3 ms·

I recognize the Alan Kay I met at HP. Very sure of his own genius and quick to snarkily dismiss the genius of others. Case in point: The iPad and iPhone makes

by c3d 9y ago

I recognize the Alan Kay I met at HP. Very sure of his own genius and quick to snarkily dismiss the genius of others. Case in point: The iPad and iPhone makes kids creative like no other tool has before. Kids know how to use it to text, exchange ideas or pictures of kittens, draw or sketch, learn how to program (Swift Playground anyone), take and edit photos. It is everything but a glorified TV where kids are passive. This is the only environment where kids are truly first-class citizens. How on earth Kay could spend so much energy (a whole article) trying to convince us otherwise based mostly on super-weak arguments like "nobody is using the Shake gesture to undo" is truly beyond my understanding. Don't get me wrong. The Dynabook was a somewhat interesting idea. But it's about as much an inspiration for the real thing we use daily as the Star Trek tricorder. What Kay, to this day, did not get, unlike Jobs, is the power of networking, both physical and human. What made the iPhone greater than the Dynabook ever would have been is the App Store, and the combined creativity of millions of developers. What made the iPhone greater is apps like Messages, Facetime, Facebook, Twitter, Whatsapp, and countless others. What made the iPhone greater is Instagram, Flickr, sport apps, medical apps, HP-48 emulators, 3D "kill them all and think later" games. By contrast, what would have made the Dynabook great in Kay's mind was "designed by Kay for Kay's personal interests". Or, as Fake Bill Gates would have said: "One programmer should be enough for everybody".

icebraining 9y ago
What Kay, to this day, did not get, unlike Jobs, is the power of networking, both physical and human. What made the iPhone greater than the Dynabook ever would have been is the App Store, Interesting phrasing, considering that the iPhone did not come with the App Store. In fact, Apple's was the third software distribution platform to be released for iOS, after Installer.app and Cydia. Meanwhile, Alan Kay was working in Croquet[1] - a project that allows the creation of multi-user collaborative software with live-editing and automatic distribution and replication - since at least 2001. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Croquet_Project https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Croquet_Project
- coldtea 9y ago
  >Interesting phrasing, considering that the iPhone did not come with the App Store. In fact, Apple's was the third software distribution platform to be released for iOS, after Installer.app and Cydia. Which is irrelevant. First, because it eventually came, and second, because whether they intend to put one out or not, obviously they couldn't create a first class API for third party use, fix public interfaces as much as possible, write documentation, create a store, et al, all while creating the first edition of a new product (which they didn't even knew if it would be a success or not).
YeGoblynQueenne 9y ago
>> Kids know how to use it to text, exchange ideas or pictures of kittens, draw or sketch, learn how to program (Swift Playground anyone), take and edit photos. Those things don't sound particularly creative to me [at least not to the extent you can actually do them on a phone] and you don't need an iPhone to do them, either. Isn't it more the case that kids (and everyone else) are naturally creative and Apple marketing somehow latched on to this as a way to push their devices upon as many people as possible?
cma 9y ago
"This article was a surprise, because the interview was a few years ago for a book the interviewer was writing." The interview probably predates Swift playground. Alan's critique was probably part of making it available, I heard it was part of why Scratch was eventually allowed.
dang 9y ago
Personal attacks are not allowed on Hacker News, regardless of whom you're attacking. Personal attacks that purport to read someone's mind and put nasty words in their mouth are particularly self-revealing. Please read https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and don't comment like this here again.

by c3d 9y ago

icebraining 9y ago

What Kay, to this day, did not get, unlike Jobs, is the power of networking, both physical and human. What made the iPhone greater than the Dynabook ever would have been is the App Store, Interesting phrasing, considering that the iPhone did not come with the App Store. In fact, Apple's was the third software distribution platform to be released for iOS, after Installer.app and Cydia. Meanwhile, Alan Kay was working in Croquet[1] - a project that allows the creation of multi-user collaborative software with live-editing and automatic distribution and replication - since at least 2001. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Croquet_Project https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Croquet_Project

coldtea 9y ago
>Interesting phrasing, considering that the iPhone did not come with the App Store. In fact, Apple's was the third software distribution platform to be released for iOS, after Installer.app and Cydia. Which is irrelevant. First, because it eventually came, and second, because whether they intend to put one out or not, obviously they couldn't create a first class API for third party use, fix public interfaces as much as possible, write documentation, create a store, et al, all while creating the first edition of a new product (which they didn't even knew if it would be a success or not).

YeGoblynQueenne 9y ago

>> Kids know how to use it to text, exchange ideas or pictures of kittens, draw or sketch, learn how to program (Swift Playground anyone), take and edit photos. Those things don't sound particularly creative to me [at least not to the extent you can actually do them on a phone] and you don't need an iPhone to do them, either. Isn't it more the case that kids (and everyone else) are naturally creative and Apple marketing somehow latched on to this as a way to push their devices upon as many people as possible?

cma 9y ago

"This article was a surprise, because the interview was a few years ago for a book the interviewer was writing." The interview probably predates Swift playground. Alan's critique was probably part of making it available, I heard it was part of why Scratch was eventually allowed.

dang 9y ago

Personal attacks are not allowed on Hacker News, regardless of whom you're attacking. Personal attacks that purport to read someone's mind and put nasty words in their mouth are particularly self-revealing. Please read https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and don't comment like this here again.