deivces will be dropping by fall. And by time all players are onstage Apple with have the iPhone 4G shipping.

The future looks bright but difficult if you’re shopping for a new toy but undecided like me.

So what I’ve been hoping for is a way to make my netbook into a convertible tablet. Then it can be both my mobile computer and a tablet computer. I don’t have much of a “gap” in my life but at the same time I want to do more than my smartphone can but not have to worry about whipping out the netbook.

Tablet computers are generally great but always just a hair too big to truly be portable. I’ve moved away from full laptops and onto netbooks because of this. For a laptop you need a good protective carrying case, and due to power constraints you usually have to haul a tangle of power cables as well. Pretty soon you’re carrying a backpack full of equipment to the coffee shop an pretending it’s mobile; because while it’s more mobile than a desktop, it’s certainly not as convenient as pulling a phone out of your pocket.

The apple tablet is almost the same size as my netbook and a good midrange size but at times even that netbook is a bit big. You can’t put it in your pocket on the way out the door, I keep mine in a neoprene case that is about the size of a dayplanner a “go-getter” from the late 90’s would carry around. But it’s still got to be carried by hand, plus a coffee in the other hand and I’m suddenly helpless to do simple things like open doors.

That’s why the Dell Mini 5 (aka streak, M01M) caught my eye. It pushes the limit of fitting in a pocket and is basically a smartphone, but it’s optimized to all the non-phone functions of a smartphone.

I’m a long time PDA fan going all the way back to 2000 when I got a Handspring Visor upto the Dell Axim X51v I had right before I switched to smartphones, so carrying a dedicated computing device in my pocket isn’t really a stretch for me. The only change is the addition of a phone, and while I don’t want to hold a Dell Mini5 to my ear (I think the iPhone is too big) it’s really easy to have a Bluetooth headset you can pop into your ear when you get a call. I actually prefer this because I can talk hands free and take notes on the device in my hands, or continue doing any work while the conversation if beamed from my ear to the slate in my jeans and out to the phone network.

In fact 99% of my phone usage is non-phone related, it’s all the computing features that I usually use, from quick text messages, to music, to video, to web surfing and reading. So having a larger than smartphone screen would be really helpful.

This would be made even better if the Locus OS concept by Barton Smith.

Locus OS Interface from Barton Smith on Vimeo.

Locus basically works like a device that customizes its interface and options based on the job at hand. I first noticed this idea and got excited about it when the Motorola Droid was coming out. The idea was a car kit where the smartphone automatically switched to in car GPS mode when connected to the kit.

As a concept it’s great and would pair perfectly with a device of the Dell Mini 5’s size, imagine a phone that worked like a secondary screen/controller when docked to your computer. Would switch to a universal remote when in front of your entertainment system and could minimize to a web browser to lookup imdb or wiki info while watching. Then when you went out to your car and plugged it into the car kit it would become a GPS and pump music to the stereo. Or if you ride the bus or trains it would become a PMP and play movies or podcasts for the ride.

I love the fact that all these is possible right now and is little more than a few lines of programmer code from reality. The only remaining question is if any company will have the forethought to make it real, and if I can stand holding a 5” phone to my head to make calls on days I forgot to carry a separate headset.

Almost everybody assumed that iTunes would integrate lala’s 1 full play, then 30 seconds for every replay after that. However:

Lala will play a critical role in Apple’s music future, but not for the reasons cited above. Lala’s licenses with major labels are non-transferable, so they’re not usable for any new iTunes service. The 10 cent song rental model never gained traction and does not cover mobile devices thus is of little value to Apple.

That is an excellent point.

I am was a long time lala user and when the new streaming features came I really wasn’t interested in it. Last.fm handles all my music streaming, and even Pandora has a better service IMHO. Lala is a bit more on demand but I don’t like taking the time to make playlists and usually listen to my own music on shuffle anyway. Last thing I’m going to do is rent songs for 10 cents.

And the fact that the streaming license doesn’t carryover is something I totally overlooked. Of course the big labels would never let their music be streamed free over the net to a mobile device, it’s so obvious now that it was never a possibility.

That just leaves the odd ability for lala to work as a cloud storage for your personal music as a potential benefit to Apple.

When this first came out on lala I was skeptical about the legalities and the privacy concerns for individuals uploading the music. Here’s how it works (or how it worked when they rolled it out).

