bstoffer

April 17, 2010

Apple currently dominates the high-end computer market. They own the market above $1000. They are making incredible headway into the smartphone market, with the oft-copied, but never duplicated iPhone. Recently they released the incredible iPad, by all accounts creating a new genre of device that they set the bar for.

Google is hot on their trail with the Nexus One and the upcoming ChromeOS, which—while a different approach from Apple’s iPhone OS—will be used in a tablet before long, and on thin desktops not long after.

But here’s the big one in my mind: online services, specifically cloud storage. Google dominates in online services with gmail, gdocs and the rest of the Google Apps, and of course, search. A driving concept behind all of Googles projects is the ubiquitous cloud storage concept. The idea that your data lives in one place: the Internet. You can access it from any machine, from anywhere around the world. This includes phones, desktops, set-top boxes, and soon tablets. This idea is not just core to their strategy, it IS their strategy. Look at their upcoming OS—it’s a browser with no local storage. Sounds kooky? Not when you consider their services, which duplicate most applications used locally on people’s desktops: Office, the web, social media services like Twitter and Facebook, and email. No local storage means you have access to your documents (and the very same applications) from anywhere.

Apple has a service called MobileMe, which costs $99 per year, and offers a handful of online services. These include a small storage area, traditional email (imap) and a web interface, a pared down web hosting offering, and the ability to sync some data between a handful of machines. That last one sounds promising, doesn’t it? Unfortunately, it’s limited to he Mac contacts application, email account settings, and Safari bookmarks. If you use any other apps for those activities you’re out of luck.

Okay, so you are locked into Apple applications. But what about sharing my iTunes library? What about seamless syncing of the My Documents folder? What about syncing application settings so that when I open Pages on my work machine the layout and toolbars match those on my home machine?

Also, the syncing is terribly unreliable. It works most of the time, but that’s almost worse than if it reliably didn’t work (or god forbid, reliably worked). It’s based on copying data from one machine to another, rather than storing data in a single location and granting access to that resource from anywhere. This means that things are out-of-sync immediately when you make a change. The syncing process has to occur before the copy becomes accessible elsewhere. If it fails for some reason (out of wifi range, for example) the system is out of whack.

The solution is to turn MobileMe into a genuine cloud storage solution. Turn My Documents into a virtual folder that connects to the cloud. Store application settings in the cloud, with a local cache for offline use. Sounds a bit like the copying method I mentioned above, but the difference is that the cloud becomes the source of record. All devices pull from the cloud.

Then Apple goes one step further, and uses it as storage for our media. Sure you can still download songs and movies, but when you purchase something from the iTunes store, it becomes accessible from the cloud. Streaming video is trivial now, streaming music more so. But if your library was accessible from the cloud, you could enjoy your media from anywhere, with no copying between machines. The data is already in the cloud. Apple would simply grant access to the data storage they already use. If you want to download music for a cd or a memory card, do it. Nothing is stopping you from downloading your library, but you don’t have to, so long as your computer or device can access the cloud. Imagine the savings on hard drive storage or device memory.

Now, this schema brings up the question of ownership. If it’s in the cloud you still own it? We are already dealing with this in other venues. Subscriptions to digital media are new, and the issue of ownership hasn’t been fully worked out yet. But what if the new iTunes model was a monthly subscription rather than a retail style purchase model? Microsoft’s ZunePass does this very well, and it’s worth looking at as a potential future model. They still enable downloads, but you can access and listen to music from any device with an Internet connection. It’s all DRMed up, but so long as your subscription is current, you have access.

But back to the main point: Apple needs to turn MobileMe into a cloud storage solution. It’s clearly the future of commodity data storage, and the ubiquitous access further reinforces and bolsters Apple’s push towards lightweight portable devices.

9:46am | URL: http://tmblr.co/ZvrwMyVUmdm

Filed under: Apple Tech

April 7, 2010

iPad != iPod Touch

I keep reading over and over that it’s just a large iPod Touch.

I think functionally that’s true. But the key difference—the large screen—produces a whole new experience. It really feels completely different. Yes it shares icons and UI, but browsing the web on a full-sized touch screen is truly fantastic. The email app is as good as a desktop app, and doesn’t feel like email-lite. Video… I mean, have you ever tried to watch a video on an iPod Touch?

The compromises made for the Touch’s size limit it’s functionality and usability. The iPad eliminates many of those compromises.

