Innovation over features

I’ve seen a number of different startups and businesses that focus on bookmark management for browsers. Most recognizable is “Instapaper” which offers a combination of both managing your browser’s bookmarks and viewing pages offline on different platforms. These startups had always tread on very thin ice.

The idea of a “persistent desktop” isn’t new but it’s slowly becoming a reality. The concept is to make your desktop exist in the cloud so that no piece of hardware or platform can dictate which desktop takes precedence. “Synching” your bookmarks had always been just an interim solution to a greater debacle.

As cloud computing ramps up with Apple’s iCloud, these startups will slowly die off because their service offerings were never meant to be a permanent fixture. Did Apple “steal” these features from Instapaper? No. The features that Instapaper offered were a quick-fix until technology caught up with the real idea.

Second Life

I never understood the fascination with 3D as a means to provide users with an “immersive” experience; especially with a costly taxation on CPU resources. “Second Life” didn’t have any logical incentives to lure users. Yes, it’s a 3D world and yes, you can chat with people in this world, but what else? The 3D world was only available to PC users with specific hardware requirements and operating systems. Without it, this immersive world was a closed eco-system.

As bad as this may sound, I’m actually quite happy Second Life never popularized. If they did, could you imagine the software and hardware engineers trying port this world so that portable devices could access this virtual world? Shortened battery life, lack of processor strength, overheating, and an operating system overhead absorbing valued memory resources. I’m sure the engineer geniuses could make it happen, but should it be done?

This is the same stance I have with Adobe Flash on handheld devices. Several of my coworkers have openly stated that Flash works extremely well with cellular devices *provided* these devices have the “right” hardware. Ignoring the fact that our desktop Macs have been known to crash due to Flash, what exactly is being asked? Have a mouse-less handheld device attempt to provide a user a similar experience knowing that they’re looking at a 4” screen?

That sounds rather painful.

64-bit Woes

Nothing surprises me more than the fact that my tiny netbook (an 11.6" Acer) came with a 64-bit version of Windows 7. Yet even though the OS is 64-bit, there needs to be 64-bit apps to properly utilize it. Currently, the most popular browsers only offer a 32-bit flavour, but it's okay because both the 32-bit and 64-bit versions of Microsoft Internet Explorer have been packaged with Windows 7.

Unfortunately, there's no 64-bit Flash player. When will Adobe come out with a 64-bit player? It doesn't seem like it's any time soon.

Adobe or Apple?

It's inevitable that our production team has divided opinions on the Adobe and Apple issue over Flash and its legitimacy in mobile browsing. The Flash developers are sided with Adobe -- mainly because Flash is their livelihood -- while Javascript developers are sided with Apple since we don't rely on Flash. Both Adobe and Apple are claiming their platforms are "more open" than the other but I will try to make my argument based on personal experience.

After working with the Nintendo Wii and experiencing first hand the difficulties in developing for such a platform, I was utterly frustrated by the lack of support provided by both Nintendo and Adobe; there is NO support. Does Flash work on the Nintendo Wii? Yes. Does it work well? No. Were there a lot of problems? YES. Did Adobe fix those problems? Some, but only YEARS after Flash was available for the Wii. Are there still problems? Yes, absolutely.

Both parties are claiming how their platforms "should be considered" as open; which really isn't "open" at all. The goals of open standards are not the same as those for profit-generating businesses. It is currently not in Adobe's best profit-generating interests to fix their issues on the Nintendo Wii so the platform has been left broken. As a result, the developers are left to find web solutions for clients who have been assured by Nintendo and Apple that "Flash works on the Wii"; which it doesn't.

Do I want a similar fate for other mobile devices? Absolutely not.

iPad

There has been talk about Apple’s new iPad where a lot of the grief comes from the fact that the device doesn’t support Adobe Flash. If I’m not mistaken, I believe everyone already recognizes that this device is meant only for consumption. It is a media consumption device that is not meant to produce media. This is why so many people are upset at Apple’s stance against Flash; it is an integral part of surfing the internet. That said, Flash is a plugin (read: “app”) whose features cannot be approved or disapproved by Apple. As it stands, Flash can do too many things and in a negative way for Apple.