Everybody doesn’t upload their full collections. There doesn’t need to be 1.5 million copies of “Toxic” by Britney Spears, just one copy that is registered to 1.5 million people. So when you’re uploading your music you’re really only uploading what music isn’t already in the cloud, it makes things easier on lala and is actually quite logical. Much like multicast vs. broadcast it makes use of the design of the internet to make more optimal use of data. Unless the uploaded copy is crap, in which case everybody with good music is forced to make do with bad music because somebody didn’t know how to rip.

All this works great if you listen to top 40 radio. If you’re like me and 20,000 of your 40,000 songs are from overseas and not available in the US, you’ll be uploading a lot of music. Which is how I found out that you can only upload 5000 songs before it quits (hopefully they removed this cap, or else you may only have A-C of your library in the cloud).

Add to this the fact that the lala software didn’t ask me to upload my music, it just assumed and started uploading without my consent. Now we see where my legality suspicions come in.

-First off I’m not sure from their description but they made it should like this pool of uploaded music was where their streaming service pulls from. Thus if I upload a Japanese indie band that is not available anywhere online, lala now has a copy and can stream their music in the radio (in addition to me and others who “upload” their libraries).

-Second, it seemed shady to take peoples music without their knowing. It’s like what got Kazaa shut down but in reverse, automatic sharing.

-Third a lot of people have music on their computer that they didn’t acquire legally. So if I rip my legally purchased copy of “Cosmogenesis” by Obscura, another person with a downloaded copy will be able to listen to my nice legal rip free of charge. Also people who download illegal music will be able to upload it to lala for themselves and others to listen to, thus lala is streaming illegal music.

The first point may not be illegal based of the way music royalties are paid, which contrary to logic or common knowledge is so backwards and double handed that it makes RIAA’s arguments against piracy seem incredibly hypocritical. So long as you pay your royalty to Sound Exchange you can play any music you want no matter what or who the artist is because theoretically the artist should get paid for it (but often doesn’t).

The second and third point may get under peoples skin when it comes to privacy. Basically lala’s cloud storage is creating a giant list of what music you have, and previously was doing this even without your knowledge. If a virus ran without your knowledge and catalogued your system’s files, then uploaded the info to a private business to use for their monetary gain would you approve of the action?

This doesn’t really bother me, but the “Tin Foil Hat” part of me doesn’t want to give that info out to a company. Especially a company that is so desperate to keep its license for streaming that it may make a deal with the record industry to share its database of ownership.

That is that valuable market research data that I don’t like being given away without letting me wet my beak with the money it makes. And imagine if you’re unfortunate enough to be one of those people who are served with a cease and desist or are sued for illegal downloading. A simple subpoena to lala and the record industry has proof that not only were you on a torrent tracker for a new album, but you downloaded it, kept it, and listen to it regularly.

Still, for apple to harness the power of every iPod, iPad, and iTunes connected device into a giant online cloud of accessible music is a massive achievement. This doesn’t just cement its position as a media provider it sets Apple up to be the media hub for the distribution of content to the world.

Considering that advertising while distributing is traditional media’s bread and butter this has to be have content holders shaking in their boots. Or at least they will when they realized that jobs can clinch even more control than he has now.

With the big news just a week or so away I wanted to get all this down and time stamped so I could play “How right was I?” later on.
90% or more = Minority Report Precogs
75% or more = Nostradamus
50% or more = Miss Cleo
25% or more = Nicholas Cage in that stupid movie where he sees 2 minutes into the future.

My Apple iPad predictions:

1. Name, iPad. I predicted this a few months ago based off the Padd Star Trek TNG reference. It’s silly but logical. And maybe true now???

2. 10” screen plus or minus a fraction of an inch.

3. No OLED

4. Thickness of .5 inch or less.

5. WiFi + Bluetooth. WiFi may required for certain web streaming features (to appease service providers)

6. iPhone to iPad Bluetooth tethering so that people don’t need to get a second data plan.

7. Optional 3G slot in case people want data only plan but don’t have iPhone.

8. MicroSD slot for storage expansion.

9. No USB ports. Dock/charger only. Headphone jack of course.

10. No video out. HDMI would have been awesome but “content must be controlled”

11. Front facing camera and mic for internet video calls. Well if a netbook can pull it off why not the iPad?

12. iPhone based OS, possibly identical to phone OS (think of version 4 being updated to handle resolutions larger than the iPhone but otherwise basically the same).

