I just saw Alice in Wonderland, in 3-d Imax and all its glory.  I liked it a lot.   I was grateful it was not the same old story.  My daughter liked it, my wife liked it, my 18 and 20 year old sons thought it stunk.   In fact they both laughed at us and couldn’t believe we thought it was good at all.

I wondered, if when I was their age, would I have had the same review?…Has there been some kind of testosterone shift in me now that makes me a wimpy lover of girlie fantasies.  Hmmm. I do remember thinking along with many others that Lewis Carroll was on drugs back then, my tastes used to tend towards the less surreal side of fantasy, more towards sci-fi from the likes of Isaac Asimov.

But taste changes..which is a good thing because as you get older you realize “history does repeat itself – only in different ways” as someone once said to me.  I now understand what that means.

Almost twenty years ago today, the iPad came out – not the iPad, they called it something else back then Alice. Not “Tablet”.  What was it?  ”Pen Computer“, no can’t use the acronym…”PC” already taken.  Nomadic device?, yuck.  Handheld?  Boring.  Palmtop? Ugh.  PDA that’s it! no…that’s what “they” called it.  Aha! It was called the “Personal Communicator”!   Yep, PC for short…(ooops, hey I wasn’t asked to make these marketing decisions).

Anyway, we did have “Smart Phones” on the drawing board, but that was supposed to come after out iPad, er uh, I mean Personal Communicator.   We had it all bassackwards…

But we have been here before, its just twenty years later.

I just digged up this Ad for the EO Personal Communicator (the first one) and I remembered HATING IT when I first saw it.  I like it A LOT now…I think it captured everything we were trying to do at the Hobbit group in AT&T (yes, it was called informally the Hobbit group)…I guess I have changed.

How To Appease a Fat Cat in Gondola

Do the pundits go from a YADA template?  Are they really set deep in retardation, or do they just write for the opposite effect?

I can’t pick from all the brainless articles that have been going around since the iPad announcement  (that I will humbly remind you that I discussed in August 2009).  Which one to tackle? Hmmm, easy pickings, here’s one… from Yet Another Dumb Ass (YADA).  And then you  YOU HAVE TO see the original article linked to at the end…ya just have to.  Now to be honest, I changed a few words (in underline bold italics ) , just so to underline-embolden and italicize the points made here.

Apple iPad Will Fail in a Late, Defensive Move: Matthew Lynn

Commentary by Matthew Lynn

Jan. 15 (Bloomberg) — Few products have been launched with such a blizzard of publicity as Apple Inc.‘s iPad.

To its many fans, Apple is more of a religious cult than a company. An iToaster that downloads video and books while toasting bread would probably get the same kind of worldwide attention.

Don’t let that fool you into thinking that it matters. The big competitors in the mobile industry won’t be whispering nervously into their clamshells over a new threat to their business.

The iPad is nothing more than a luxury bauble that will appeal to a few gadget freaks. In terms of its impact on the industry, the iPad is less relevant.

If column inches and airtime guaranteed commercial success, Apple would already have a global hit on its hands. For the past week, it has been impossible to open a newspaper or look at a Web site without reading something about the shiny new tablet.

Certainly, it loors like a nice piece of equipment. The iPad combines Apple’s iPhone and an eBook with a browser as well as having wireless Internet access for full e-mail. Instead of lugging around a netbook or laptop.  Even better, its battery life lasts all day.

It will be released in the U.S. in June, with a rollout to the rest of the world later, and will cost $499 to $599, depending on how much storage space you want. How many might they sell? Millions, according to Apple Chief Executive Officer Steve Jobs.

Three Reasons

Not everyone is sold on the idea.

“The iPad will not substantially alter the fundamental structure and challenges of the mobile industry,” Charles Golvin, an analyst at Forrester Research Inc., said in a report this month.

There are three reasons that Apple is unlikely to make much of an impact on this market — and why it is too early to start dumping  netbooks, ebooks and tablets competitors shares.