To be clear: I’m not saying that the iPad is better than the Touch. It solves similar problems, but it gives up portability to enhance usability.

10:36am | URL: http://tmblr.co/ZvrwMyT-xs1

Filed under: iPad iPod Touch

April 6, 2010

iPad @ Work

It’s “take your iPad to work day” here in my office. I’ve been trying to figure out ways to integrate the iPad with my productive work time, and this morning I stumbled into a good use case.

I manage a web development group. This morning we had a meeting with a representative from the side of the house that handles design and content. He’s leaving the org, and I needed to get some information from him before he left.

When I asked for his list, he motioned to my iMac (facing away from the conference table in my office) and said “You should pull it up on a computer.”

Seeing this as my chance, I whipped out the iPad and pulled up his todo list microsite. I handed the device over to him, and he used it to walk us through his list. When he reached a task that involved reviewing some designs, he pulled up the designs, and passed the iPad around the table (two other people in attendance).

This format was an excellent way to review such content. Holding the designs in our hands, it was clearer to us exactly what the screen would look like, in proper proportions, in a real web browser.

The traditional way to do this would have been to project it on a wall somewhere, but my office lacks a projector. I could have used my iMac, which has a nice big screen, but it was oriented away from the group (because my conference table is in front of my desk). We could have each used our iPhones, but that’s hardly an accurate model. It could have been solved a different way, but this worked out great.

More stories to come.

3:09pm | URL: http://tmblr.co/ZvrwMyTu7A9

April 5, 2010

Alright, I bought one (an iPad).

So I broke down and bought an iPad. My girlfriend scolded me, my officemates mocked Apple and their fanboys (apparently me), my family—without knowing I’d bought one—asked me to show it to them at Easter brunch.

Fine. I’m an early adopter. Let’s just get that out there and move forward, shall we?

What’s it like?

By now I’m willing to bet money that you’ve read reviews or comments by owners and pundits about what it’s like to use. Jobs made the very Jobsian comment that it’s the best way to browse the web. So let’s start there.

For the most part he’s right. It’s simply a joy to browse entirely by touching and gliding. It feels like the iPhone/iPod Touch experience, but the bigger screen (obviously) changes things. Just the sense of motion from the snappy scrolling is impressive to watch. The unit is incredibly responsive, and the browser renders quickly and smoothly.

They’ve made some UI changes to the Safari browser which take advantage of the larger screen. These improvements include the address bar staying put at the top of the screen, “pop-over” windows for things like bookmarks, and of course, the improved keyboard.

It is an improved browsing experience overall. Improved beyond what can be done with a laptop or a desktop or an iPhone. It’s better. Period.

But it’s still missing Flash. You can’t claim that it’s the best browsing experience on the web if a significant portion of the content on the web is inaccessible. As a web developer (and a small business owner) I support the idea of moving away from Flash for embedded video. The problem is there’s tons of content already out there that I can’t get to because Flash is still the easiest solution. Not to mention the interactive piece. Flash UIs and games are very popular, and HTML5 doesn’t really address those needs. Javascript? Maybe. But it will be a while before we see some real movement on that front.

So is it the best browsing experience? Yes and no. For about 80% of my usage, yes. I can say honestly that it’s better than my laptop or my desktop for most of my browsing needs. My girlfriend—who is constantly sticking her nose against the glass of her Macbook Pro while watching some video or other from some random site linked to from Tumblr or Twitter—would be frustrated by it, I think. People who frequent video-centric sites would not be happy with the iPad’s browsing experience. That all said, YouTube, Vimeo, and some other big sites are currently testing and migrating their content over to HTML5. A sign that this might not be an issue in a year or so.

Wait, backup. What about the device?

It’s heavy. Surprisingly heavy. 1.5 lbs., if I’m not mistaken. It’s smallish, and pictures don’t do it justice. You have to hold one to really get a feel for it.

Getting back to the heaviness issue, I’d say it’s a bit heavier than I’d want from a device that’s meant to be held like a book for long periods. Holding it out in front of you with one hand is not trivial.

Okay, okay, hold on. It’s not arm-bendingly heavy, either. It’s just heavy enough that the weight of it becomes a factor eventually. Go to a store and pick one up. You’ll see what I mean.