13. iPad will be able to handle HD video, but screen will likely be only capable of 720p (1280×768). 1080p will be shrunk to fit.

14. Main focus of the iPad will be multimedia. Video, music, TV (through appleTV or something, no integrated tuner), games, and e-reader stuff like magazines and newspapers. Major emphasis on video and games, secondary emphasis on e-reader functions.

15. iPad will also have full internet browsing functionality, not just iPhone optimized screens.

16. iPad will have Flash support. This will be a main focus of the device unveiling.

17. App store will allow apps that run on both, but existing apps would obviously need to be updated for larger interface. The store will list iPad compatible apps, so you will have iPhone only, iPad only, and both.

18. Non-iPad apps will run in a small interface, or 1/4 screen or something. With the Os so similar it’d be so easy to do that if Apple doesn’t it will be a missed opertunity.

Future Predictions in the week that follows announcement:

19. Jobs will hype phone to tablet tethering like he invented the idea. Although the reality is because people barely tolerate the plan prices on the iPhone alone and won’t spring for another data plan for a tablet.

20. High DPI (149 DPI by above HD resolution) will cause people to say “It’s the most beautiful screen on a portable device” even though many smartphones do better (mine has a DPI of 285, iPhone has 164).

21. In commercials and press images there will be many pictures of people in bed with their knees up and the iPad on their thighs. This is the only comfortable way to watch movies on a tablet for very long. Otherwise you may as well use a normal screen.

22. Everybody will ignore the elephant in the room that typing on the iPad soft keyboard screen is a bitch and a half. You not only have to set the tablet down on a flat surface, but the glare makes typing hard unless you hover directly over the tablet.

23. Similarly, people who badmouthed cramped keyboards on netbooks will be mum on the fact that two handed “ASDF JKL;” typing is hard as fuck on a touchscreen. But won’t stop touting that apple’s error correction algorithm makes up for it.

24. Apple’s typing error correction algorithm will be great and people will wish normal keyboards had it.

25. People will wail and moan how cool “augmented reality” would have been if the iPad had included a camera on the back.

26. Regardless of anything bad about it it will sell like hotcakes and become the bar upon which all tablets are measured.

27. I will continue to bad mouth the over-hyping of the iPad even though I post way too much on it. Hey, even I realize it will be a game changer, even if I don’t like it

And on that note I’m out (hopefully this is my last post on the damned thing till we actually see it).

Edited to add numbers. Predictions weren’t edited.

Basically he’s saying that the 3.5’ iPhone and 10” iPad define what people want so if any company comes out with something different from the mold they must be idiots.

I may be putting words in his mouth a bit but read it yourself; it’s very much to the tune that anything to different from apple is destined to fail. In other words don’t “Think Different”.

And from a sales perspective he may be right, PMP’s and small computing devices have traditionally sold like crap. A lot of people think this may even be the failing point with the Apple Tablet since so nobody has been able to make that form factor mainstream except maybe the Kindle.

But he makes a lot of the same wrong assumptions that other tech journalists have been making; let’s break a few down.

Small size and small price are coming together.

First off is the general ideal that PMPs are always destined to fail; while this has traditionally been true times are a changn’. Netbooks and smartphones have created a perfect storm for the era of the PMP and mid sized computing devices.

Historically it was very expensive to shrink full computers into sub-laptop sizes; nobody did it with much success other than a few expensive Sony devices. And then you’re stuck with a slow computer that costs more than a laptop. However now people realize that when mobile they don’t need full gaming computer functionality, just the basics of your average office computing and internet surfing. Average processing power and good battery life can now pack more feature than you need into a tablet sized device.

Second people didn’t think they needed advanced capabilities in a portable device. I remember showing my HTC Wizard to friends in 2005 and how I could surf the internet from anywhere in the US without a computer. Their reply was, “Why would I surf the net on such a small screen? All I need my phone to do is make calls and send texts.”
Two full years later the iPhone came out and now the same people rave about how much they can do with it. People want more than SMS in their pocket now.

Usage and interface

I’m not sure exactly what the draw is to small-screen devices like this. With phones and PMPs, the idea is that you operate them like an iPod: in your palm, with your thumb or the index finger of your other hand. Usually there is one point of contact, so UIs are designed around that.

