Apple iPad

Apple is a company that when it enters an industry that industry is forever changed.  We saw this with the iPod in 2001 and in 2007 when Apple released the iPhone.  Both of these products left their respective industries forever changed.  So what will be Apple's new game changing product? Some would say the new Apple iPad.

On January 27 Steve Jobs took the stage to announce the highly speculated iPad, Apple's "tablet" computer.  As with most Apple announcements the speculation made it seem like it would be the all encompassing, powerful, do-anything device, therefore, many people were disappointed.    I would like to comment on just a few of the complaints that people have with the iPad: "it is just a big iPod Touch," no flash, it is locked down, and what is it good for.

People claim that is is just a "large iPod Touch," to which I say, what is wrong with that?  The iPod Touch is a very beautiful device that is widely successful.  This statement also assumes that the size of the screen equals a linear progression in quality which is not necessarily true especially in technology where products are known to improve exponentially.  This bigger screen size will allow for application developers to greatly improve the quality of their applications with the ability to spread out the interface in a more logical interface and allow for interfaces that would not have been possible before.  As a self proclaimed application developer I can see a great benefit in have more room to work with when developing.

A complaint that many people have with the iPad (the iPhone and iPod Touch also) is that there is no Flash support.  Some people even point to Apple's comment that you have the "internet in your pocket" as a lie because the iPhone OS (which the iPad and iPod Touch run) does not have Flash support.  My comment to that is this: if Flash is the internet, than I feel very sorry for us all.  Currently there are very few mobile handsets that have Flash support so therefore I find a website that requires Flash to view as a failure on the developers behalf.  The internet's usage is rapidly moving toward the mobile realm and therefore if a website wants complete exposure it can't use Flash for it's technology.  That being said, Flash is primarily not used for to build out of websites but more commonly used for the display of video.  For this there is a perfectly good standard in HTML 5's video tag.  Apple's iPhone OS and Android have support for HTML 5 built into their browsers allowing for content that simply wasn't possible before on mobile phones.  Desktop browsers are also quickly joining the HTML 5 party as well (although with a few differences).  For complete support web developers can even support both.  Simply put, the "problem" with the lack of Flash on the iPad is not a problem with the iPad but is a problem with the laziness of web developers.  I applaud Apple for not bending on this and pushing for the adoption of HTML 5.

The next complaint is one that comes with almost every Apple product, it is too locked down.  People that say this must not really know Apple that well because this is how they are with all of their devices.  The unique difference to the iPad that may cause for the extra heat toward it is that Steve Jobs likened the iPad to a netbook.  With this comparison the iPad really does look locked down but I really don't relate an iPad with a netbook, they are entirely different devices.  The iPad is an appliance (more on this later) for content consumption and a netbook is made for creation and consumption.  One might think from this connection that I just mean that the iPad is just more limited and you would be correct but also so wrong.  The fact that it is limited makes it work so much more beautifully and correctly.  From demos and first hand experiences I have heard one word common to all reviews that word is "speed." This is a word I have never heard related to a netbook.  The locked down nature of the iPad is what makes it so appealing to people, not the technical, Linux-using people that are so prevalent in the tech community, but for the soccer mom who wants something she can pick up that works how she would expect and that she doesn't need a Ph.D to use.

Finally many people are having troubles figuring out what the iPad will be good for or used for.  This is where I think Apple's new game changing move is.  They haven't created a computer device like you would think, they have created an appliance.  Just like you have a fridge or microwave you could now have a iPad.  This is the kind of device you have laying on your coffee table to pick up and use to look something up, or the device you take with the teenager to do gaming, watch movie, and stay connected.  I find this device to be a paradigm shift that many people haven't been able to completely grasp.  As a computer the iPad really isn't that great in its current position, but as an appliance the iPad has a whole lot more appeal.

There are many aspects of the iPad that I have not had time or space to cover but I think what I have written gives a brief explanation against the vocal nay-sayers of the iPad.  Even though I find this to be a great device that doesn't mean I think it will be successful.  If the market begins to understand what the use case is for the iPad I believe it will be a huge success; however, if the market does not grasp this concept I have a feeling we may have another Newton on our hands.

Welcome to the Blog -- Google Wave

Welcome to my blog!  It seems that a lot of the technology blogs out there today are written by older members of the community, although I have no problem with this I think it would be good to have a younger person's view that has grown up with all the technology in our world today, hence I started this blog.  Two of my favorite technology companies are Apple and Google so there will probably be a lot of posts on the activities of these two parties.  I will try to post a new topic probably about every month.  Enjoy!