I think part of what makes it’s weight seem particularly important is that the form factor makes it a little unwieldy. It’s about the size of a hardcover book, but about as thin as my iPhone (.5 inches vs. .48 inches). Something that’s 1.5 lbs. and half-an-inch thick is kind of a hard thing to hold. Especially with the glass surface on one side, and a smooth piece of aluminum on the back. I predict that many people are going to drop theirs. It’s just a weird form factor to hold on to.

So you’re holding it up in your left hand, gripping the side as best you can, and you poke at the screen with your right hand. After about two minutes of this, your left arm is going to get tired. So you start holding it with your right hand, too, like it’s a car steering wheel. But then how do you touch a link or scroll? Let go with your right hand, and use it to “click” and glide, then grab it again before you drop it.

I find myself constantly adjusting how I hold it to account for the weight and the weirdness of the form factor. I see in the Apple “guided tours” that the actors stretch out, put their feet up, and browse with one hand while resting the bottom of the unit on their lap, or on a table. A fair suggestion, though I don’t really have a chair capable of this kind of lounging at my house, or (certainly not) in my office.

This comes up when typing, too. If you want to touch-type in landscape mode (eminently doable), you have to set it down on something. Whenever I did this I found that my neck was craned over into an uncomfortable position. The fancy-pants IPS backlit display (which offers a wider viewing angle than most LCD technologies) does a great job of keeping the screen visible from an odd angle, but it’s still not ideal.

Typing.

The landscape keyboard is good. It’s quite good. But the UI still treats you to the iPhone’s autocorrect system. Seems like a good idea, right? I found that as I typed with it, the corrections code was getting in my way. When I mistyped something, I smacked the delete key, because that’s what I do when I’m on my desktop or laptop. That’s what it feels like. This is in contrast to when I’m “typing” on the iPhone keyboard, which feels like a whole different mode of input.

Yes, you can turn off the autocorrection technology. Better than that, you can just hang up your habits and give in to the autocorrection robots, and probably produce a more accurate product in the end. I’m going to try for the latter, with the hopes that it doesn’t start interfering with my desktop typing habits. But it will. I wonder, however, how long it will be before full-blown OSX and WinWhatever have these autocorrecting features natively themselves.

The point behind this autocorrection rant is to point out that the typing experience (at least in landscape) is more like typing on a real keyboard than typing on an iPhone. Yes, you can touch type on it. Yes, it’s pretty much a full keyboard. Yes, it has some wonky key choices that I’m not terribly fond of (the apostrophe is hidden in the symbols sub-keyboard, the delete key is to small, and the return key is too high), but it’s certainly workable.

And yet, I’ve decided that if I’m going to do any serious typing on this thing, it will be via a bluetooth keyboard. For editing existing documents, and typing up quick emails, the built-in is fine.

What about the portrait keyboard? It’s too cramped to comfortably touch type on. It’s a little too big to use “blackberry style” (with thumbs). It’s also a little large for the hunt-and-peck method. It will be my practice to rotate the device to landscape whenever I need to type.

Media Consumption

It’s a serviceable iPod, though kinda large, right? Well, yes. I am listening to music on mine right now, though. It’s sitting on my desk next to me, and Lady Gaga is belting out something about her shirt being inside out (crazy kids). The player feels pretty basic, honestly. It’s missing some “wow” factor stuff, like Cover Flow from the iPod Touch. Sure, it zooms in on your cover art while it’s playing music from that album, but that’s very basic. My old WinAmp from the 90s did that.

I have to say, the Zune software, with it’s scrolling artist photography, large type, and it’s artist-oriented focus seems much closer to the music than the iPod software. It’s turning into iTunes, which is about as sterile as spreadsheet. I hope Apple puts some effort into jazzing this up a bit.

As for a music player in general, it’s fine. It’s easy to find your music, either by drilling down or searching. You can create playlists, etc.. It’s everything you’d expect. Just yawn inducing. It seems stuck between the iPhone/iPod Touch software and the desktop iTunes software. Why can’t I stream from my iPad over wifi to my Airport Express? Ohh, that’s a desktop feature. So don’t include it in the semi-portable device. Interesting. I suspect changes are coming to this, though. It feels stale.

Movies, on the other hand, are beautiful. It’s the screen (duh). Watching video on the iPhone/iPod Touch was painful for me. It was serviceable, but I was unable to watch for more than a few minutes at a time. I can’t fathom watching a full length movie on that tiny screen.