Actually I use mine “Blackberry Style” thumb typing. Since my phone has a slide out keyboard it spends more time in landscape than in one hand stabbing at it with an index finger.

5” and 6” are the PERFECT size for this.

I could kind of do it with my 9” netbook but it was awkward. If you want to type on a 10” device you need to set it on your lap or something.

Optical track nubbins? Stylii? You’ll never break through with that kind of anti-fun going on with your device

I think anti-stylus sentiment is the mark of somebody without much imagination, or more likely just an iPhone junkie. If a stylus is REQUIRED for input it sucks donkey balls. But if it compliments a touch screen interface as a secondary input it’s far superior to a fat finger, much like adding a touch screen interface to a desktop OS is a nice added feature. It’s nice to have the alternative to use a stylus for delicate work, which is needed on small touchscreens no matter how nice the finger interface is. Plus my current phone has double the resolution of the iPhone in a .7” smaller screen, so a stylus allow much greater interaction when drawing or writing. When I quick sketch a diagram in One Note it doesn’t look like a 3 year old’s fingerpainting.

The reason I can play XCOM:UFO defense on my phone is thanks to the stylus. On an iPhone or finger only phone you don’t have the precision for RPG gaming. It also makes complex kanji on my Japanese input possible.

Most people bash WinMo because things like the close button are too small to hit without a stylus. But this isn’t true, you can still fat finger the button and the software estimates the center of pressure, just like capacitive phones. I’ve been thinking of making a video just to put online so that people can see that the difference between capacitive and resistive is minute.

People say putting a full desktop OS on a tablet will cause the same problem but it’s mind numbingly easy to remedy that, even without skinning the phone with a new interface. Just adjust the fonts size and accessibility settings and you can make those icons big enough that any monkey can hit them with their finger.

I agree, Apple WILL define what a tablet is…

…But I think it’s a bad thing. They’re under powering the tablet with a Phone OS. Many including Devin are already setting up Apple for the win by trying to convince people that this is a good thing and that only a 10” Apple iPhone Tablet can truly be defined as a tablet.

Other tablet-like products out there — convertibles, Windows 7 tablets, MIDs, high-end smartphones — either shrunk the desktop OS or added some functionality to a mobile one. So you’ve got a TG02 with a nice big 4″ screen (it’s gorgeous) — is that a tablet because it’s bigger than any other smartphone? No, it runs WinMo. Similarly, is a 6″ MID running XP a tablet? No, because XP and its applications aren’t tablet-friendly; maybe 7 is more so, but it’s still a desktop OS at heart.

Guess what Devin, Apple is likely going to be running iPhone OS on their tablet. So will this be a tablet because it’s bigger than the iPhone? By Devin’s own criteria, no, it’s just an iPhone, albeit a big frickin iPhone (I’m sure to him because it’s a still a tablet because a 10” iPhone is different than a 10” WinMo).

Using a full desktop OS on a 10” screen isn’t hard, many people have done it before in the days when VGA graphics and 13” screens were the standard on the desktop. Most people used XP on screens that had less resolution that many new tablets have. Squeezing that into a tablet isn’t a bad thing, and now that Desktop OS’s are a bit better at scaling to different screen sizes you can easily make icons finger friendly.

However many people are mistakenly thinking that tapping an icon is gong the way of the Dodo and multi-touch swipe gestures are the new thing. This is a load of crap, add too many types of gestures to learn and it’s no longer intuitive. Tap and Double tap make sense, pinch zoom is good, even two finger scrolling makes sense. But when you have “three fingers rotated 1/4 counter-clockwise while swiping up to maximize” you’ve gone too far.

When I say Apple will define the tablet, I mean that literally: it’s going to create definition. It’s actually much the same as with the iPhone: a stagnant device class with lots of potential, weighed down by traditional UI and input elements. Apple comes in like Alexander and cuts the Gordian Knot, defining an entirely different experience that resonates with consumers. Apple didn’t create the smartphone, but smartphones are now defined in terms of the iPhone.

And again I agree but while it excites Devin it saddens me the same way the iPhone’s popularity did.