First, Apple is late to this party. The company didn’t invent the personal computer or MP3 player, but it was among the pioneers of both products. Yet there is no shortage of netbooks, ebooks and tablets out there. There are already big companies that dominate the space, all of whom will defend their turf. That means Apple will have to fight hard for every sale.

Next, the mobile  industry depends on cooperation with the other big companies [...].  Apple has never been good at working with other companies. If it knew how to do that, it would be Microsoft Corp.

Lastly, the iPad is a defensive product. It is mainly designed to protect the iPhone, which is coming under attack from mobile manufacturers adding smart phone capabilities to their products. Yet defensive products don’t usually work — consumers are interested in new things, not reheated versions of old things. Likewise, who is it pitched at? The price and the e-mail features make it look like a business product. But Apple is a consumer company. Will your accounts department stump up for a fancy new handset just so you can watch Avatar on your way to a business meeting?

Fresh Competition

In many ways, that is a shame. The mobile industry is becoming a cozy cartel and a limited range of manufacturers. It could certainly use a fresh blast of competition from an industry outsider.

It may come — but probably from an entrepreneurial start-up somewhere.

It won’t come from the iPad. Apple will sell a few to its fans, but the iPad won’t make a long-term mark on the industry.

(Matthew Lynn is a Bloomberg News columnist. The opinions expressed are his own.)

And now, here’s the original, enjoy as you read this and all the other YADAs that are a little more current.

Apple Will Fail in a Late, Defensive Move: Matthew Lynn – Bloomberg.com.

Sometimes I will do a Google on “Apple” and click on news…just to see, well, just to see what’s new.

I do believe in the adage “no news is good news”, so when there is no news and all we get is made up news, well it is kind of funny. You know, like those mags you see in the grocery line, kind of takes away from the boredom as the old lady in front of you argues with the clerk about the price of a can of beans.

When googling though, I am looking for real news, so  it is irritating. Like today, the BIG STORY is the rumor that the rumored iPod with a rumored camera may have a technical glitch! Wow!  I just did a Shift-Command-4 (on the mac) to snapshot the results of this historic hour:

Now yesterday, it was different “news”  about different speculations.  Yeah, news about speculations, which is not much different than news about rumors of rumors, but close.   The speculation is regurgitated, cyclic, but these days the blogosphere’s roller coaster had sped to warp speed.  I suspect they are getting paid for this.  But for crying out loud, Beatles and Tablet’s again?  That was the search result topper yesterday.  I didn’t snapshot it.  I think I will do that for now on (Shift-Command-4 is becoming second nature to me anyway).   But take my word for it yesterday, August 7, 2009, the top Apple news story on google was:

Apple telegraphs iPods; fans see Beatles, tablets via The Associated Press: Apple telegraphs iPods; fans see Beatles, tablets.

I actually read the story, then felt stupid.  Even I can get suckered into clicking on certain things.  I am a humongous Beatle fan, big time Tablet  guy for almost 20 years, Apple is my focus these days…I fell for it.  Its really a drag when you read so called “news” and there is nothing new, and it actually is irritating because there is a lot wrong and you almost want to waste your time in the comments section correcting the wrongness.  But I didn’t this time, I’d rather blog about it ;-)

So what was wrong with the article?   Well, on the Beatles, it was the same o same o rumor that the Beatle recordings will be sold on iTunes finally.  Yeah, yeah, yeah, but this time for sure!  Uh, but then the article says only if Paul and Ringo agree to it.  I swear my 8 year old neighbor’s kid could make up better stories than this (btw, Paul and Ringo are all for this, but they don’t have the final say on any of this, the record company does of course…now why does the Sex Pistol’s “EMI” come to mind?).

Anyway, you’ll notice that “Apple Tablet” thingy is still hot too (even along with this iPod glitch tragedy) .  Nothing new.

It’s ain’t going to be a tablet

Then again, Apple could release and market a “Tablet”…which would be a major mistake, and I could be one of those negative pundits.