Luckily I don’t have to. The iPad’s screen is a perfect venue for watching movies. I should say, however, that I probably won’t be watching much on the actual device. I have a large LCD TV at my house, connected to a BluRay player and 5.1 surround sound. Why on earth would I want to watch a video on this thing?

Ohh, while I’m traveling or avoiding work? Okay. You got me there. It’s perfect for those occasions when I’m not at home. If you believe Apple, I’d be nuts not to just sit on my couch with my friends watching movies on the vibrant 9.7 inch display—instead of the 37” 1080p capable HDTV not six feet away.

What about downloadable videos? Now you’re talking. It’s perfect for YouTube, et al.. Again, an extension to browsing the Internet, sure. Not likely to replace the consumption of commercial media like movies and TV shows.

I still have a question about it vs. a laptop in bed. The issue is holding it upright. It’s cumbersome. If you are sitting upright in bed, back against the headboard or wall, legs bent, you could rest it on your lap or legs. Laying flat in bed, it becomes more of a chore to hold it up than a laptop that holds itself open.

To summarize the video experience (because I’m rambling): it’s very pretty. The screen is a huge improvement over the iPhone/iPod Touch’s squintfest.

‘Till Next Time

This is getting long and rambley. I’ll write more as I try to integrate it into my daily routine (both work and life).

4:24pm | URL: http://tmblr.co/ZvrwMyTl2s-

Filed under: iPad review tech

March 30, 2010

"The future of our industry now looks totally different than the past. It looks like a sheet of paper, and it’s called the iPad. It’s not about typing or clicking; it’s about touching. It’s not about text, or even animation, it’s about video. It’s not about a local disk, or even a desktop, it’s about the cloud. It’s not about pulling information; it’s about push. It’s not about repurposing old software, it’s about writing everything from scratch (because you want to take advantage of the awesome potential of the new computers and the new cloud—and because you have to reach this pinnacle). Finally, the industry is fun again."

—

Amen, brother.

Salesforce CEO Mark Benioff, in a column on TechCrunch

9:58am | URL: http://tmblr.co/ZvrwMySt9WZ

March 26, 2010

This needs a Ghostbusters add-on pack. “Hey! Does this pole still work???”

1:43pm | URL: http://tmblr.co/ZvrwMySKS1Q

Filed under: legos ghostbusters awesome

March 24, 2010

Say Goodbye To Files & Folders… & Cubicles

Watching this video demonstrating an incredible video wall got me thinking about future user interfaces. It got me thinking about how computer makers are abstracting us away from the nitty-gritty details of computing, and where there is room left to grow. For example, I’ve often thought that voice should play a bigger role than it does currently, and I’m not sure why it hasn’t been a bigger focus.

The keyboard and mouse are arcane input devices. Apple has made great strides towards bringing us into the future of touch, but right now touch is leveraging a keyboard and mouse metaphor. You still “click” on icons, only you do it with your finger.

Gestures is step beyond this metaphor, but the only popular one that isn’t just a replacement for button press or a mouse click is the “pinch-to-zoom” gesture. Swiping between photos on an iPod Touch is neat, but couldn’t you do that with arrow keys, or by clicking a “next” button? It’s neat because it’s new, and because on a portable device you typically don’t have a keyboard or mouse. But it’s not doing something you haven’t already seen.

A constant (yet slow moving) trend in the technology arena is the growing abstraction between the user and the technology. Graphical user interfaces were developed to provide a layer of abstraction between the user and the black magic going on behind the scenes. Users (in general) don’t care about the guts of the operating system, they just care about getting things done.

Apple’s upcoming iPad is the most recent example of this to date, and it’s a big step forward. The rest of the market will go this way, too. Think about this: there’s no file viewer. There’s no desktop on the iPad to get cluttered with files. There’s no folders. There’s no “My Documents” or home directory. I mean, there ARE, but the user won’t see them.

This is an evolution that will only continue. The iPad represents a foot in the door of the next evolution in computers. Rest assured, you’ll see interfaces like it on the iMac and laptops of the near future.

The focus is on the information itself, rather than individual files that store information. And why not? It’s the information we care about. The consolidation of information in a single generic format is coming. Heck, it’s practically already here. I point to Google. You want to look up a topic? Search in Google and you are overloaded with information from all sorts of sources, from around the world. Do we care that the information is contained in a file on some web server, or as bits in a database? Of course not. We don’t even care what the source is. If is result looks like what we want, we click it. We are being abstracted away from the details so that only the information comes through.

