The POST-PC Era

All of a sudden the the term "POST-PC" is the latest buzzword. I heard it first from Steve Jobs when he used it in 2007 or so. I also heard Bill Gates use the term PC Plus. I looked it up and it turns out that the term was not coined by Steve Jobs but rather, David Clark from MIT in 1999.

Nevertheless, regardless of who invented the term, it is something that is difficult to explain like the way cloud computing means different things to different people. I think Steve Jobs referred to it in the context of devices such as the iPhone and later the iPad. I think for him devices such as Smartphones, tablets and other mobile devices would replace the need for a PC. I think Bill Gates may have meant that PCs will no longer dominate but rather be just another computing device.

For me post PC is about data. It is a combination of devices of all sorts with whatever operating system, but most importantly must include cloud computing and the general concept of thin. To me post PC means that I can get the data I want from any device anywhere. The device is all about the user experience. Gone should be the need to have large local disks or software installed other that the core OS and OS distributed apps such as a browser. The device should have the ability to figure out my context, which means it just needs to be told who I am.  I should not have to install any software on it. I should be able to do my daily stuff like do credit transactions, show my drivers license, passport or boarding pass, read my documents and email without doing direct file transfers or anything like that. Currently gmail, google apps, google maps, office 365, spotify, rhapsody, Salesforce, Netflix, Android, iOS, iPad, Blackberry 10, NFC, GPS, and the traditional PC and laptops themselves combined all contribute to the post PC-era.
  
iTunes, Microsoft Word, Excel, Outlook, Big local hard disks to store pictures, backup devices, downloaded mpeg movies, iTunes App store, Google play store are current PC Era items that need to be left behind as soon as possible.
 
Buying your own tunes or movies from iTunes or Amazon. No.. Just use netflix, spotify, rhapsody. Your playlists and movies should be anywhere and everywhere. On My phone, tablet, my car, my laptop, my PC. Same goes for downloading apps. They need to be thin, with exceptions (see next paragraph).

But that is not to say it all needs to be left behind. That will not be possible today. CAD, Movie studio editing, Software development tools, PC games and that kind of specialized stuff should remain on a traditional PC. They don't need to be everywhere and every place. That is why PCs are still must be part of the Post PC era. That is all the more reason why I like Bill Gates' term much better ==> PC Plus. 

The Post PC things not with us yet that I am most excited about are:
1) Wearable devices. The Google glass project has me really intrigued. In fact really, really intrigued. It is only at the drawing board stage, so we will seeing a lot more coming from them, other than a google glass hangout session with some sky divers. 
2) Also what are we going to do with NFC? Why is it taking so long to become mainstream? We need some pioneers. We need the big players like Apple, Google and Microsoft to team up and make it happen. If its not NFC, then something else. I must say I was excited to read about RIM's NFC deal with Visa. I will be very happy in my lifetime if I don't have to carry money, drivers licenses, insurance, passport or credit cards.  Its all there in my context on any device, anywhere. 

The hottest device in the market today, may also be the most overrated

I am of course talking about the 10 inch tablet device like the iPad.
The Macbook air is so much better for the business user than the iPad. Similarly the Surface may also turn out to be better for the this type of user. I see so many people even in our boardroom propping up their tablets like a laptop but then have to put the tablet down flat to type. I suppose the MS Surface would make life better in that regard. I doubt though that it will give me as a business user and developer what the brilliant and underestimated value a Macbook air can give me. But what about if I just want to sit up in bed and browse away using a nice touch interface? Or if I just want to jot down some quick notes without have to fire up the small Macbook Air type laptop/netbook? Or what if I want to look at a quick video or take a quick snap? Wouldn't the tablet be perfect for that? For me an Android phone with the bigger display (including the Galaxy note) completely negates the need to have a the traditional tablet at all. And I can also still store this device in my pocket and make phone calls on it. 

The Google Drive and the Cloud.

I am torn between the benefits of offline vs. true cloud file management. The wonderful google drive has added to these mixed feelings. While there are clear benefits to having synchronized local drives, it also slows down our forward progress. Take trues google doc .gdoc files. These are similar to Unix symbolic links, where we can setup easy access to files or executables somewhere else on our computer. A .gdoc file then is a pointer to your actual file somewhere on the cloud and definitely not a copy of the file. At first I thought, wouldn't it be nice to have a local off-line editor to manage .gdoc files as well? But the offline gears type browser editor, should be used as an exception, not the rule. If you want to stay true legacy, you still can because google drive still synchronises .docx files the traditional way, where behind the scenes, files are being copied back and forth. An example of the exception to which I was referring to is if I am on a plane and want to work on something, clicking on a .gdoc file would be a problem. For these rare situations, it should not be a big deal to download the file manually beforehand, work on the file using the gears version of gdocs and sync it back up manually once done. If you forget to download the file, you would be out of luck, but how many times would it happen? If so just eat the peanuts and drink you coffee. You can pick up the file at any airport lounge. It won't be long before every plane also has online access (with a price of course) anyway.
I also like some of the talk about moving development environments such as eclipse to cloud with access to source code also in the cloud. Wouldn't it be nice to just install a development environment once and have it available on any any computer? Well, we are a few years away from that, but at this point I am certainly enjoying not having much dependancy on legacy office apps like word or excel. Instead I work on a google doc, don't even worry about saving the file. Then come home and from any computer, go into my google drive, and the link is just sitting there. No waiting for a sync, just click and I continue where Ieft off. 

Steve Jobs Betrayal

Most of you have read this quote I am sure.

Jobs said, “I will spend my last dying breath if I need to, and I will spend every penny of Apple’s $40 billion in the bank, to right this wrong. I’m going to destroy Android, because it’s a stolen product.


