The Apple iPad and Dock - image from slashgear.com

I had the opportunity to watch the announcement yesterday with a room full of Apple users / fans and the general mood of the room was underwhelmed. Maybe its because the rumors of the iPad had been so rampant and included some pretty wild ideas. I think its more likely a result of no one really knowing what the killer apps for this thing is. Talking about it with my wife last night, maybe it would be a good information source to sit on the coffee table or end table? Pick it up when you need to see what other movies this person’s been in or check scores or something like that. Maybe it will play a part in the web of tomorrow?

So, have you seen it, heard about it, formed any opinions about it? Is this the appliance that will lead to the end of the personal computer as we know it? Do you have questions about it? Drop a comment below and lets talk!

@jtrigsby

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

The Web Will Be Ubiquitous – Always connected, always on, fully integrated with the appliances that we use to manage our life. Finally!
(see more under Mobile Becomes King in my 6 Guaranteed Game Changing Predictions for 2010)

The PC Will Lose Its Dominance Over the Web – No need to rehash this one… I’ve written about it plenty! Check out Repent! Repent! The End of the Personal Computer Is Near

The Human-Computer Interface – Ben asserts that media centric interfaces will replace the good old keyboard and mouse. Things like voice to text and touch will eventually work well enough… in a decade or so! I’m not sure if you’d call that a pessimistic outlook but I think a decade is WAY too far away. I’ve said before the iPhone has changed everything and how we interact is no different. There’s an expectation for touch these days. The full court press is on and it will be a matter of months before we have usable alternatives to the keyboard and mouse… IMHO.

Finally, Social Media Will Be the Killer App – Have to say I totally agree Ben… and it always has been. Since Ray Tomlinson invented email all the way back in 1971, we’ve been using “the computer” to interact with other people. I mean after all… there are only so many recipes and checkbooks to manage, right? Sooner or later its all about interacting with others. In fact, most technological advances have derived their need by some form of human interaction. Telegraph, telephone, trains, planes… they all serve to facilitate human-to-human interaction.

Even though Ben and I disagree on a couple of the details, I think he’s right on about where we’re going over all. A lot of the things we’ve seen lately, devices like the iPhone, netbooks, and Apple’s new tablet, even applications like Twitter, Wave and fourSquare are really just enabling technologies. My frequent answer to those that don’t get Wave is that it won’t make sense until you have an application for it. Its a platform, an enabling technology that will make something else possible.

So, what do you think about these areas of tech development? Do we have it wrong? What else could be considered important?

And what about the enabling technologies? What did I miss.

Drop a comment and let us know what you think!

@jtrigsby

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

It takes a lot of courage to release the familiar and seemingly secure, to embrace the new. But there is no real security in what is no longer meaningful. There is more security in the adventurous and exciting, for in movement there is life, and in change there is power.  
–Alan Cohen

So lets get into it… how is our world going to change in 2010? What change is going to power our near future? Here are a few of my ideas.

ONE: Mobile Become King
I’ve written a lot about the end of personal computing, especially the way we think of it. The advances in mobile platforms in just the last six months only reinforce my conviction that the days of the beige box relegated to the corner of the living room are numbered. Even the days of the laptop may be coming to a close. Look for big advances in computing power, battery life, geospatial awareness and constant, ubiquitous connectivity this year. These will be the enabling technology breakthroughs that enable more power in a smaller footprint, and THAT means…

TWO: Smaller Footprint Requires More Efficient Delivery
If you’ve ever tried to lookup a website on a smart phone, even an iPhone or Droid, you know that its not the most fulfilling experience. Lets face it, the vast majority of sites out there today are designed for the desktop monitor. Even with vast improvement in connectivity and bandwidth, users will begin to cull the download pigs from their experience. Google has even said they will begin factoring in load time of a site in their ranking formulas. In 2010, look for sleeker, faster loading, faster-to-the-content data sources. So what loads quickly and has a tiny footprint?….

THREE: Rise of the Feeds
More and more users get their daily fix through feeds and feed readers. Heck, all my daily reading now begins in the feed reader. In fact, the only reason I wind up on a destination site these days is to leave a comment or because a link (probably to a past post HINT HINT) took me there. If I’m following your blog because of the great content you create, then I can get it all right there in one place. Oh, BTW, stop already with only including the first paragraph in the feed. Unless I REALLY like you, that’s a fail and immediate un-follow from me. And with a rise in the popularity of reading feeds, we get…

FOUR: VAST Improvements in Content Aggregation
Ok, so that covers a little more than feed readers, but that’s where we’re going. In addition to reading what Chris Brogan, Rod Kirby and Jeff Jarvis have to say today, at varying times of the day I’m interested in local news, weather, sports, best gas prices, menu specials at my favorite eateries… all those play a part in my interest stream. The trick is filtering those nuggets of news based on my location, mood, activity, destination… any number of parameters. For instance, I’m not particularly concerned with traffic conditions at 10am, because I’m not driving anywhere. But at 5pm, you bet I’m interested. Look for big time improvements in filtering, maybe even learning filters during 2010. And with filters, come…

FIVE: The Need to Monetize the Stream
I’m going to adopt the word stream rather than feed because referring to the feed make me feel like I have to consume it all to get my big-boy, happy-plate sticker. A stream is constantly flowing and I can watch it, dip my toe in it, or jump in head first… then climb out again when I’m ready. Combining that flowing concept with smaller footprints and the ever present need to make money, there will have to be major improvements in how we monetize the stream in 2010. Face it, we all need to get paid and if the only way we’re doing that is with AdSense… an our visitors drop off because they’re reading us in the stream… ??? Following the Google model, it seems that an advertising supported aggregation service would work well. Thing Google Reader with Gmail type ads.