• Users could play free Flash-based games rather than pay for them.
• Developers could build apps in Flash rather than on the iPhone platform.
• Apple cannot regulate the type of apps you use if these apps are Flash and located on a web page.
• Apple cannot regulate what new features Adobe decides to add into Flash.
• Flash can theoretically circumvent some iPhone/iPod/iPad security features.
• Flash developers could create interfaces that mimic and/or confuse –even trick—users.
• Flash is processor-intensive and might affect a user’s experience on the device.

Apple’s decision to ban Adobe Flash is definitely controversial. However, as a business and technical decision, it’s one that has been thought out very thoroughly. There are a lot of intelligent people at Apple and these decisions weren't made on a whim. Adobe, as with the rest of Apple users, can argue this out, the fact still remains: Flash can do too many things that can negative affect the iPhone experience.

(BTW, I still love my Blackberry)

Fonts

An interesting thing occurred just now. I wandered onto a Flash-based website and when I was about to start browsing, Mac OS X displayed a warning telling me that the application (Adobe Flash) was trying to access a specific font in my system. I'm conflicted. In terms of security, this feature is great. Yet in terms of usability, I think this is horrible.

This is the hypocrite in me speaking. I absolutely love the security features that Mac OS X has and have no reservations in tending to a few additional burdens provided that they are required. However, if I were a Flash developers with the intention of building an online Flash application, it would be upsetting to know that a portion of my audience base would get a security warning concerning them about a particular font.

iPhone multitasking

I'm constantly ridiculing friends and coworkers over the fact that their iPhone doesn't support multitasking. Can you adequately keep an instant messaging application consistently "on" with the iPhone? No, at least not easily. Yet even though I'll callously joke about it, I do agree with Apple's business decision on locking out the feature.

On a purely technical level, allowing the iPhone to support multitasking means the possibility of applications being "on" all the time. Poorly developed apps with memory leaks will consume the phone's memory after prolonged usage, causing the OS itself to become unstable and the phones to be unreliable. The app store fuels this problem in that a lot of the popular apps are not built by Apple.

By supporting multitasking, there is a high degree of risk for these phones to crash unless adequate quality assurance is made. What happens without it? When a phone is mysteriously restarting, will a normal cell phone user understand that the third-party app is the source of the problem? Or will these users just immediately blame Apple for a faulty product?

In terms of branding, Apple's products have never been about being a highly-configurable, feature-rich workhorse. Their products have constantly been revered as devices that "just work". What does this entail? A reliable product that doesn't crash.

Going mobile

I don't claim to know a lot about the cellular market but I do get riled up over how phones have been progressing. I've mentioned this to friends and colleagues alike: when I look at cellular devices, I view it --first and foremost-- as a "notification tool". Not a platform to compete with portable gaming devices. Not a device to let me surf web pages. Not a device that recites GPS navigational charts to me. I think of it as a device intended for me to designate what information is important to me and when I should be notified about it.

When I'm sleeping, I want the phone not to ring with the exception if my girlfriend is calling. When I'm in transit, I want it to vibrate. When I'm at work, I don't need it notify me about work emails because I'm already in front of a computer. When I'm in a meeting, I want this phone completely silent with no vibration; just blink a light if an email comes from a specific person. The phone I need must have multiple levels of notification preferences based on location, time, event, recipient, content, priority and personal preference.

There aren't many devices that can do this, let alone do this natively and out-of-the-box. I've been told on countless ocassions that the iPhone is a "better" device and I vehemently do not agree. If someone were to make that argument, they're probably approaching the device more as a multimedia, entertainment or mobile internet device than a notification tool. It's important to recognize that a telephony-capable MID isn't the same as a device built for alertion; but seeing that this line is slowly blurring, is it necessarily wrong to compare the two?