I guess he didn't!

The Facebook IPO

Is Facebook another AOL or Yahoo? Or will it be another Microsoft or Google? Obviously most investors are hedging their bets on the latter. I am going to be a wimp and sit on the fence on this one. What I can say is that I really did scratch my head when AOL bought Time/Warner. It just made no sense that a glorified ISP with contact that you could anywhere by surfing the internet, could buy a seriously established outfit like Time/Warner. As it turned out I had every right to scratch my head. Facebook certainly needs to become a lot more than a social network with advertising. Maybe it will expand to the enterprise via its social network and its large user base, much like google did with its search engine. Microsoft"s entry point to the enterprise was its home PC operating system which they managed to monopolize. But I also can't deny that I am scratching my head how a social networking website could have the third biggest ever IPO in history behind GM and Visa. On the other hand Zuckerberg is a bona fide wunderkind like Gates and Jobs there just may be no stopping him. The next few years will be very interesting.

The New IPAD

There is no doubt Apple revolutionized the tablet. In fact I wrote a long blog entry about that. But now they are just goofy. Their home page says "RESOLUTIONARY, the New IPAD". Ok....whatever. 
So they really are calling it The New Ipad. Ok....whatever. 
Why didn't they call it what is it. The New Ipad 2. 
So what do they call the next one that comes out in 3 weeks or so. 
ALITTLEMORE-SOLUTIONARY, "The New Ipad S"? Or The Brand Spanking New Ipad? The newer Ipad? 

I am looking forward to the iPhone 5... er I mean the New iPhone launch to see what it has to offer beyond Siri 2, or should I say the New Siri. 

Poor Steve Jobs must be rolling in his grave already. I am afraid this company has already lost its lustre in such a short time. It really is amazing how one man can make that much difference.

NOTE: I am of course fully expecting on March 19th or whatever the date is, that they brand it the IPAD 3 or Ipad Steroid or IPAD GT or some other name and claim that was their plan all along. Either way its all a very goofy marketing campaign from a marketing oriented company which is what they have become.

Mobile Apps vs. Web Apps

All this talk about mobile Apps and App stores these days just make my blood boil. Aren't we going backwards, not forwards? I mean really. Version control management, individual downloads of device specific software? Haven't been dealing with these types of painful issues for several decades? Aren't we talking so much these days about cloud apps and cloud media? Wouldn't we want to push these ideas to the latest technology devices, which today are mobile ones?
Remember the age old fat client issues we have been having on the workstation? 1) Office on Windows only and totally different version for the Mac? No office for Linux. 2) Microsoft outlook needs to be loaded on every PC in order to see your email. 3) iTunes always has to be updated in order to do anything with a new service offering. 4) checking for software updates and then loading same thing on each device you have?
Isn't apple talking about moving iTunes to the cloud along with your songs? I thought finally after so much platform dependence, that we were getting some great web apps like Google Docs, Gmail, Maps, Facebook etc. that run on any platform. The only thing preventing further progress is having to support backwards compatibly of browsers and developers not having access to device details pre HTML5.

Now we new mobile devices and about everything you want to do on a mobile device requires a device specific app.  Hello? Why is HTML5, which gives us the much needed device access,  not becoming mainstream quicker?
Yes I realize that device specific apps will perform better and also help some the device manufacturers gain a competitive advantage by releasing a new feature that only their app can support. It gives them incentive obviously to be more innovative, I concede.  In fact I will go as far as to say there is a place for native apps, but it has gone too far. I mean even today, news media sites don't need their own Apple App or  Android App, yet they want you to download their mobile app whenever you go to their site to read some content. Why don't they do a very good Web app instead of the lame ones they do today? Furthermore, mobile devices generally support modern HTML and don't have the same backwards compatibility issues faced by the workstations. I do see the need for some native apps, but apple's 30% interest in any apple store app, may have a lot do with the slow movement towards HTML5 even if Steve Jobs was pushing for it ahead of flash.

The media does not help with the misinformation to the public about mobile apps. They really push them. I just saw a review on BBC world on the new playbook OS 2.0. As usual they continue with the same old boring media diatribe about the playbook only now releasing native email.  I mean give me a break. Why do you want a separate copy of the same email on every device you have? How do you effectively manage your inbox? Why do I have to setup my email client all over again (and please don't use the same boring argument about offline access please)? Has anyone easily been able to synchronize their native contacts app with a central repository of contacts (in my case Google contacts). For whatever reason that is always a pain in the #*&. Why not just build superior mobile web apps for mail, calendar and contacts. 

If anything BB OS is ahead of its time. They have a superb bridge native application (yes a native application that actually makes sense) to the bb smartphone where I can actually share its email, calendar and contact data as well as BBM which means I do not need a separate copy of the same thing. I just got OS 2.0 and didn't even bother to setup the native email, calendar or contacts, just like I never bothered to set them up on Android and IPAD devices. The numb-skull on BBC world also made a stupid sarcastic comment about native BBM not being supported on the playbook. If he stopped being a sheep and actually decided to think for himself, he would realize that BBM in not an internet application and was not written that way, like google talk or skype for example. Instead it uses the blackberry BES service which is tied to the physical device itself by PIN. Just think about it. If you have one phone number and somebody texts you, you're only going to get that message on that number not on another number on another device. It's exactly the same thing with a PIN. If playbook was offered on 3G, he may have an argument, but BBM would have to be re-engineered for a single profile to share multiple pins, otherwise each device would need its own separate profile, which would be pointless. The bridge again offers up BBM service to the playbook just fine. 

Apple is pushing iCloud more and more. But they are also pushing apple specific apps from the app store more an more. They seem have the media in their back pocket and we just follow along. Let's push for HTML5 please?