SIX: My Own Private Library
Because the stream is always moving and I still have to sleep every once in a while, I tend to miss things I may be interested in. Wouldn’t it be cool if there was a way to tag, group, and store content and links so I could check them out when I’m back in the game? That is what I refer to as aggregation and it would be totally awesome! It would be even better if it learned from my actions and was able to find new content I might be interested in… kind of like Pandora does for music and Tivo does with Suggestions! Now THAT would be a newspaper I’d be interested in reading every morning… as long as I could read it on my phone or Kindle.

Ok, so there are my 6 Guaranteed Game Changing Predictions for 2010. What do you think? Like ‘em? Hate ‘em? Think I’m way too far afoot? Let us all know in the comments below.

I’m really looking forward to 2010 and I hope you are too. Have a wonderful, productive and profitable year! BTW, if you’re a programmer type… and need some product ideas… re-read this post!

@jtrigsby

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

Compromising Function for Form

I know, you’re not supposed to lead with a negative… so sorry… but its true. The single most shocking thing for me was that I made the decision to switch from an AWESOME network (Verizon) to a pretty ok network (AT&T). Even with all the traveling I did, driving all over the South, I didn’t have dead spots or dropped calls with Verizon, it just didn’t happen. Now, I can’t get out of the city limits before I’m dropping service!

And if that’s not bad enough… I knew it would be that way BEFORE we made the switch! Why make the switch then? Simple, to get the phone. It is simply a matter of pretty wins out over works almost all the time. (Now before you castigate me over the “pretty” comment, read on!) We sacrificed function over form. And don’t even get me started on me owning an Apple product!

Function Over Fight

My second observation about the iPhone is that it is not just a pretty toy, the dog-gone thing work pretty dog-gone well! See, its kind of like my relationship with Microsoft. I’ve never been a big Microsoft fan (in spite of the fact they kept food on our table for a very long time) but I am a HUGE fan of how well their apps work together. Learn how to use one office product and you know how to use them all kind of thing. The iPhone and most of the apps designed for it seem to fall into the same category. They just work, and in most cases work pretty well. The interface is intuitive and integration is simple to setup. It literally took me less than two minutes to integrate my iPhone calendar with my Exchange AND Google calendars… I couldn’t even do that with my BlackBerries.

The New PC?

Speaking totally in the metaphorical sense of course! Try this argument on for size though. With the majority of what we used home PCs to do now contained in this nifty little form factor, doesn’t that take a great big bite out of the role of the PC in the home? Is there enough left for it to do for it to survive? Is multi-touch going to be the demise of the keyboard and mouse? Check out this theory from my earlier post, Repent! Repent! The End of the Personal Computer is Near… and I wan’t even talking about the iPhone at the time!

A move away from the dedicated, sitting in the corner, all-purpose personal computer to more task specific appliances. Case in point, Tivo. I quite accidentally stumbled over Tivo’s cool integration with Netflix. Movies viewed on demand from Netflix via my Tivo. Or if I can’t find anything good there, I can watch YouTube videos or rent a download from Amazon…all through the Tivo. Great example of a task specific appliance. Oh sure, the interface is pretty weak, but hey, its still young.

Are there problems with this theory, only one I can see. The interface!!! The keyboard & mouse have worked well for the dedicated use computer, but as anyone who has tried to compose an email on their cell phone / PDA can attest, it doesn’t work nearly as well away from the desktop. Will it be speech to text, gestures, sub-cutaneous implant behind the ear? Don’t know but I do know, sooner or later, it has to change.

The simple fact is that the iPhone and iPhone apps have changed the way I go about my daily routine. I have instant access to information about movies without having to drag over the laptop or get up and head to the computer. Vickie can email a link to a recipe to Casey while she’s at the grocery store. Facebook and Twitter no longer require me to sit behind their screens to get my daily fix of what everyone else is doing.

But its only been three months. What is going to happen in the next three months that might change my opinion? Right now, I’m thinking not much… but who knows. And while this might not fit the definition of unconnected I’ve talked about in the past, being able to slip such a powerful little device in your pocket and head out to the beach…. well that’s just cool!

What has your experience been with the iPhone? Like it? Wish you hadn’t switched? or Don’t have one and don’t see what all the fuss is about. Leave a comment and get in the conversation!

- Thom

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

Since I crossed over to the dark side and got an iPhone, I’ve been trying to figure out how to format jtrigsby.com for mobile devices. Since I’ve been browsing with the iPhone these mobile formatted sites keep showing up so there has to be some way to do it, right?

Well it happens that, like most things WordPress, there’s a plugin for that! Its called MobilePress (you can download MobilePress here). It took literally less than 30 seconds to install and works great right out of the box.

There are a few configuration options and even some different themes you can install for MobilePress, sometime after the vacation maybe there will be a chance to play with them a bit. When I do, you can bet there will be a post about it.

If you have an iPhone or other mobile device check it out and let me know what you think. Any and all feedback is welcome and encouraged.

*** UPDATED ***

Well, its taken a little while, but I’m finally getting around to tinkering with MobilePress… and I love it more now than I did at the beach! Themes for it are a little sparce, but that’s ok. What it does with the default theme is super and much better than having to do all that layout by hand!

And of course, if you have multiple blogs, the option to set them all up in MobilePress is awesome. It allows for easy switching from one to the other. The only thing that gets me sometimes is that it doesn’t update posts automatically. In other words, if you make a post with the online interface, then access the site with the MobilePress interface, you have to force a reload… I seem to always forget that!

Overall, it is an awesome app and definitely one you should have in your All-Star Bloggers toolbox!

@jtrigsby

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.