Why an Apple “iPad” makes sense.

So, yesterday while falling for that I also notice one article on one subject.  Apple Insider published

Technical issues could delay iPod camera upgrade

and of course I fell for that too.  I mean it actually looked like news.  Errr…nope…just a bunch a speculation based on some “reliable source” that there is a camera glitch, bla bla bla.  Yeah, technical product, with technical glitch.  Uh uh.  Now of course, the implication is that this “glitch” is mega news!  The End Of The World news, at least for Apple.  It “could”, “might” RUIN Apple’s big event tomorrow.  It “could, might, maybe”, send Steve Jobs back to the hospital, oh the drama.

I blew it off yesterday, I mean it is silly, it doesn’t make sense.  Yeah, a glitch does, but the end-of-the-world implications is nutso.  Yet…next day, today, there are 218 articles that confirm (cough cough) this.  Regurgitated from the original Apple Insider post which simply used a “reliable source” that basically says not much.  Wow.   Its like astrologists, you know, they may get your horoscope wrong 300 hundreds days of the year, but you remember the few times they were sorta close.   If they are wrong, and you point it out, they will use the semantics of language (like Nostradamus followers) as a defense

…let’s follow this one, be back tomorrow.

1) It Won’t be a PC - Not only “it won’t be a tablet” but it won’t be a PC.  The desktop metaphor won’t work here, period.   A “Start” button on a tablet is a joke.   A hovering mouse pointer is stupid.  Drag-able windows everywhere is nuts.  Icons and menus and scroll bars driving functionality is lame.

Apple gets it.  There is no Finder on the iPhone is there?  Thank goodness.  The failure of screen-driven devices beyond pocket size has to do with the reluctance of the industry to disrupt the PC.  Instead this class of device has always been forced into a position of comparison with that of the standard PC either as a companion,  or as an extension, or as a replacement.   This is what happens when industries, not the end users, get to dictate how new technology will be applied into the market.  One of the major criticisms of Apple has been they failed to open their platform and create an industry like the Wintel world, and they also failed to compromise their fixation on the consumer and the end-user experience, rather than put more effort on the standards of corporate IT world.  Thank goodness again, otherwise we would have no iPhone.

2) EBook Store – Yet another store for Apple:  iTunes, AppStore, and now an ebook Store.  I remember reading awhile back that Steve Jobs said nobody reads anymore. Ha ha.  More revenue PLUS, the possibility of a subsidizing angle from a top book store, say Borders?  Unlike the muzak industry, retailers have a bigger foothold on the market and therefore Apple won’t be dealing with the publishers directly.  Border’s makes sense, they are the number 2 giant and just last year decided to go after Amazon head to head with its own internet presence. Why wouldn’t Apple make a deal directly with them? It makes a lot of sense.

3) Video –  This is not the no-brainer people think it is.  A laptop has an advantage besides having a keyboard.  It works well with tops: laps, desks, tables, airplane trays, and other flat surfaces.  Watching video is mainly a stationary activity.  That is why I should also say you can’t take the “TV metaphor” and put it on this device.  If the user interface for this winds up being an Apple TV extension or a touch version of Front Row then this will fail.  It won’t be though, Apple is too smart.  The real killer application of an iPad for video of course is an extension of how we already are using the iPhone 3GS.  Not just for video clip streaming and viewing while in ultra mobile environments, but for video clip creating. It will have a camera, and it will supplant the home cameras in a way that will make it a home video studio with feet.

4) Personal Communicator with Choice. “Not an iPhone” means Verizon and Sprint will be a contractual possibility.   That means the iPAD Pro (vs. a possible WiFi only version) most likely have both a CDMA and GSM radio in it like HTC’s Touch Pro 2. Though I am pretty sure the iPAD will be based on upgraded version of the iPhone’s cocoa touch OS, it is likely the “iPAD” will be considered a new product category.  It won’t be a phone, but it will be a Personal Communicator class of device that was supposed to (and should have) disrupted the PC’s dominance a decade ago. The competition from having more than one choice of providers will allow for even better subsidized prices, making this new contraption even more appealing.