This abstraction comes at a price on Google. Sometimes (increasingly) the abstraction is so thick the context is lost. But that’s another post.

Let’s move into the future and think about how companies might expand the abstraction layer even more.

I’ll pick one that’s been on my mind a lot: Voice. Think back to those Star Trek: The Next Generation scenes in which Captain Picard would say something like “Computer, damage report.” The computer would then list off all the problems with the ship in a very anthropomorphic format: voice. There’s no visual UI to engage with there. There’s no display (sure, they have a display, but it’s not used for this kind of interaction). There’s certainly no files or menus to dig through. You ask for what you want, and you get it back in a format that requires no further work on your part. You don’t have a read a big long post, with a lousy font. This won’t cause eye strain. There’s no ergonomic implications. You are simply told the information you require.

Now that’s abstraction. Abstract away the entire notion of a UI.

Even Star Trek has displays, though, and certainly the representation of most kinds of data wouldn’t suffice simply being read back to you. No video, no pictures… that’s a huge part of our experience. So combine the voice commands with a display. Why not have both?

It doesn’t work in an open office environment. Imagine a room full of cubicles, with everyone shouting commands at their computers. Not likely. This will require the rethinking of office environments. Why not push the envelope talk about abstracting out the “office” part of the office environment? Video conferencing is becoming mainstream (better, easier, cheaper). Working-from-home saves money across the board, all it takes is a little trust from management—something that should exist anyway.

What about portable computing? An example here are the GPS navigation systems we find stuck to people’s dashboards. Here’s the novel piece: they talk, just like the computer on Star Trek. What if I could walk out into the wilderness, say, peering over the edge of the Grand Canyon, while listening to productivity reports and voice-based emails? A palm-sized display could serve the graphical needs, just don’t fall off the cliff.

It’s not about doing more (working while you are on vacation, for example), it’s about questioning the generic office mentality, and envisioning a future where people don’t have offices. They have access to information and other people via interconnected technologies that free them from the confines of a cubicle.

Okay okay… maybe I am getting ahead of myself. But, the more computer and software designers think about freeing themselves from the traditional view of how we use and interact with computers (physically and digitally) the sooner we can free ourselves from the barriers of commodity living.

11:18am | URL: http://tmblr.co/ZvrwMyS2G-m

Filed under: computing UI

March 24, 2010

Marketing Advice For Lady Gaga

Something I have been pondering recently is the incredible success of Lady Gaga, and what she could do to maintain that fame into the future. What makes pop stars fizzle out of the public consciousness, and how can she avoid it?

I looked at a few other pop stars, and I think Britney Spears is the best counter example. Crazyness aside, I think the way Britney was marketed lead to her downfall. She was already losing popularity before she went off the deep end. So why the loss in popularity?

Because she was being marketed to men. I ask you, who are the people buying the CDs and mp3s and concert tickets for Britney Spears? Girls. Young women. Now take a look at how she was being marketed towards the end there—and especially right now. Her outfits, what there are of them, are purely sexual. She poses in videos naked, glossy with a layer of (what I think is intended to be) sweat. She sings songs about threesomes, about how she’s cruising for her next fuck. She taunts the listener with her sexual desires, and her songs are sprinkled with samples of her moaning in ecstasy.

As a guy it’s great. But for girls, I’m not sure it “works.” Take the Toxic video. That opening scene on the plane. Are women watching that thinking “Man, I should get a stewardess outfit and wear it for my boyfriend?” I think not. Here’s what I’m thinking as I watch Toxic: “Man, I wish my girlfriend would get a stewardess outfit.” It’s hot, no doubt. But let’s be real here—do women think it’s hot? Maybe, but ultimately it pushes you further away from your demographic.

Contrast that with Lady Gaga. Gaga is being marketed clearly at girls/young women (heretofore referred to as “women” out of respect, but you know who I’m talking about). She is not over sexualized. In fact, as a man, I recognize that she is attractive, but to me she is not sexy. She doesn’t have that titillating quality that a Britney Spears has.

The costumes aren’t sexual. She’s playing dress-up, people, like the women who follow her did when they were little girls. It’s fantasy dress-up, taken to 11.

She’s “fierce,” as my girlfriend calls her. She’s independent and strong. She’s not a sex toy. You almost get the feeling (as a guy) that you might end up as her sex toy. She’s turned the tables on sexuality in pop music, and I think she’s doing marvelously.