Speaking of Google that brings me to my first topic:

Google Wave:


Wave has received a lot of press in the last year since it's epic introduction at the 2009 Google I/O Conference. Why did this introduction receive so much press? Was it because of the real-time collaboration?  The multi-media integration?  Or was it the possibilities presented by the architecture to build extensions and bots to participate and enrich the waves? Maybe it was one of these but I don't find that to be the reason it received so much attention.  The reason this announcement received all the attention it did was because of one very simple, but extremely bold, thought that the Google developers told the audience.  Google was attempting to replace email.  The infrastructure that connects modern businesses together was suppose to be replaced by this system that failed numerous times in an hour and a half demo? Surely Google was nuts, right?

Really going to replace email?


So is Wave really going to replace email? I say nay, at least for many years.   This is the power of Google though, they have the funds to build up a system just to throw it out in the wild to see if it actually works.  This thought process can also be seen in Google's 20% time policy.  Although Wave did not originate as a 20% project (that I am aware of) other great Google products did(Gmail, Google News, Adsense, etc), this shows what can happen when you don't think of the business model when developing.  However, I digress.  So if Wave isn't going to replace our email what is it good for? The answer is this: document collaboration.  This is where the beauty and the power of Wave comes in.

So what makes Wave different than other document collaboration products?


It is true that there are already some great real-time document collaboration products out on the web today such was EtherPad (which Google has acquired to contribute to Wave). Although on the surface there are many differences what makes it such a paradigm switch is two things.  1. Google has the muscle to push real-time collaboration to the general public like has never been really accomplished. 2. More importantly, Wave is an open system just like email is.  Just as any email server can communicate to any other email server all Wave servers will be able to communicate with  each other through the Federation protocol.  This is where Google's dream of replacing email has it roots.  Google realizes that companies and the public will not want Google to host all of their content because of privacy concerns therefore this allows corporations to run their own Wave servers behind their firewalls and the public the freedom to choose which Wave provider they will use just as they have the freedom to choose their email provider: Gmail, Yahoo, MSN, ISP, etc.  However, I don't want to belittle the surface level differences that Wave has from other document collaboration systems either.  For instance I am not aware of another system that has such extensive multi-media integration, the extensions, or the bots that Wave employs. These will only grow in power as Wave has more and more work put into it.

My defense of Wave.


I would like to finish just by defending Wave for a moment because it seems in the recent months that Wave has come under more and more scrutiny and skepticism which I believe it does not deserve.  I find that these complaints stem from the thoughts of people as they use Wave with the mindset that this will replace email.  That is the wrong outlook.  Wave is a paradigm switch and in so being it requires a change of how people think of completing tasks and communicating with each other.  I have heard comments on Wave such as: That's too hard, It's just really fast instant messaging, etc.  These shallow views of Wave need to be overcome before a person can see the magic.

Here is how I have used Wave:

For one of my projects in my college I created a wave for all the members of my team to post our schedule, go over ideas, and include all of the necessary files.  Part of our planning even included having a VOIP call(originated through a Wave extension) going on between all parties as we edited the wave.  This created a environment of working which I have never seen.  It was extremely productive and instant.

Planning of a vacation:  Some friends and I have been planing a senior trip and in so doing we have had all of our travel accommodations planned out in a wave.  This has allowed us to have one central place to look for all of the necessary information including embedded screenshots of flight information, links to different transportations systems, maps of where we will be staying and points of interest, etc.  This has made it extremely simple to keep everything in line.

School Notes:  This has been the most magical experience of my Wave career.  For four of my college classes I have created a wave to serve as a note-taking platform with the number of participants ranging from 2-6.  This has allowed us to be able to write notes and if one of us misses something in the lecture there is always someone to back us up and write what we missed.  It is also extremely nice to be able to embed the slides in individual blips (Wave terminology is a bit strange) allowing for the group to comment on each individual slide.  The inclusion of bots has made it extremely easy to also pull in external data. For example, I always include the bot Wikify allowing, with a few keystrokes, to automatically pull in Wikipedia articles for unfamiliar data or the bot KaSyntaxy to automatically do syntax hilighting for my CS classes.

Wave is something that you need to have in your hands to truly understand.  As my father tells me, I can't complain about something new until I have had to live with it for at least two weeks.  I challenge any of you that have access to Wave to give it another try and for those of you who would like to try Wave I still have some invites.