5) WebPad. Wanderbook was conceived with from the idea of creating a WebPad in 1999.   When wireless technology began its rise, the idea of pen computers running a browser, untethered, seemed to be a no-brainer. It was, and still is a valid concept.  As I said in #1 above, the problem is the concept got killed by trying to also port a big fat desktop operating system on to these devices where the will of the mighty PC industry refused to compromise for the benefit of the end user.

6)  Headset Oriented – The iPhone is a self contained phone, and like all phones you can raise it to your ear and speak into it, put it into your pocket etc.  - a major advantage over Personal Communicators with larger screens.  Ok, but this advance could be a disadvantage as well.  Is it really healthy to put a transmitter next to your brain all day?  I won’t feed into the health concerns of mobile phones, just that it is a concern to many people, valid or not.  Plus, handsets are now a no-no in many states while driving and it seems wireless speaker or headsets are the way of the future for this and other reasons.  Plus, unless it is a speaker phone, which for many reasons are not practical all the time, you can’t use your screen simultaneously. So, a device that is meant to be used with a head makes sense.

7) Games – The iPhone and iPod Touch have open up news possibilities in the game market.  A bigger screen simply means bigger possibilities.

8) A New Metaphor UI - This is one I am not sure of…(why I said 7 reasons).  I think this is going to be a very tough nut for Apple to crack. Sticking to the phone metaphor was brilliant, but I think it could fall apart with a bigger device.  However, a more sophisticated digitizer integrated with multitouch may be too much too soon.  Also, of course, breaking too far away from the iPhone U/I would be risky.

But the thumb can only reach so far, and let’s face it, thats the primary “stylus” we use, our other digits on our hand – not as much.  The phone metaphor itself can only go so far.  I am guessing the iPAD will not only have a bigger display, but  a richer display, like that from Pixel QI which is a new kind of epaper that has a rich full color and fast refreshing screen, and with a lot of the advantages the other epaper technologies have: high paperlike contrast, low power, lightweight .

Pixel Qi Product Vision

Therefore a richer U/I to go along with it makes sense.

Personally I love the Notebook metaphor of the electronic briefcase (AKA PenPoint), and I find it amusing the PC industry took away the notebook name for itself, but never took the metaphor.  A richer interface means more gestures, and now that Apple has brought back the notion that gestures can be good, instead of bad (yes, there was a time when this was standard thinking, again it was driven by PC industrial driven world).  Not to forget the “ThinkPad” which by the, was also originally a system design for PenPoint.

Anyway, this iPad means there is a need for something richer than the finger or thumb as a stylus.  No not a keyboard, arg…I mean yes, a better software keyboard, perhaps, maybe handwriting reonigiton done right (but thats another article for me to write) – but one that includes ink.  You know, like ink on a piece of paper but digital, concept we some of use know as “ink as a datatype”.  By the way, those who know a little know nothing…Microsoft did not invent ink writing applications.  The whole concept was full realized out of, yes once again, GO corporation with PenPoint.

But I digress.  Handwritten digital  ink, and the ability to manipulate it with a rich gesture set would enable a more human interface, not simply a paper note taking application, no, no, this would permeate throughout the entire U/I, like a lamented layer over everything.   Get it?  Maybe not, it’s really sad that  much of what was PenPoint was ripped from the history books.

Sometimes I just can’t figure out which movie metaphor to use, in this case I will use them both.

I came across a post the other week in my old files, from sometime during my days when I was working on Microsoft’s Tablet PC . Having been intimately involved with the “Go Software” he mentions I understood the truth of his statements deeper than he could possibly know.  The link is still valid.

from Bright-Eyed Master Zen

This tablet PC epidemic is going to be painful to watch. It’s really too bad that all these hardware companies are going to pay the price for Microsoft’s foolishness.