I think you can categorize “market focused” pop content into two categories:

sympathetic, songs in which the singer reveals something about themselves that the listener can relate to
fantasy, songs in which the singer is who the listener wants to be

(I recognize that this is a gross simplification)

Either way you (the performer) are relating yourself to the listener in some way. You are engaging the listener in your tale, and they either come away thinking you are just like them, or that they want to be like you. You don’t have to choose. You can (and should) do both. You should show them the fierce side that women aspire to be like, then you show them that you grapple with some of the same issues they have.

Here’s the advice.

MARKET TO WOMEN. See below.
Keep the costumes. Not matter what your friends and advisors tell you, don’t slide into sexwear. If you feel like you have to dress like a slut you are getting desperate, and are playing your last card.
Forget the faux lesbian stuff. No more kissing girls. It’s cheap titillation, and leaves a bad taste in everyone’s mouth. It’s been done, and usually towards the end of someone’s career.
Be the woman that other women want to be. Carry the beacon of strength and awesomeness. Be fierce.
At the same time, show women that you are human just like them. Be perfect by showing them how you’ve defeated the very problems they experience. You are not immune, but you are strong.

And now some free advice for Britney.

I think you’ve pushed the sexual envelope about as far as it can go. I think you’ve pushed it so far that you are no longer relevant to your core demographic. Learn from your predecessors (I’m looking at you, Madonna), continue down this road and you’ll only become less relevant.
Unusual You is unique song in your catalog. I don’t usually like your ballads (autotuner to the rescue), but this one is very very good. You can’t make a career out of it, but think about what makes that song good (melody, less saccharin arrangement, your voice actually sounds good) and aim for more.
Pursue outside projects. Cut a demo with some rockers. It’ll widen your demographic, and give you a chance to play around and experiment.
Show us a little more of yourself. No, I don’t mean more underwearless upskirts, I mean show us Britney with jeans and a tee shirt. Relax a little. You push yourself to the hilt, which can be hot, but maybe it’s time to chill a bit. The older you get the more weird the full-tilt sexuality looks (again, I point to Madonna).
Maybe look at the male market. You’ve lost the respect of women. Men still see you as intriguing. They see you as the ultimate girlfriend—daring, forward, hot, direct. You speak directly to the guys in most of your songs. The problem is, guys aren’t buying your CDs. Heck, guys aren’t even listening. Advice number 3 might be a way to open that door a crack.

9:07am | URL: http://tmblr.co/ZvrwMyS1Ym2

Filed under: lady gaga britney spears marketing

March 24, 2010

Courtesy of http://teefury.com/

6:54am | URL: http://tmblr.co/ZvrwMyS0vx2

Filed under: gaming awesome

March 23, 2010

Consumption vs. Creation: Why I Cancelled My iPad Order

For all of my professional life I have dreamt of a device that does not yet exist. A tablet, approximately the size of a 200 page hardcover book, with input options including touch, voice, a stylus, and accessories (a keyboard, for example). To bring this device up to speed in the current market, it would have wifi, GPS, 3G (and beyond), Bluetooth for accessories, accelerometers, a magnometer (compass), and a camera capable of video.

I developed this device (in my mind) drawing inspiration from the likes of the Newton, Palm Pilot, early PC-based tablets, and those “datapads” they showed on Star Trek: The Next Generation.

Then came the iPhone—close, but not quite. In fact, the arrival of the iPhone helped illustrate the contrast between current devices and my dream device. I told my friends and colleagues this:

What I want is a device that is less bulky than my laptop, but more productive-oriented than my iPhone.

The use cases are probably familiar: I want to be able to take notes during a meeting, including diagrams, photos, and voice recordings. I want to be able to sort through those notes, and organize them by categories—for example, “the Tuesday security check-in meeting.” I want to be able to jot down some ideas for a new web interface or widget when it enters my mind, and I want to be able to document it completely, not just make a note to document it later (when I’m at my desktop, for example). Ohh, and then I want to be able to search my notes easily and instantly.

When the iPad was announced it seemed like perhaps my dream device had been revealed. Sure it was missing the stylus, and it’s a little bigger than my device, but more screen real estate can’t hurt, right? And who needs a stylus anyway?! Steve Jobs made the case for finger-based input when he introduced the iPhone, plus it has an “almost” full size digital keyboard built-in.

I began preparing my credit card for a $800 dent (I believe that to get the iPad without 3G is folly).

