Random Thoughts

A Look at the Future

As most of the people who follow me on Twitter know: I have an iPad. I haven’t had it for very long but I still love it, and each day I have it I love it a little bit more. I’m discovering new ways to interact with the content I’ve interacted with for years and I’ve picked up some great apps (but not too many, my budget won’t allow it). Over the past few days I’ve been working on my iPad almost exclusively. I have kept my laptop’s Twitter and Goggle Reader apps closed as well as email and pretty much anything else. The only thing I’ve really had go use my computer for is my job which needs Final Cut Pro. I can use my iPad for all of my day-to-day stuff and only need to use a full computer for big stuff like editing photos and video. 

That concludes the iPad related portion of this post as the rest will be looking at Mac OS X and the future *insert ominous music here*

For a while now there have been people predicting the end of Mac OS X as we know it, that it will shift towards iOS and away from traditional desktop operating systems. When I first heard these rumours I, like pretty much everyone else, dismissed them thinking it would never happen (I’m still not entirely convinced it will) and that it would the terrible. But the more I use my iPad the more I realise that it wouldn’t be that bad. 

Now I’m not talking about an iMac sized iPad. That would be bad. But I think there is room for the simplification of the desktop computer. One of the big things about iOS is that each app runs in its own little world, plays in its own little sandbox, and maintains its own database of information and when needed that information is presented to you without any hassle. And this it what I want on the desktop, more or less. 

For example: Aperture. Aperture maintains its own database and you never have to worry about where a file is or if you accidentally overwrote the original RAW. All of that is taken care of. The same with iTunes. These are the applications the desktop environment needs to be modelled after. 

But things would have to be a little bit more streamlined. For example there are times when you need a Pages document to relate to photo. And this is where there needs to be one application that can access all the different databases and and create projects and groups from these.

Let’s say your a photographer. Ff you had a photo shoot you would have the photos in a project in Aperture. You would have the contract stored in the Pages database and the invoice in Numbers. With this new application that can access all of the databases you would simply associate the photos, contract, and invoice with one another and poof: a project that doesn’t need folders. Now you can select the contract, invoice, and a few selects from the photos and send them to Mail and email them to the client. No dragging and dropping required. And there are tons of other things that you can do. So, what should we call this great new application? How about Finder.app? 

The Finder would be repurposed into this new database managing application. And for those of you who think that this is out of Finder’s area think again! In each and every ‘save’ and ‘open’ dialogue box I can access two databases of files: music and photos without launching the respective applications or exporting anything. 

This new Finder (and the whole Mac OS X system) would be heavily driven my metadata much like photo and music applications are now. In each application you would tag files based on contents, project, client, class, or whatever you wanted. Then the Finder would automatically gather everything together into projects for you or you could to this manually if needed. 

But the big key to all of this would be the companion apps on the iPhone and iPad. Your home computer/server would be connected to the Internet and from there would serve out your files to your iPad, iPhone, or even another computer (at work, for example). You would be able to download files (for offline viewing and editing) through the mobile Finder and from there each one would go to its respective app. 

In the end this is where I see computing going: database driven applications. The future of computing is going to act a lot more like an iPad is some ways, but not others. If anyone knows of applications like this that exist now let me know since I’m still searching for the “perfect” system. 

Lost Magic

I figured I post my opinion here since it’s too long to fit in a couple of tweets.

First of all, while I think that Gizmodo probably did the wrong thing with the found iPhone prototype, but that’s beside the point. What really has been done is something Gizmodo wrote about themselves: the secrets of Apple have been revealed. 

Every time Apple holds an event everyone gets ready to be amazed, to be blown away by the newest Apple invention. But recently it hasn’t been the same. With tech blogs digging deeper into each rumour and each scrap about the next Apple product it makes the events no fun. When Steve Jobs pulls an iPhone out of his pocket my first reaction is “awesome!” and then the specs are shown and I realise that I know all of them. I’ve read about what chip runs it, how big the screen is going to be, and even what the case will probably look like. But I mostly watch the keynote for the show, and don’t pay too much attention to the specs, just the odd “Oh, that rumour was right,” so I can put up with it. 

But, with Gizmodo getting ahold of the next iPhone it’s not just random specs and blurry photos. They did a full review of the phone months before it will even be announced. And this really takes the fun away from things. Because it’s not just watching the keynote to see if the random rumours and specs are true, this time there’s no doubt about it, there’s a 99% chance that what is on Gizmodo is the next iPhone. But, I think Gizmodo sums up my feelings (and theirs) about this whole thing

We’ve just lost one of our few self-indulgences of wonder. Christmas morning will never, ever be the same.

And really I only have one thing to say to that: “And whose fault do you think that is?” The need to know what Apple is going to announce has gone beyond crazy. For once it would be nice to have an Apple event without all of the specs spilled ahead of time. As Gizmodo’s post talks about, some of the magic of Apple has been lost. I think it’s a shame. 

Dreams of the Future

Like everyone else when I first heard about the iPhone I was stoked! An iPod and a cell phone that synced with my computer: what more could I want? Well, as it turns out, lots. And many of those were solved.

• Over-the-Air contacts, calendars, and email
• Applications
• IM
• Facebook
• Webpages
• Etc…

But there is one thing that I feel is missing. And it is something Hollywood seems to have down. I want to be able to take my work with me. If I have a Pages document open I want to simply be able to “drag” it to my iPhone and continue work. If I have an email I want to be able to do the same thing. And honestly, this isn’t that hard (once Apple allows editing of documents). But where this really comes into play is for more common day things like IM conversations or webpages.

Let me paint you a picture: you’re sitting at your desk having a conversation in Adium with a friend. You realise you need to go do some laundry. So you grab your iPhone and launch Facebook (that’s the IM service in question, but the same applies to everything else). The Facebook app now lets you continue the conversation, but without all of the previous messages. That’s fine, you can deal with it. Now half an hour later you get back to your room and want to go back to the computer. You just start typing again in Adium, no problem. Right?

Right. Kind of. In an ideal word I should be able to tell Adium to send over the conversation logs of the current chat (not every single chat ever) to my iPhone so I have the whole thing. And when I get back I can do the same in reverse. Now obviously this would require Adium to have an iPhone app or at least an app that would accept thse logs and continue the conversation.

The thing I have always looked for in mobile devices is for them to be 100% interconnected with my desktop computer. I don’t want to have separate contacts or emails or calendars. And today, I don’t. But no one seems to have thought about this for other applications. And really, they’re still two devices. I think we need to look at Hollywood for inspiration (again).

I’m going to use Star Trek for an example. The Star Trek PADDs are exactly what I want. I can access all of my files from a central database from anywhere, the PADD, a super-awesome multitouch desk, anywhere.

Ok, there’s my required Star Trek reference out of the way.

But back in reality this shouldn’t be all that difficult to implement (don’t kill me programmers, I know that’s your worst nightmare “it should be simple”). I think it really is the next step in integrating out mobile devices with our desktop computers as well as with our other computers.

One last thing: with the iPad all of this will be even better because of the larger screen.

So what are your thoughts on the matter? How do you see the future of mobile computing being integrated with our desktops?

The Future…

Hello world,

Here’s the required test post/ introduction post for this little blog of mine.

Ordinarily I’d just post this to my website but it is outdated and a total mess at the moment. Hopefully I’ll be reopening it as a proper portfolio sometime in the next few months but that portfolio won’t have a blog component in it. That’s is where this blog comes in; it will be the place for me to post a few random articles that I write and maybe post a picture or two.