I want a tablet, I’ve wanted a tablet for many years in fact and I’ve purchased numerous devices to try to find something that would work. Every single one of those devices had some major failing that completely destroyed the usefulness of the device.

Now if Microsoft was rolling out a completely new OS targeted at this tablet PC device then maybe I would be more optimistic. Or maybe not given how bad Pocket PC 2002 still is. Unfortunately, running the mess that is Windows XP on a device without a keyboard is simply foolish. It’s not designed for that usage model and the OS interaction is just wrong. This is yet another case of where Microsoft has truly set computing back ten years.

The other day I was in the library and came across the manuals for PenPoint. This was the pen computing environment developed by Go Computing. I of course had to sit down and read through the manuals to see what it was like since I’ve never seen one of these machines. The thing that pains me about this, nothing has advanced. Because the Go software was designed from the ground up to be Pen driven and did not have any need to appear like an existing desktop environment, its interaction model was vastly superior to any current OS that runs on a portable device. Apple’s Newton technology was another example of this. I know these platforms were limited at the time, but just imagine where these things could be today if they had survived?

So now today, instead of getting truly interesting devices with software custom tailored for the unique constraints of the platform. We get crap that runs a desktop operating system that has extremely poor usability even when it runs in the environment that it was intended for. No, I’m definitely not optimistic about the success of these devices. In fact I’m pretty pissed off about it. When they fail it will represent yet another barrier for someone to be able to come in with fresh ideas and actually make the tablet format a success. I can just hear the VCs now, “so what makes you think you can make this succeed when even Microsoft failed at doing it?”. Bah, I want a tablet PC, but I want one with software and hardware designed and tailored for the constraints of the platform. Not some keyboard less laptop running a desktop operating system.

Very painful to watch indeed. Now 7 years later the dust has settled, its time for Tablet Dreams again.

Will Apple make the same mistakes? Heck no.
It Ain’t Going To Be An iTablet
Finally, we’re back to the future, where we left off in 1992…
The Eo Personal Communicator

It’s strange, “history does repeat itself – though in different ways.” I remember Robert Carr (the architect of PenPoint) said something like that to a bunch of weary developers during a talk a long, long, time ago, after GO had died.

So now I am developing in Cocoa, using Objective-C, I literally do feel I am in 1992 again.   Not surprising, Cocoa (then known as NextStep) was developed in parallel periods, both PenPoint and Cocoa are purely C-language based, with Object-Oriented extensions modeled directly on Smalltalk. Both are heavily message based, using the Model-View-Controller paradigm throughout.

At least somehow, someway, and it wasn’t easy, NextStep survived and is being ported to the products this type of technology was destined for, ever since the Dynabook vision that spawned it all.  Awe yes, Episode VI The Return Of The Jedi.

I wonder if this Bright-Eyed Master Zen guy from the past looks like a muppet?

I have been thinking about telling the full story of the stylus-driven computer devices, especially what happened during the 1990′s – where from my unique point of view a full chapter of history on this technology has been forgotten, misremembered, and never properly recorded.

Of course, currently I am being driven by the hype and heated rumors of Apple’s upcoming Tablet (just google it)… I’ve seen this hype before, for 20 years as a matter of fact, but never this loud.

Anyway, if you know me, you know I know tablets (and their many other AKAs).
Mobilepoint (e-case)
The word “Tablet” actually would be one of the dumbest names Apple could use and it shows how Microsoft has brainwashed the media.  “Tablet” might have been appropriate 10 years ago when these devices were more than an inch thick, but this is the 21st century.   Besides the fact that the “Tablet PC” has been a grandiose failure – not because it was called a “Tablet”, but because it was using a OS that is meant for desktop PC’s. Big, and fat OS at that.  Putting a little i in front of the word won’t fix the word.  Forget it.