Then I read an article that opened my eyes. It’s about the (currently) vaporware Courier tablet supposedly being developed by Microsoft. This is when it hit me: this is the device I have been dreaming about; a virtual Moleskine. The difference is a focus on creation rather than consumption.

I understand Apple’s approach, and applaud Jobs’ efforts at developing a yet more user-friendly way of consuming media. The iPad is clearly focused and marketed for browsing the internet, watching videos, and playing games. Secondarily, it will serve as a lightweight email app, a music player, and a new platform for the myriad of apps (and their successors) already available on the iPhone. Most of those apps focus on consumption—though not all. But I would argue that the apps themselves are meant to be consumed. Apple’s model for the iTunes-based app store is akin to the iTunes music store: cheap consumables with low barrier to entry.

In contrast, the Courier is focused on recording information, developing and organizing ideas. Creation.

The kind of creation that the Courier is being built for requires a stylus. It involves handwritten notes, doodles, impromptu diagrams, and scrapbooking from various sources, including the web. Okay, that last one could be done without a stylus, but the way it is implemented in the Courier videos—using the stylus to outline pieces of a webpage—is brilliant, and could not be done with the finger alone.

Does any of this make one device better than the other? Nah. Especially when you consider that the Courier is currently represented by a simulated walkthrough via some “leaked” videos. Until we hold one, we can’t be sure what it will do. That said, what we have here are two devices trying to solve different problems.

I cancelled my iPad pre-order when I realized the problem the iPad was addressing is not the problem I have. The Courier, however, seems to fit my needs nicely. I only hope the real thing aligns with the device shown in the videos.

“iPad Is Just A Big iPhone/iPod Touch”

When the iPad was about to be released—and more so since it’s release—this comment has made the rounds. At first I argued against this on the merits of it’s larger screen size and the expanded possibilities that brought; this was to be the great new device that ushered in a new era of portable productivity!

But I see the truth now: the iPad really is based on the “consumptionist” nature of the iPod Touch. Sure, the larger screen allows for a larger keyboard, but the angle the device when typing on the digital keyboard is not (at all) ergonomic, and thus not useful for note taking during long meetings, or even for jotting down ideas while on the bus or at a stoplight. The addition of software like the iWork suite is primarily to allow users to edit existing documents. Enhanced productivity? Yes, but the keyboard ergonomics still severely limit how far one can go. Add a hardware keyboard, you say? Okay—but then I might as well bring my laptop. What about diagramming in-line with my text notes? There’s probably an app for that, but without the accuracy of a stylus the results would be unpredictable.

The brand of productivity advertised by Apple for the iPad is the kind of work I’d rather do at a desktop or a laptop anyway—the device simply isn’t portable enough for me to whip out on a bus and start typing. I am very unlikely to be using an iPad without a full computer nearby; sitting on my couch a few feet from my home machine, or in a meeting a few doors down from my office machine. It is highly unlikely I would start drafting a document in the middle of a meeting. More likely is that I would take notes during the meeting, return to my desk, and start drafting the document on my desktop. Perhaps the iPad is the right venue for editing documents? Here again I point to the value of the stylus. I want to circle words, draw arrows, and write notes in the margin. Even on a desktop making notes in a document is cumbersome and awkward, the iPad does nothing to solve this.

The productivity that the iPad offers is simply not the scale and scope of productivity I have been searching for.

I recognize that the main mission of this device is media consumption. To that end, I cannot find a reason to purchase yet another device solely for consuming data. I surf the internet via my laptop, and on the road via my iPhone—yes, it might be improved (marginally, given my laptop’s multi-touch enabled trackpad), but it’s nothing new. I watch videos on my giant LED TV, with 5.1 channel surround sound. I play games on the same giant LED TV, or on my iPhone or desktop. I listen to music through my home stereo, in my car via satellite, CD, or SD card, at work through my desktop, and via my iPhone while on foot.

I think the refined vision of the device I am actually missing is: an unlimited Moleskine, with a camera, voice recorder, and internet connectivity/a web browser. Organizing and searching represent significant improvements to the venerable analog notepad. Video, audio and web content augment the creation process with real, (virtually) tangible assets. The stylus provides a fast, natural, and—most importantly—highly accurate input method.

I hope that Microsoft builds this Courier device. It may not be 100% of my dream device, but it seems targeted at solving the problem that remains the motivation behind my dream device.