tuesdayDeveloper;

If you read what I’ve written before, you know my answer to this question: a touch-ready system must be built for touch, not keyboard and mouse, from the beginning, but that doesn’t mean that the two can be closely synchronized.

While I would prefer one touch-based system to run on all of my devices (which may or may not ever really happen) because that makes things easier to use, I understand that that is rather hard to develop. There is a reason why the iPad is so limited and it really boils down to the battery and processing power.

You may say that it is limited because it is a touch-based OS, I disagree. There is no reason why any software, program, or system that runs now on a desktop OS cannot run on a touch-based OS. True, I wouldn’t want to see the current iteration of some pieces of software on a touch-based tablet, but after it is redesigned for touch input any piece of software on a touch-based system can do the same things that a piece of software can do on a mouse and keyboard system.

In the mean time, there seems to be something on the horizon coming from Apple. Now most people are saying that this will automatically change from one OS to another and (as in the article cited) I agree that this could be implemented poorly, but there could be a way to make it work well. Imagine editing a document in Pages (for thous of you who aren’t fortunate enough to enjoy Pages, it’s a word processor that in my book is a pleasure to use, but that’s my opinion) on Mac OS X and then thinking to yourself about how tired you are of moving your mouse around all the time. You think to yourself, wouldn’t it be easier if I could just touch the place in the paragraph where I need to edit. With this new system you would just pull the screen towards you, it automatically changes to iOS with Pages running, and you start tapping away at the screen and editing as you were before. You could seam to OSs together without a seam. Now, I hope that this patent means that Apple is working on a desktop-touch-based OS, but if nothing else I think that this idea could work.

Post Ratings: (No Ratings Yet)

According to Jobs, some people are uncomfortable about a “post-PC era.” He has a point. A lot of people I talk to say that they wish that the iPad was more than a “big iPhone”, that they could never imagine writing lengthy documents without a “real keyboard”, or they wonder why the iPad is so limited—in short people don’t want to limit themselves with a tablet when they could just keep their laptop and do more than a tablet can, but that is all besides the point.

The tablet won’t replace the PC overnight, but it will replace the PC. I don’t think that anyone, even Jobs himself, believes that PCs will be abruptly replaced by tablet computers. If all the computers disappeared and only the tablets remained, the world would indeed be a sad place, but we don’t need to be scared about that happening for one reason: tablets aren’t ready.

Tablets will replace computers, but not the limited-use devices that we call tablets today. The tablets that are to come will be just as full-featured, albeit simpler, than our present day computers. In fact, tablets will be even cooler because they will be more intuitive, more robust, and more wide-spread than the PC ever was. When tablets can compete with all of the important functions of the PC, then they will replace PC, but not a moment before. No one wants to move backwards, so tablets must necessarily move forward. Tablets will run all the same applications as PCs, they will just be revamped to run on a more intuitive UI, and that is why we shouldn’t be worried about tablets replacing PCs—because the PC will become the tablet.

The best part is, the tablets will still run all the same software, but be easier to use—so why worry?

Post Ratings: (No Ratings Yet)

Why is Apple so strict in their app store? Yes, they want to protect their image and all, but what if they are simply security minded?

It is undeniable fact that any system built by man can be torn down by another man especially in IT. We can protect our systems and programs all we want, but if someone is truly determined, a hole will be found and the system will be compromised. Windows is absolutely riddled with malware, it’s true, but this also means that Apple isn’t invulnerable. It’s sad that we have to worry about viruses in our world, but that doesn’t change the fact that they are there.

Until now there has a limited number of ways to deal with malware: computer hardening, detect it and trow it away and a few others, but what if there was one trustworthy entity that either allowed or disallowed every program that could create or run a process on your machine? If you want to produce an application for their product you must submit the application to them and they will review it. They will review it to ensure that it is stable and that it won’t mess anything up.

Is it possible that in 10 years when Microsoft or Google or someone else competes with Apple that they will indicate to the masses, “Our iron-tight system is thus because we don’t let any riff-raff into our app store, with anyone else you could get viruses, trojans, and all sorts of things you don’t want on your computer.” Maybe this is an idea for the other guys to follow… well maybe not follow verbatim but to some degree at least.

This answers a lot of questions if its accurate. And while Apple may very well have this end in mind, I don’t think that this is their only goal. What do you think?

Post Ratings: (No Ratings Yet)

Credit: BumpTop

Okay, question: does anyone want to have a cluttered computer desktop? I sure don’t! That said, I love some of the tools that BumpTop will afford Google. I really like how you can organize icons into piles, but those are basically fancy folders. I like that you can zoom into a section of the desktop, crop, and post pictures on the wall. I’m a little wary about BumpTop being used as the main desktop though.