The phone I had BEFORE the iPhone was released was a more capable device, it literally was a computer that was shrunk down to fit in my pocket. The PDAs I had before that were even more capable, the Dell x51 had a larger screen than an iPhone, double the resolution, a separate 3D graphics acceleration chip. I could telnet into routers through WiFi, stream music and video across my network, play games, surf the net, sniff and hack wireless APs. The only thing it was missing was a 3G mobile phone connection (and GPS but that’s less important).

iPhone came and set a standard but it set the bar low, unlike PDAs which were shrunken computers the iPhone was just a beefed up feature phone. Even now with the app store I’m frustrated with how limited they are in the way of capabilities and the locked down nature of or the OS itself, you can’t customize anything. At least if you don’t like Windows Mobile you can load a thirdparty program that skins it into an interface you like.

With the tablet Apple is looking to do the same. We can fit the full features of a desktop OS in a tablet, my Netbook runs Win7 professional for goodness sake. Why in the name of all that is wonderful would Apple port the already limited iPhone OS into it?! Even adding a few features like Flash, HD video, and a full browser doesn’t make up for it if it can’t be customized into MY device. It will always be what Steve wants to you to use.

“But Dustin! You will have more multitouch gestures to memorize use!”

Meh. I’d give up pinch zoom if it meant I could copy/paste install my own apps, or customize the interface.
Or synch with third party software.
Or interact with open source frameworks.
Or add software that uses hardware on the phone.
Or add software that improves upon the phone’s software…

Apple announced that it had sold over 3 billion apps in their app store.

Pro-Apple blogs and iPhone fanboys proceeded to download their favorite fart app or lightsaber app and have impromptu iPhone saber duels (also known as an “iPhone circle jerk”). More level-headed people have overlooked the announcement the same way we overlook the fact that McDonalds is always bragging about “billions served”.

Who cares how many have been sold. The hamburgers still taste like shit.

Edit: Thank god I’m not the only one tired of seeing hipsters show off the latest popular app waste of money.

However even though they’ve come along way since the initial lame Asus 7” 4GB XP driven machines, they’ve still got a little ways to go before they reach their full potential. The frustrating thing is that all the technology for creating the ultimate netbook/mobile computer is available, but for whatever reasons it’s not currently being marketed.

There are a slew of new netbooks coming out now that the pinetrail chips are finally being released but they’re not really stepping up the capabilities of netbooks, it’s just a minor power efficiency upgrade.

So here’s my wish list to create the perfect netbook, and as I alluded above, this is something that is do-able, not some half sci-fi wishlist of a computer with direct to brain interface that is the size of a pen the expands to the size of a desktop with glassy Minority report multi-touch capabilities.

First of all let’s get a starting point with a current netbook. I have an Asus 1005HA, I love it and it’s great, there are just a few things that need upgrading. However in less than 30 days it will supplanted with a new version, so as our foundation let’s use its replacement the 1005PE.

Features that we’ll keep:
1. 10” screen. 9” leads to a keyboard too small for frequent use. 11” leads to a device where its size discourages casually carrying it around; which is the main flaw to using a fullsize laptop as a second computer. If it’s so heavy and bulky you don’t use it, it’s worthless.
2. 1024×600 resolution. This doesn’t need to be upgraded, the screen is small enough that higher resolution is unneeded (but I wouldn’t complain about a small upgrade either…).
3. 802.11n wireless. I don’t have N at home but the natural upgrade from G so it’s nice to future proof my wireless capabilities. I’m sure most free wifi points will make the same upgrade in the future.
4. Bluetooth. I don’t use it frequently but it’s so cheap and small to integrate that it should be there. ESPECIALLY for a mobile unit.
4. Hard Drive storage. Solid state is cool but the benefits don’t outweigh the price, there is little or no difference in speed and battery life. Most importantly is size, when you’re mobile you don’t want to have to carry a bunch of external drives, you want all your music, movies, and programs fully on disk.
5. SD Card reader. I hardly use it but it’s nice to have just in case.
6. Camera+mic. I think these should be standard in mobile devices, thanks to Mac for making a camera above the screen common.
6. Touchpad, headphone+mic, 3 USB, etc. Pretty much standard in all mobile computers and for good reason.

Feature that need upgrading:
1. 10/100/1000 Ethernet port. Ok people it’s time to start upgrading everything to gigabit, 10/100 was tolerable for the first decade of the millennium but it won’t be for the second. Even if you don’t always use it having it there for the times you do makes up for the additional $3 manufacturing costs that it takes to install it.
2. 2GB RAM standard. Non-ultra light Linux OS’s shouldn’t be shoe-horned into 1GB. I’d require that every current netbook start shipping with 2GB as well. The added performance is worth the price.
3 VGA+ HDMI out. HDMI needs to be added with the HD playback capabilities below.

