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Revolution – iPad, Clouds, and normals?

I’ve been intending to make my obligatory post about the iPad. I mean, how can you have a technical blog with an Apple bent and not? Fortunately, Frasier Spiers has already done a good job at capturing many of my thoughts. (UPDATE: Another good post by Steven Frank)

Even though the “closed-ness” of the iPad (and iPhone) frustrates me, it’s more because I know that the computer world is making a dramatic change that’s no longer focused on me – the geek – and more on everyone else – “normal” folk, where open = complexity and advanced training. Apple has finally made the transition of offering a computer that *is* as easy and approachable as the TV or the standard appliance. This is the future of computing. Not that the open desktop and laptop of today will go away, but they will be relegated to the tinkerers and geeks – which will inevitably mean smaller markets, fewer choices, etc.

The one thing that I haven’t seen anyone comment on greatly is Apple’s recent North Carolina datacenter. I had an aha moment last night. Combine iPad with the cloud, and you have the future of computing for the “common man”. A continuously connected device that is always with you that always has access to your datastore sitting on the future me.com cloud services. It makes sense. Back ups, local storage – it’s not the realm of normals. You can’t make it easy enough. It works great for me, but it never will for my parents – or 90% of the folks out there. The future for the bulk of the population is a device like the iPad along with cloud storage. They can have the entire experience they really want from a computing device without all the mess. Saddens me somewhat, but Frasier is right – partially because the normals will no longer have to rely on me to make the magic work.

This isn’t the technology world I want to live in, but that’s ok. I’ve just gotten accustomed to living in a world where the only way to play the technology game is to be a tinkerer, a geek. That’s coming to an end — it was inevitable — and in the end, that’s a good thing.

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Posted by Rich on Jan 30th 2010 | Filed in Apple, Computer Industry, Mac | Comments (0)

Author

ProfileJust another husband, father, employee, software developer, writer, liver of life. More available here.

Change is afoot!

I threatened it about this time last year, but this Christmas, I’m making good on my threat… I’m redoing Life is Rich – overhauling the content and in many ways starting over. The focus will be purely technical & nerdery – i.e. programming, software, computers, and gadgetry (no politics / rants). I’m sure I’ll reuse some of the old, good stuff – updated of course.

As I continue to learn and grow in my knowledge of all things nerdy, I hope to share some along the way.

UPDATE:First round of content cleanup has been mostly completed. The UI will be next to get an overhaul…

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Posted by Rich on Dec 20th 2009 | Filed in Life | Comments (0)

Welcome to 1984, Google!

Faux pas extraordinaire from Google CEO Eric Schmidt:

If you have something that you don’t want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn’t be doing it in the first place.

Not that I’ve trusted Google and it’s supposed “Don’t Be Evil” policy (see my numerous previous blog entries), but this comment is really short-sighted. Unfortunately, most people are blissfully unaware that they are entrusting so much information and power to a single company.

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Posted by Rich on Dec 8th 2009 | Filed in Computer Industry, Google, Privacy | Comments (1)

iPhone App Purgatory

This sure does make me want to develop iPhone applications – Apple’s continued asshattery in regards to its treatment of developers.

The iPhone’s biggest enemy? Apple. The platform and the applications are what are driving the success of the iPhone. Microsoft had one thing right a few years back: Developers! Developers! Developers!

Ok, I have to show this somewhat unrelated clip now…

Ok, now that we have our Ballmer humor out of the way. Keep alienating developers and the technological first-adopters and your platform will collapse like a house of cards. Apple has a lot of coolness capital, but it doesn’t take long to go from coolest kid on the block to total loser.

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Posted by Rich on Oct 29th 2009 | Filed in Apple, Computer Industry, Mac, Software Development | Comments (0)

There really are no Mac viruses…

While I certainly would never state that Mac OS X can not be infected by a virus – it absolutely could – it’s also fallacious to think that the only reason it doesn’t is due to it’s lesser penetration in the market versus its more popular (in volume sales) counterpart, Windows. The fact of the matter is that Mac OS X is a more secure and hardened OS. The very underpinnings of the system are built upon a solid foundation of BSD Unix.

This article in Fortune comes to nearly the same conclusion as well. Of course, one of the more interesting and likely valid points brought up by the author bares some concern – viruses are dead. The new hawtness in depraved and mischievous computer vectors are Trojans and spyware, which rely more on the fallibility of the human user than the failings of the operating system itself. Software can assist the user in making smart decisions, but stepping too far into this realm ends up creating a stifling user experience (i.e. warning boxes everywhere, confirmation dialogs that don’t really protect anything, or systems so restricted that they lose most of their usefulness). In the end, after having a secure and robust OS, the next most important step is a knowledgeable and wary user.

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Posted by Rich on Sep 22nd 2009 | Filed in Computer Industry, Mac | Comments (0)

Will Work for Food

Indie Mac developer Manton Reece has it right. This was exactly the motivation I needed to stop procrastinating and twiddling away my time that should have been dedicated to more productive pursuits. Time to fire up Xcode.

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Posted by Rich on Aug 31st 2009 | Filed in Life, Software Development | Comments (0)

Do it! Do it now!

Kudos to those who got that Arnold reference…

Shameless plug: Pre-order your Mac OS X version 10.6 Snow Leopard or Mac OS X Snow Leopard Family Pack (5-User) from Amazon with these links and I get a few pennies to help pay to keep the lights on while you get the best price (and best OS) around.

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Posted by Rich on Aug 12th 2009 | Filed in Apple, Mac | Comments (0)

Apple Arrogance

I really like Apple products – particularly their OS (be it for the Mac or the iPhone). I’ve never been particularly fond of Apple the company – primarily due to their apparent indifference to developers and even customers – an almost elite aloofness that states, we’re better than you, our products are superior – you’ll do it our way or you can go elsewhere. Often, it’s worked – at least over the last half-dozen years or so – because their products really are that good.

Unfortunately, I think this attitude has hindered broader acceptance and success. I’ve blogged before about Apple’s abysmal customer support, maintenance and repair policies – or lack of them (see previous rant). Limiting customers to a single avenue of hardware repair that can take days and weeks, including long waits at a retail store, is just reprehensible – especially if you expect to sell to businesses.

The iPhone app store is another good example of this arrogance. Marco Arment at Marco.org has an excellent blog post about Apple’s indifference to the issues developers are currently facing.

This arrogance and disregard for customers and developers will lead to Apple’s downfall if not corrected. It may be slow. It may be years. But it will happen. You can’t treat your partners and your customers this way forever – even with superior products.

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Posted by Rich on Jul 17th 2009 | Filed in Apple, Computer Industry, Software Development | Comments (0)

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