So, anyway,  I came across an inquiry on the google finance board which summarizes the entire wacko world of Internet speculation on these rumors….:

http://finance.google.com/group/google.finance.22144/browse_thread/thread/80c7af8e9b015a30

“Subject: iTablet Aug 9, 7:58 pm
I would like to hear your opinions on what OS you think tablet will
use. Full-fledged Mac OS makes better sense to me, as I would like to
be able to use on it apps like Photoshop,Pages,Numbers,Rhino and
others. But full-fledged Mac OS on it might cannibalize laptop sales.
iPhone Touch OS allows for fast development of many apps, but doesn’t
allow existing desktop graphic, 3D modeling etc. apps. Hybrid? Full
Mac OS with some bridge to iPhone apps? Hmm. Not sure. Then there is
the price. For expected $800 for device I would expect full Mac OS,
not just access to app store apps. Personally, I would be willing to
spend $800 for tablet with full OS, not for limited iPhone Touch like
OS.”

Ignoring the desire for a Mac OS I focused on the word tablet and whipped out this response.

“Well, we know it will be OS X…
The question at a technical level is whether it will be cocoa (as in
Leopard) or cocoa touch (as in iPhone).
It will take a lot of guts on Apple’s part to create a new platform,
but if they do it won’t be called a tablet. I agree, the appstore is
very inviting, especially with a larger and more capable device. I
would guess it will be based on the iPhone OS, and overall won’t be
radically different than the iPhone other than it have a little more
of everything. It will be a challenge not to screw up the user
interface, with a screen slight bigger the thumb won’t be the primary
stylus anymore. Most likely it will be a Personal Communicator class
of device, somewhat smarter than a smart phone, somewhat less desktop
oriented than a Mac. I am also guessing it will be called the iPhone
Pro. You heard it from eddie clay first.”

Yep, “iPhone Pro” makes sense.  Although if Apple had the guts they would resurrect the “iBook”name, but only if it was truly going to be a new platform or at the very least, presented a user interface and organization metaphor beyond the iPhone’s.  More what that might be  (and why you don’t want a “full fledge Mac OS X”) in my next post.

Powered by Qumana

Forget the entry levl smart phone market.  Apple will own this too.  This pricing probably just killed the Palm Pre and the company I am afraid.  There are many reasons for this, the web only platform (yet to be released) like Android’s is limiting, virtual machine only.   Native apps within a rich OO framework that supports the de facto standard for low level coding leads to rich/fast innovation.  So if you believe rich/innovative apps will make or break the next gen of handhelds…Pre is  handicapped.  So is Android.   (What the heck is MS doing? Trying to stay PC…)

So, the only chance was Pre’s awesome U/I and design would make it an awesome consumer (non early adopter) choice as a great entry level smart phone …but a $99 iPhone 3G kills this.

There is a snowball’s chance in Pre’s hell however, given that AT&T is still the only provider for the iPhone, but I don’t think the entry level market cares.

Apple – iPhone – Mobile phone, iPod, and Internet device..

Interesting stuff going on at Google, the the “Wave” et al…

Google Bets Big on HTML 5: News from Google I/O – O’Reilly Radar.

I understand the point of an emerging web application platform and web apps can do what many native apps did 10 years ago. I  don’t get the graph…is it another way of preaching the silly idea that the superiority of the native app reign (or OS) is about to end?…it looks here like the point in this graph is today’s web apps (RIAs or HTML5) are as good as today’s native apps…and I hear it over and over again.

Let’s not get carried away…please.  Google Earth compared to Google Maps, seriously, one is like flying, the other is simply useful, that’s all.

There is an excellent point in the article though, the observation that mobile browsing is driving a lot of the web platform now.  Yep.

Even so,  the native apps (and the mobile browser on an iPhone for example, is a native app) will always be superior. The native iPhone apps blow away the iPhon web apps  or any other mobile.   I just downloaded Google Earth on the iPhone, web apps can’t do that.  The real disruption to talk about began over a year ago, not in 1991.

Its not the web application platform that is displacing native apps, its that web connected mobile platforms are displacing personal computers.