NEW Features:
1. High def playback from NVIDA Ion chipset.
Even if the screen can’t playback high def the computer needs to be able to play high def content and down-process for the screen (I’m not reformatting all my HD content just to play it on a computer). And it needs to be able to export the HD video to an external screen through the HDMI port. This way the tiny netbook becomes a mobile player when out and about. I was hoping the new pinetrail chips from Intel would support HD video but all they do is take the low output integrated graphics and move them onboard. So a separate Nvidia Ion chip needs to be added.

!!!!This is worth the extra cost and lower battery life!!!!

Best scenario would be software that runs normal low graphics intensive programs through the PineTrail and only fires up the GPU for high intensity processing.

2. Netbook to Tablet Conversion.
This is really icing on the cake but a netbook that has a rotating screen that can become a tablet will allow it to bridge two close but separate markets. A netbook that can convert becomes a netbook+tablet+PMP+ebook all in one. That makes this another feature that would be worth the higher price for the conversion.

Regardless of the Apple rumors tablets target=blank>are coming. But most are using low complexity OS’s not full bodied computer OS’s like Windows, OSX, and Linux. A netbook can not just tap into this market but be at the top of it by the added capabilities given by a full OS, keyboard, and traditional computer. This would also involve upgrading the screen to a touch screen for more complex interaction whiule in netbook mode.

3. A fingerprint reader.
Ok this one doesn’t really need to be there, but on business laptops like the Lenovo T60 laptops it was a really cool feature for locking and unlocking a computer. For mobile devices that may be accidentally left in a public place some added security locking is a nice touch.

It pay upwards of $700 for a 1005PE with added Ion and swivel screen. But even the Ion addition should be in netbooks. The few that have it are 12” or larger, however those of us with smaller screens still want to watch our HD movies without converting all of them. Or god forbid watch a flash video without it freezing up the system.

Not technically a web page, it would seem that Bing is injecting this data right into its results to make sure the user gets what they’re looking for. And that’s great, especially considering that Microsoft, of course, has a rival app store with Windows Marketplace. And their store contains many of the same apps that yield App Store results on Bing, such as Facebook and AIM .

First off I agree with him that it’s smart for Bing to put an emphasis on iPhone apps because the iPhone is so popular that when many people who are searching for “facebook app” are searching for the iPhone facebook app. In fact most people that search for “*blank* app” are looking for iPhone apps. There are a few more smartphone options out there but most people searching for those are smart enough to know that app means apple and will search for “Facebook windows mobile” or “Facebook android”.

However this isn’t some concession where MS is giving in to Apple. If you want a search to be the best you try to give people what they want first. Pushing your sponsored crap over what a person is actually looking for makes for a negative search experience.

Siegler tries to play this off as if Bing is advertising it’s competitor as if this were some fanboy face off. He is completely wrong that the Apple iTunes App store is a competitor with windows Market Place. Apple iPhone apps don’t work on non-apple phones and Windows Mobile apps don’t work on iPhone. The Phones themselves may be in competition with each other but once you got one or the other you don’t have the option of choosing between the two app stores. The stores are not competitors, if somebody already has an iPhone they’re not going to be shopping your store. But you can still cash in by getting some search revenue off them. And imagine if the iTunes App store had an affiliate option like amazon where somebody could get money for referring a sale to them (I know stop laughing. We know that Apple would never thing of letting others in on their action!)

Making a big deal about this is trying to pit MS against Apple where no competition exists making it a non-issue. Although it does make for an interesting social commentary on how people feel the need to create an “Us vs. Them” situation.

On a related note I’ve set my firefox search box to Bing instead of Google to try it out. There was a blog post somewhere where somebody mentioned how Bing was a decent search engine that is automatically looked over since Google is just assumed to be the defacto best. I figured it was worth giving Bing a try to see that if once I’m past the “This is odd and not what I’m comfortable to” phase if it will be a decent search engine.

Additional, Additional: Don’t search for “Bing” with google’s image safe search set to “off”.

Now all my trading is mostly on Swap-A-CD and MusicBoomerang but not nearly as much as I traded on lala.