I am not a very neat person. If you look at any desk I’ve had from the time I was in first grade until now you will see a lot old paper in forgotten piles along with other things that don’t belong on desks. I try to organize it all, but I just don’t have the amount of space I’d like to “put everything in its place.” The computer is different, if I don’t have a folder for this document, I can make one, it’s pretty easy. Therefor, my computer desktop is nearly always empty. I think that Google will be able to use this in a tablet device that would be really easy to use and intuitive—but it wouldn’t be cluttered—at all! If I designed an operating system my default desktop would be completely clean, but I do think that there are good things about BumpTop that Google can use.

One thing that I think would be excellent to try out would be the photo and document preview the way BumpTop does it. On Mac, if you have a file highlighted and you press the spacebar, you have a preview that popes up, I love this feature and I use it all the time. With BumpTop, rather than the picture coming to the user, the user moves into the picture. If you want you can also crop it or do a few other things. What if you could do this in the Finder or Explorer (or whatever Google will call theirs)? I don’t actually know if users would prefer it, but it does seem to be intuitive.

Here in a couple days, I’ll post a video I made of what my ideal desktop would be. Until then, what do you think Google will use BumpTop for?

Post Ratings: (No Ratings Yet)

I was talking to my brother about tablets and we came to this conclusion: tablets are not ready to replace the desktop. You probably already knew this. The thing is, I want to only have a tablet, but only very basic users are able to get away with nothing but a tablet; everyone else still needs a desktop, laptop, or (at the very minimum) a netbook. I’m not willing to recall my opinion that tablets are the future, but I have to admit that tablets aren’t the present, but there aren’t many things that tablets must do before the common man can get by without their regular computing mediums.

Storage
One of the most noticeably lacking feature on tablets is storage. It’s true that we don’t usually need as much storage as a full computer, but I’ve seen some music libraries with hundreds of gigabytes of songs, tablets may have enough now, but they won’t for long. The most storage I’ve seen on a tablet is 64GB. When you have a lot of music, photos, and applications, 64GB isn’t enough. Obviously cloud storage can be an answer to this, but it has limitations too—what happens when you’re not able to connect to the internet? Despite all the internet idealists (myself included) you still can’t get the internet everywhere. The good thing is that we don’t usually need that much extra space most of the time. Most of the files, media, documents, etc. we need for a given period of time, we only need for a limited period of time. Everything else can be stored in the cloud and accessed if we need it. I’m not saying that we should constantly be transferring and deleting files from our tablet to the cloud, there’s a better solution.

Imagine a tablet that automatically syncs it’s data with the internet when you’re connected. This tablet will automatically keep your most common and most recently used files locally and will remove the ones that you don’t need as frequently. When you are connected, you have all the files in your library, when you’re not connected you only have the files that your tablet can hold. If need be, you can mark a document to be persistent and not be deleted so that it is always on your tablet.

I can imagine that tablet companies would partner with online storage companies and we’d probably have to pay for this service, but if when you purchased a tablet you got a three year subscription for unlimited data that would be awesome, I don’t think people are ready to pay more than $5 a month for such a service (yes, I know that some online storage will work for $5/month).

Peripheral Support
One of the things that is disappointing with tablets today is that you can’t print or scan photos (well, not without going through a big rigmarole). This will have to change before tablets can go mainstream. Fortunately, this problem is already being worked on with Google Cloud Print. Google Cloud Print is ment to connect to printers from the internet (as apposed to your local machine). What if Google Cloud Print also did scanners and audio mixers, etc? I don’t see why it couldn’t. The only thing you need is a printer/scanner/whatever that has network support, my 3 year old printer/all-in-one already has network support. Of course WaCom tablets (if you really feel the need) speakers, cameras, and whatever else, better still connect directly to your tablet via bluetooth or a cable, but a lot of things could connect to your tablet through your network.

Screen Size and Multitasking
You may or may not agree with me that the screen for tablets are too small. You may take Apple’s approach that you only need limited multitasking. I respectfully disagree. I use multiple applications side-by-side (multitasking that requires a larger screen). I realize that nearly all programs can be redesigned for a smaller screen and that most of the time you will only need to run one program at a time, but that isn’t always the case. I’m used to running several applications simultaneously, I want that ability. I know that this may cause less time away from a power cord, I don’t care.

I think that the perfect size for a tablet would be around a 24-27 inch screen (we’re nowhere near that yet, I realize that this is really big and less portable, but imagine how much space you’d have to work with), but there are definitely people who want smaller screen sizes and that’s okay. The problem I see with a small screen is that the keyboard will cover up most of the screen when you’re typing, I can’t see what I’m doing! If I were to guess however, I’d say that this will change within the next few years.

Recap
So, what do we need? We need:
cloud storage that:

• automatically syncs to the internet.
• automatically removes files that aren’t frequently used (but keeps the files available on the internet).
• easily allows you to access files that are on the internet in a non-obtrusive manor.

peripheral support for all devices.
and
true multitasking and more screen real estate.

Once we have these things, we will wonder what we ever did without tablet computers. What do you think tablets need to replace full computers?

Post Ratings: