6 ms·

Twitter, Curse your sudden but inevitable betrayal

72 points by bdfh42 17y ago

bdfh42 17y ago
I have been banging on for a long time that as soon as someone produces a decent home computer that is actually designed to be a consumer good then the price of computers as we know them will start to rocket upwards. We probably need to start thinking about just what constitutes a good developers platform so we can all get behind it and achieve some sort of economies of scale.
- misuba 17y ago
  DIY is gonna have to drill down to the level of motherboards and chip-fab much faster than it has been.
- njharman 17y ago
  > designed to be a consumer good That is the iPad, and iPhone/iTouch before it. I don't know what you mean by "decent home computer" but for me "decent computer" is not compatible to "consumer good". Consumer goods are black boxes that just work, computers are DIY tools.
tseabrooks 17y ago
I wish the title of this submission had been better. I'd have read it much sooner. I've taken to calling iPad-esque ideas "Internet Appliance" (I'm sure I got that from somewhere else and I doubt it's original). I think the article misses one important point though - businesses. As far as consumer products I don't see my mom (metaphor) buying a standard desktop PC again assuming similar devices to the iPad come from other makers. Businesses, OTOH, I expect to continue to use traditional PCs for many years to come. People who work in front of PCs need lots of screen real-estate even those doing accounting-and these businesses have tons of legacy SW that it took them years to migrate to new systems (many of them still haven't). This will be a boon to geeks. As businesses hold onto the traditional computers we will all benefit and continue to get much of our hardware fairly cheaply.
- misuba 17y ago
  The average business today would fall apart if people suddenly got that time back that they spend dealing with IT. They'd fill the time with political machinations and end up eating each other alive. More seriously, I predict that we'll see official support products for linking multiple iPads together in a workstation capacity within a year. Well, probably just two iPads at most, but third-party products might go for more.
  - olefoo 17y ago
    You just know someone is going to make a display wall out of them.
  - pyre 17y ago
    > More seriously, I predict that we'll see official support products for linking multiple iPads together in a workstation capacity within a year. Well, probably just two iPads at most, but third-party products might go for more. Are you talking 'iPad-like devices' or actual iPads? If you're talking actual iPads, I see the price as a barrier to these becoming ubiquitous devices. If the 'pad' market follows the PC market, Apple will just be at the luxury end of the spectrum.
- raganwald 17y ago
  Odd, but I see business users as having more in common with Eric's "Mom" than with hackers. There are jillions of custom business apps that don't give people files to manipulate: There's a client app or a web page and a database on a server somewhere stores the data. Salespeople and customer service reps and what-not just use the apps just as an iPad owner might 'just use' a program.
  - pyre 17y ago
    I think that point is that those apps already exist and need to run on PCs. Porting them over the 'simpler' devices takes time and money that most businesses won't be eager to spend.
hubb 17y ago
"The genius of the iPad is that it cannot get things like viruses." safari can certainly be compromised, but even with the sandboxing that claim seems like a stretch
- fossguy 17y ago
  It will be way less common, specialy considering that you can't execute anything in there...
  - daeken 17y ago
    That's a very, very silly idea. If the device can be jailbroken by browsing a webpage that exploits a vulnerability in the browser, such a page could also infect your device. The idea that the iPhone/iPod touch/iPad are any less vulnerable to viruses than any other networked device out there is just plain wrong. People can and will attack these devices, it's just a matter of how difficult it is; from my experience with auditing Apple's products, the difficulty level is generally somewhere between trivial and damn-near-trivial.
    - derefr 17y ago
      The difference is that fixing an iPad won't require a repair shop; it'll require plugging it into your computer, which will go through its normal syncing cycle of backing it up, then upgrading apps—but it'll notice the invalid app checksums on infected apps and overwrite them with App-Store-canonical versions. If kernel-level viruses become prevalent, it'll simply start checksumming that too, and offering to restore from an IPSW with all your data (but nome of your config) intact (but that won't be a problem, since part of Apple's aesthetic is "low configuration.") Interestingly, it'll mean that only jailbreakers—and those with no access to a computer to sync with—will ever have viruses for more than one sync cycle.
  - ay 17y ago
    But given a sufficiently complex code, you can execute from unexpected places. Sometimes even without any bugs involved: http://blog.didierstevens.com/2010/03/29/escape-from-pdf/ http://blog.didierstevens.com/2010/03/29/escape-from-pdf/
rjurney 17y ago
It turns out that interface innovations for Mom also work for hackers - provided that you still have access to a *nix toolkit. Witness the popularity of the Macbook among developers. But then you wouldn't really want bash on an iPad, would you? That is not what the iPad is for. Hackers also passively consume information too, and when they do their needs aren't different than Mom's - an intuitive interface that does not get in their way.
- misuba 17y ago
  I doubt I'll need bash, but I'm gonna want emacs. Maybe Bespin will be adequate, I don't know.
  - acgourley 17y ago
    I'll need multi-tasking before I can consider this anything more than a toy I'm using in the same room as my laptop.
    - derefr 17y ago
      Pretend you could have as many of them as you wanted—10 to run 10 apps at once. Would that make it less of a toy?
johnl87 17y ago
I really don't see the authors point and completely disagree with him. Computers were originally used by people to get work done. It's why they were invented in the first place. And the only way to get work done was to know how to write a program. Now the "normal" people just want to use the web and chat with their friends.
- deleted 17y ago
  [deleted]
Estragon 17y ago
He presents a false dichotomy. There is nothing stopping an iPad-like UX being configurable in a way which makes geeks happy. It's just a matter of putting the configuration controls out of the way of most users.
- chadgeidel 17y ago
  I'm not sure how to put this, so bear with me. Once you go down the road of "configurability" you immediately lose the focus that would come with a device like this. IMO the reason that the IPhone/IPod/IPad interface "works" is because they PREVENT things. It isn't for everyone, sure, but it works for most people. Good UX design is as much about removing abilities as it is about gaining them. Your average "joe on the street" doesn't want a computer, they want a consumer electronic device (a game console, a point-and-shoot camera, a television).
  - ssp 17y ago
    Yes, it's a common nerd delusion that the UI is a presentation layer on top of something else and that you can therefore have an "iPad-like UX" presenting some complicated underlying system. This thinking leads to a kind of UI cargo cult where the nerds are copying superficial aspects of the iPad without understanding what fundamental properties make it "iPad-like".
    - pyre 17y ago
      Why not go the game console route and just have an 'Other OS' option? Pad-like devices don't preclude geekiness. It's just that Apple is currently the only 'real world' implementation and they are very anal about their devices. I think that most people are 'up in arms' about things like the inability to install 'unapproved' apps. When Microsoft was trying to push the 'Trusted Computing' platform people were rabidly against it because then it would cause Microsoft to be the sole approver of applications for Windows. Now that Apple has created the same thing within the iPhone/iPad-OS people praise them for it and call it innovative and revolutionary. > This thinking leads to a kind of UI cargo cult where the nerds are copying superficial aspects of the iPad without understanding what fundamental properties make it "iPad-like". So people look at a device, and copy the aspects of it that they like. Now they are a 'cargo cult' because these aspects are not the aspects that you like?
empika 17y ago
I think the middle ground of this possible fututre is very interesting. What happens to all those folks who use specialist software such as CAD, Design, Music and other areas that still need highend systems and that know nothing about computers. I have plenty of musician friends who know nothing about computers but know Cubase or Logic like the back of their hands. The next 5 years will be interesting!
- HeyLaughingBoy 17y ago
  Same thing that happened 15 years ago,perhaps? I have a gorgeous SGI Indigo in my basement office courtesy of the company I worked for when they were tossing them (lots of them!) in the dumpster. Back in the day, you needed a "Workstation Class" PC to run the big CAD applications and many mechanical engineers had a computer whose only purpose was to run that CAD system. I don't think we'll go all the way back to "a computer only for CAD" but we will have computers sold that are optimized for CAD, music production, etc.
TorKlingberg 17y ago
I read posts like this often, and I think the author makes the common geek mistake of assuming that the way normal people use computers is a subset of how geeks use them. Take out all the programming, modding and even file handling and you get what ordinary users need. This is not true. Non-geeks use computers in all kinds of ways geeks never think of. They use a very specific genealogy application. They connect an obscure 10 year old water sample analyzer. They connect a keyboard and record music. This is why all attempts to make a simplified limited computer over the years have failed. Ordinary people need the full flexibility of a computer. Make it simple to use, but not limited.
- lallysingh 17y ago
  Close. They won't put up with vendor laziness that geeks will. For example, convoluted/unnecessarily hard configuration or software installation. Or, take the hideous wireless configuration work required on linux for years, versus the simple drop-down menu on the mac.
  - kerkeslager 17y ago
    I don't know if I would go so far as to disagree with TorKlingberg, but I do see the trend you mention. Technically expert users will do whatever it takes to get a product they want to work, even if it really isn't worth the effort. This is why we can't have nice things. It amazes me the number of projects that require that I build from source, in a specific directory, with these options and these dependencies installed. If I can, I avoid such projects on principle. What's worse is, I've been accused of being lazy or too dumb to run such projects. It's not that I can't or won't install these products: I don't want to waste my time doing so if it can be helped. I'm just expecting the same thing of other developers as I expect from myself. If my product is versioned 1.0 or higher, I expect that it a) has an installer (Windows-style) b) comes in a package (.deb et al) c) comes via a manager (apt-get), or d) runs in-place (WinSCP/PUTTY/uTorrent).
- acgourley 17y ago
  It's a valid point, but I don't think you can consider an iPad or other similar device to be 'limited' if they contain a modern web browser. They may not have a midi interface or connect to old devices, but I think you over estimate how many people need that.
matrix 17y ago
For those that don't know the source of the headline: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=znxFrgql5dc http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=znxFrgql5dc (I shall never forgive Fox for canceling that show. Never.)
benwerd 17y ago
For me this article boils down to this one bullet point: "The industry is finally ready to sell things that make geeks feel frustrated instead of things that make normal people feel helpless. What does this mean for geeks and our role in society?" It'll mean great things for geeks. A userbase who no longer fears computers or hates IT departments will allow for more interesting applications, better collaborations and the end of geeks as second class citizens in many organizations. That is, as long as they play along.
tjic 17y ago
Sure way to make me read a blog post: reference a line of Firefly dialogue in the title!
kreneskyp 17y ago
What i don't agree with is that he focuses on the older generation, his mom, when the problems he describes won't exist as much for younger generations. His mom started using a computer past the point where it was hard for her to learn things. Of course it will be confusing to her. Coming generations grow up with easy access to computers, and will know how to use them well. Eventually we will get to a point where very few people are computer illiterate. Some anecdotal evidence. It took my mom 3 months to figure out how to make an itunes account, another few months before she figured out how to install an app. My 3 year old son had to show her how to play movies, on both the iphone and on boxee.
- rapind 17y ago
  This really just depends on your definition of computer literate. I don't buy that having a facebook account makes you a computer wiz. Neither does owning a smart phone. There are computers in my car and I have'nt a clue how they work. What does computer literate even mean? If it means comfortable with the command line / terminal, then I absolutely don't beleive that tomorrows kids will fall within the classification.
jac_no_k 17y ago
Look to Japan for making technology appliances. http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1197702 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1197702 This is a country where high speed Internet connection is common but from my observation, a lot of households to not have a general purpose computer.
- jff 17y ago
  This may help explain why so many Japanese websites seem to be utterly atrocious--fewer people looking at them.
extension 17y ago
What should we call the class of devices that help normal people manage their Amazon wish list? Momputers?

72 points by bdfh42 17y ago

I have been banging on for a long time that as soon as someone produces a decent home computer that is actually designed to be a consumer good then the price of computers as we know them will start to rocket upwards. We probably need to start thinking about just what constitutes a good developers platform so we can all get behind it and achieve some sort of economies of scale.

misuba 17y ago
DIY is gonna have to drill down to the level of motherboards and chip-fab much faster than it has been.
njharman 17y ago
> designed to be a consumer good That is the iPad, and iPhone/iTouch before it. I don't know what you mean by "decent home computer" but for me "decent computer" is not compatible to "consumer good". Consumer goods are black boxes that just work, computers are DIY tools.

tseabrooks 17y ago

I wish the title of this submission had been better. I'd have read it much sooner. I've taken to calling iPad-esque ideas "Internet Appliance" (I'm sure I got that from somewhere else and I doubt it's original). I think the article misses one important point though - businesses. As far as consumer products I don't see my mom (metaphor) buying a standard desktop PC again assuming similar devices to the iPad come from other makers. Businesses, OTOH, I expect to continue to use traditional PCs for many years to come. People who work in front of PCs need lots of screen real-estate even those doing accounting-and these businesses have tons of legacy SW that it took them years to migrate to new systems (many of them still haven't). This will be a boon to geeks. As businesses hold onto the traditional computers we will all benefit and continue to get much of our hardware fairly cheaply.

misuba 17y ago
The average business today would fall apart if people suddenly got that time back that they spend dealing with IT. They'd fill the time with political machinations and end up eating each other alive. More seriously, I predict that we'll see official support products for linking multiple iPads together in a workstation capacity within a year. Well, probably just two iPads at most, but third-party products might go for more.
- olefoo 17y ago
  You just know someone is going to make a display wall out of them.
- pyre 17y ago
  > More seriously, I predict that we'll see official support products for linking multiple iPads together in a workstation capacity within a year. Well, probably just two iPads at most, but third-party products might go for more. Are you talking 'iPad-like devices' or actual iPads? If you're talking actual iPads, I see the price as a barrier to these becoming ubiquitous devices. If the 'pad' market follows the PC market, Apple will just be at the luxury end of the spectrum.
raganwald 17y ago
Odd, but I see business users as having more in common with Eric's "Mom" than with hackers. There are jillions of custom business apps that don't give people files to manipulate: There's a client app or a web page and a database on a server somewhere stores the data. Salespeople and customer service reps and what-not just use the apps just as an iPad owner might 'just use' a program.
- pyre 17y ago
  I think that point is that those apps already exist and need to run on PCs. Porting them over the 'simpler' devices takes time and money that most businesses won't be eager to spend.

hubb 17y ago

"The genius of the iPad is that it cannot get things like viruses." safari can certainly be compromised, but even with the sandboxing that claim seems like a stretch

fossguy 17y ago
It will be way less common, specialy considering that you can't execute anything in there...
- daeken 17y ago
  That's a very, very silly idea. If the device can be jailbroken by browsing a webpage that exploits a vulnerability in the browser, such a page could also infect your device. The idea that the iPhone/iPod touch/iPad are any less vulnerable to viruses than any other networked device out there is just plain wrong. People can and will attack these devices, it's just a matter of how difficult it is; from my experience with auditing Apple's products, the difficulty level is generally somewhere between trivial and damn-near-trivial.
  - derefr 17y ago
    The difference is that fixing an iPad won't require a repair shop; it'll require plugging it into your computer, which will go through its normal syncing cycle of backing it up, then upgrading apps—but it'll notice the invalid app checksums on infected apps and overwrite them with App-Store-canonical versions. If kernel-level viruses become prevalent, it'll simply start checksumming that too, and offering to restore from an IPSW with all your data (but nome of your config) intact (but that won't be a problem, since part of Apple's aesthetic is "low configuration.") Interestingly, it'll mean that only jailbreakers—and those with no access to a computer to sync with—will ever have viruses for more than one sync cycle.
- ay 17y ago
  But given a sufficiently complex code, you can execute from unexpected places. Sometimes even without any bugs involved: http://blog.didierstevens.com/2010/03/29/escape-from-pdf/ http://blog.didierstevens.com/2010/03/29/escape-from-pdf/

rjurney 17y ago

It turns out that interface innovations for Mom also work for hackers - provided that you still have access to a *nix toolkit. Witness the popularity of the Macbook among developers. But then you wouldn't really want bash on an iPad, would you? That is not what the iPad is for. Hackers also passively consume information too, and when they do their needs aren't different than Mom's - an intuitive interface that does not get in their way.

misuba 17y ago
I doubt I'll need bash, but I'm gonna want emacs. Maybe Bespin will be adequate, I don't know.
- acgourley 17y ago
  I'll need multi-tasking before I can consider this anything more than a toy I'm using in the same room as my laptop.
  - derefr 17y ago
    Pretend you could have as many of them as you wanted—10 to run 10 apps at once. Would that make it less of a toy?

johnl87 17y ago

I really don't see the authors point and completely disagree with him. Computers were originally used by people to get work done. It's why they were invented in the first place. And the only way to get work done was to know how to write a program. Now the "normal" people just want to use the web and chat with their friends.

deleted 17y ago
[deleted]

Estragon 17y ago

He presents a false dichotomy. There is nothing stopping an iPad-like UX being configurable in a way which makes geeks happy. It's just a matter of putting the configuration controls out of the way of most users.

chadgeidel 17y ago
I'm not sure how to put this, so bear with me. Once you go down the road of "configurability" you immediately lose the focus that would come with a device like this. IMO the reason that the IPhone/IPod/IPad interface "works" is because they PREVENT things. It isn't for everyone, sure, but it works for most people. Good UX design is as much about removing abilities as it is about gaining them. Your average "joe on the street" doesn't want a computer, they want a consumer electronic device (a game console, a point-and-shoot camera, a television).
- ssp 17y ago
  Yes, it's a common nerd delusion that the UI is a presentation layer on top of something else and that you can therefore have an "iPad-like UX" presenting some complicated underlying system. This thinking leads to a kind of UI cargo cult where the nerds are copying superficial aspects of the iPad without understanding what fundamental properties make it "iPad-like".
  - pyre 17y ago
    Why not go the game console route and just have an 'Other OS' option? Pad-like devices don't preclude geekiness. It's just that Apple is currently the only 'real world' implementation and they are very anal about their devices. I think that most people are 'up in arms' about things like the inability to install 'unapproved' apps. When Microsoft was trying to push the 'Trusted Computing' platform people were rabidly against it because then it would cause Microsoft to be the sole approver of applications for Windows. Now that Apple has created the same thing within the iPhone/iPad-OS people praise them for it and call it innovative and revolutionary. > This thinking leads to a kind of UI cargo cult where the nerds are copying superficial aspects of the iPad without understanding what fundamental properties make it "iPad-like". So people look at a device, and copy the aspects of it that they like. Now they are a 'cargo cult' because these aspects are not the aspects that you like?

empika 17y ago

I think the middle ground of this possible fututre is very interesting. What happens to all those folks who use specialist software such as CAD, Design, Music and other areas that still need highend systems and that know nothing about computers. I have plenty of musician friends who know nothing about computers but know Cubase or Logic like the back of their hands. The next 5 years will be interesting!

HeyLaughingBoy 17y ago
Same thing that happened 15 years ago,perhaps? I have a gorgeous SGI Indigo in my basement office courtesy of the company I worked for when they were tossing them (lots of them!) in the dumpster. Back in the day, you needed a "Workstation Class" PC to run the big CAD applications and many mechanical engineers had a computer whose only purpose was to run that CAD system. I don't think we'll go all the way back to "a computer only for CAD" but we will have computers sold that are optimized for CAD, music production, etc.

TorKlingberg 17y ago

I read posts like this often, and I think the author makes the common geek mistake of assuming that the way normal people use computers is a subset of how geeks use them. Take out all the programming, modding and even file handling and you get what ordinary users need. This is not true. Non-geeks use computers in all kinds of ways geeks never think of. They use a very specific genealogy application. They connect an obscure 10 year old water sample analyzer. They connect a keyboard and record music. This is why all attempts to make a simplified limited computer over the years have failed. Ordinary people need the full flexibility of a computer. Make it simple to use, but not limited.

lallysingh 17y ago
Close. They won't put up with vendor laziness that geeks will. For example, convoluted/unnecessarily hard configuration or software installation. Or, take the hideous wireless configuration work required on linux for years, versus the simple drop-down menu on the mac.
- kerkeslager 17y ago
  I don't know if I would go so far as to disagree with TorKlingberg, but I do see the trend you mention. Technically expert users will do whatever it takes to get a product they want to work, even if it really isn't worth the effort. This is why we can't have nice things. It amazes me the number of projects that require that I build from source, in a specific directory, with these options and these dependencies installed. If I can, I avoid such projects on principle. What's worse is, I've been accused of being lazy or too dumb to run such projects. It's not that I can't or won't install these products: I don't want to waste my time doing so if it can be helped. I'm just expecting the same thing of other developers as I expect from myself. If my product is versioned 1.0 or higher, I expect that it a) has an installer (Windows-style) b) comes in a package (.deb et al) c) comes via a manager (apt-get), or d) runs in-place (WinSCP/PUTTY/uTorrent).
acgourley 17y ago
It's a valid point, but I don't think you can consider an iPad or other similar device to be 'limited' if they contain a modern web browser. They may not have a midi interface or connect to old devices, but I think you over estimate how many people need that.

matrix 17y ago

For those that don't know the source of the headline: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=znxFrgql5dc http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=znxFrgql5dc (I shall never forgive Fox for canceling that show. Never.)

benwerd 17y ago

For me this article boils down to this one bullet point: "The industry is finally ready to sell things that make geeks feel frustrated instead of things that make normal people feel helpless. What does this mean for geeks and our role in society?" It'll mean great things for geeks. A userbase who no longer fears computers or hates IT departments will allow for more interesting applications, better collaborations and the end of geeks as second class citizens in many organizations. That is, as long as they play along.

tjic 17y ago

Sure way to make me read a blog post: reference a line of Firefly dialogue in the title!

kreneskyp 17y ago

What i don't agree with is that he focuses on the older generation, his mom, when the problems he describes won't exist as much for younger generations. His mom started using a computer past the point where it was hard for her to learn things. Of course it will be confusing to her. Coming generations grow up with easy access to computers, and will know how to use them well. Eventually we will get to a point where very few people are computer illiterate. Some anecdotal evidence. It took my mom 3 months to figure out how to make an itunes account, another few months before she figured out how to install an app. My 3 year old son had to show her how to play movies, on both the iphone and on boxee.

rapind 17y ago
This really just depends on your definition of computer literate. I don't buy that having a facebook account makes you a computer wiz. Neither does owning a smart phone. There are computers in my car and I have'nt a clue how they work. What does computer literate even mean? If it means comfortable with the command line / terminal, then I absolutely don't beleive that tomorrows kids will fall within the classification.

jac_no_k 17y ago

Look to Japan for making technology appliances. http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1197702 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1197702 This is a country where high speed Internet connection is common but from my observation, a lot of households to not have a general purpose computer.

jff 17y ago
This may help explain why so many Japanese websites seem to be utterly atrocious--fewer people looking at them.

extension 17y ago

What should we call the class of devices that help normal people manage their Amazon wish list? Momputers?