What’s interesting is that lala fueled my collector nature and got me a to go out an purchase 1000+ physical CDs, the ones that music labels make all their money off. The ones that are steadily decreasing now because online track sales though iTunes and it’s brethren are outpacing them.

How ironic that lala that once touted itself as a method for keeping physical music moving and supporting artists in that way is potentially getting into bed with iTunes the force that many people attribute with destroying the age of the physical CD.

Just food for thought.

A picture of my current collection while I was putting it in order.

The good:

1. DRM free, high quality tracks.

2. Music videos (however, not sure how many).

The Bad:

1. No DRM but iTunes only. It might as well be DRM if you can’t play with anything but iTunes.

2. 256kbps AAC is good but not lossless. If it costs more and its meant to be a full LP it should have all the same benefits as buying a physical LP.
3. Costs more for the same things you get free through other sources like last.fm.
4. Not portable.
5. Bad implementation. Hijacks your iTunes.

While the digital world opens a lot of doors almost nobody listening to music ever bothers to invest this much time into music ONLY. Let’s face it; music is basically a background soundtrack to our lives. We listen in the car while driving or have music play while we surf the net, play video games, while you cook, clean house, or run in the park. Apart from watching music videos on youtube, people rarely stare at the screen watching music related videos and music related pictures while you listen to said music. You may listen to a lot of music but how much time do you spend listening and watching the virtualizer make pretty images on your screen?

Even with physical media I only look at the liner notes and read lyrics the first time I listen to an album. I’m not against add-ons to albums, I think it’s a great way to enrich the music purchase but this is a poor way of doing it. The problems is that digitally people aren’t as interested in the add-ons.

In the physical realm I like that I can get a limited edition CD with bonus features the normal CD doesn’t have (actually this is still uncommon in the US market but common overseas). In most cases the bonus consists of more tracks, and usually a companion DVD. To total package of a physical “Limited Edition” is: music, lyrics, liner notes, pictures, music videos, “making of” videos, bonus tracks, and often posters or even t-shirts in some cases.

For this Digital version they’re treating the lyrics and pictures like they’re bonus material even though they’re standard on a normal CD. The addition of music videos is good. But the visualizers and flashy screens are just fluff. And we still don’t get bonus tracks. Plus it’s not a lossless copy, if it was FLAC I could buy the LP online and burn it to Disc for those times I do want a physical copy. We can go Physical -> Digital without loss, why not Digital -> Physical?

Then there is the portability issue. If I buy tracks on iTunes I can take them on the bus with an iPod, but the fancy additions stay on the computer. While the tracks are DRM free and can be converted to non-apple formats for other players the additional features are locked to iTunes or Safari (no WMP WinAmp, Firefox, or Amarok). Although Jay says you can hack the videos out, that shouldn’t be necessary. The labels should sell the tracks so that I can play them on any player, the videos should be a standard file type that can be played on any player as well. Then all of our video capable media players can be filled with a video playlist, not just an audio playlist. So long as everything is Apple proprietary this isn’t possible.

The final reason this won’t work is that it doesn’t solve the core reason that people online only buy music a track at a time. People are sick of 2-3 good tracks and 10 “filler tracks” that are unwanted.

For getting people to buy LP’s instead of individual tracks EVERY full album purchase on iTunes should come like this by default at the normal album price. This is what iTunes should have been doing from the get-go to entice us into putting up with those 10 filler tracks. As a more expensive version of an normal track only album it’s not worth it.

6 months from now I’m sure Apple will tout how this has revolutionized music and now the new tablet will make more use of it; and people will eat it up. But in reality labels will be rumbling that it’s not making a noticeable difference and while many iTunes LPs will have been sold it will still pale in comparison to normal track sales. 2-3 years from now they will fade away and be forgotten as another failed experiment to change with the times.

Reuters just published some additional info on “Cocktail” the new music agreement between Apple and the Big record labels. They verify my fears from the end of my previous post, they’re just going to polish the latest Blink182 turd with some pictures and digital content and expect us to think it’s better music. Oh, and charge you more for it than a traditional album, let’s not forget that.

Plus TechCrunch is musing that “Cocktails” may be small apps that are the albums themselves, that create a package of music and album related comment. This is almost exactly like my fears that they will be like those shitty Shockwave apps that are sometimes bundled with CDs as “Interactive content”. The very name makes me think that TechCrunch is onto something; I wouldn’t doubt this all a way to start marketing musical “Cocktails” to people. I can hear Jobs keynote speech already, “First we revolutionized music by making it portable with the iPod. Then we discovered a new feature to help you sort music called “Shuffle”. Then we gave you a way to carry music on your phone and still charge you $0.99 for an additional 30 second ringtone. Now we will revolutionize music again by turning music into an app that can’t use that archaic shuffle feature some moron came up with.”

Anyway, Cocktail smells. Smells bad. Smells real bad.

From Reuters via TechCrunch.

Newton was more a PDA than a tablet, it was only sized as big as a tablet because of the technology of the time. It failed due to a lack of interest and becaue there wasn’t a demand in the market niche it filled; in comparison today all it’s features could be done on an iPhone with no problem. Although one of my iPhone gripes is that for all it’s advanced tech the iPhone still can’t fully duplicate the old Newton as a PDA. Half the programs aren’t there natively and when you “get an app for that” you can’t run multiple or background apps.

Back to the modern iTablet (not its real name, I just made that up for simplicities sake), PCWorld writes an article why they don’t think it will work. I usually don’t agree with PCWorld but here they made a few good points.

While I think a multi-touch display is a great idea, using it to host a virtual keyboard takes too much real estate on a petite 10-inch display. Eliminating the physical keyboard would make the device very thin, but at the expense of the screen protection a closed laptop offers.
The iPhone and iPod Touch work as keyboard-less devices because they are designed to be hand-held—something which would be difficult and clumsy with a 10-inch tablet.

Exactly why the onscreen keyboard on the iPhone sucks, it takes up more than half the screen in landscape; 9-10” screens are barely big enough for surfing as it is, there is no room for a keyboard. And on the tablet you can’t thumb type because of the size of the tablet. When typing you’ll need to sit the tablet down on a flat surface or in your lap which will make viewing the screen a royal PITA, especially if they stick with a glossy fingerprint smudged screen.

On the plus side there should be more room for the keyboard than on the iPhone, and people are brainwashed enough to ignore that and some even call it a “feature”. Also as a netbook/tablet the keyboard will be relegated to more infrequent use; it’s the same reason I can barely stand the keyboard on my 9” EEE PC, I never really have to use it except in a pinch. But I still think a convertible laptop/tablet like the Asus T91 is a much better way to go to get the best of both worlds in this device size.

The second major strike is the possibility of the tablet running the iPhone OS or a hybrid; at this point all we have is rumor but many people hint at an iPhone OS relation running on an ARM processor for the tablet.
The iPhone OS as-is would be an epic fail. Unlike Android and Windows Mobile the iPhone OS is built to run on one platform and one resolution only and all apps are optimized for that phone, that way Apple can be sure all apps will run well. If the iPhone OS had to deal with all the variations in hardware that Android and WM deal with it’s wouldn’t be nearly as slick. Trying to stretch that phone OS out to 10” wouldn’t work without some major redesign. Thus a hybrid OS is far more likely

The Hybrid OS that the tablet will likely get is something that looks like a big iPhone OS but has some added capabilities to it; however this will still be insufficient.

Regardless whether this is designed to compete with netbooks or not, at 10” it will be placed in competition with netbooks in everybody’s minds anyway. So running anything less than a full OS will seem crippled when compared to netbooks/tablets running Windows or Linux. Apple will have to go with OSX or an “OSX Basic”. But Apple charges the price premium to put good hardware in their devices so a thin 10” tablet running OSX is entirely possible if they can keep the battery usage down.

I disagree with PCWorld that the tablet will be a train-wreck. It will sell like a beast and the Apple faithful will ignore the keyboard drawbacks or short battery life or limited OS. Like the netbook fanatics they will load complex software into device poorly designed to handle it and claim that since it can barely run without crashing the tablet that it’s “full featured”. But best of all it will accelerate competition in making a useful tablet PCs, hopefully prodding competitors like Asus into making a convertible netbook with a decent video processor (Asus T92 perhaps?) that will combine the best of both worlds between the Apple tablet and the current netbooks.

I’ll be happy just so long as we don’t get the “iPhone effect” where people become so brainwashed they start to remove advantages like a physical keyboard, stylus input, background apps, and copy/paste in an effort to copy Apple.