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Though a bit obnoxious i really liked the talk. Alan talked about 2007. If we look back it was the time when first iphone was announced. We all knew that in a

Though a bit obnoxious i really liked the talk. Alan talked about 2007. If we look back it was the time when first iphone was announced. We all knew that in a timespan of seven years the processor will be much faster( Now it is almost 20 times faster)., connectivity will be faster, it will have better display and better sensors. But still none of the application that exists today (except games and animations maybe) take all this improvement into consideration. We are still stuck in old ideas of messaging app, photo sharing app, maps and news aggregators. I believe all those apps could have been conceived back in 2007. No one thought about any new use cases which can take use of the improved hardware. In fact some of the noble concepts like shazm or word lens were conceived 4-5 years back. Now we are stuck at a time where giants of internet are just struggling to squeeze few more bytes of information from user in sake of making more money from adds. It is difficult to believe after 7 years of first smartphone the most talked about event this year was a messaging app being acquired for 19 billion!! I think hardware engineers push the limits by going to any extent to make moore's law true. But we software guys fails to appreciate what is going to come in future

fidotron 13y ago
This is the underappreciated part. I'm not sure computing is going to have a major revolution, unless we see a massive AI breakthrough. The reason is that the amount of computing power available for a few watts and tens of dollars today now vastly exceeds any idea of what to do with it. With all the data in the cloud stuff the limitations are storage related (i.e. just the time to read data off disk), and the use of the CPUs is really fairly low compared to how long they sit around waiting. Post iPhone is the best example, because all that's really happened is a (much needed) improvement in the underlying networks and a shake up of the business side of the ecosystem, but very little of this stuff that is actually used wasn't available before. There was a gold rush, but I think history is going to judge that era quite harshly in terms of lack of real progress.
deleted 13y ago
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- neel8986 13y ago
  Uber surely is a great app. But if we think in terms of harnessing computing power i really don't think it falls into the same category as early GUI or OOPs. They definitely have to work real hard for managing the non computing side. But if you concentrate just on the computing side it is just a scalable web service allowing user to book cabs. And it was nothing that couldn't have been conceived in 2007. Far more complex air line booking system existed before that Only real example that comes to my mind is PA kind of applications of the type of Google Now/Siri. But still they don't work to the level we desire them to
vidarh 13y ago
Consider that in 2007, the iPhone was already effectively the result of years of waiting. In '99/2000, there was already touch screen PDAs with apps and various limited networking functionality, and phone functionality at least as early as 2002 (possibly earlier, I don't remember), and a few tablets had started making their appearance (both laptops + touch, as well as "proper" tablets). But they were all massively hamstrung by hardware (the first generation Palm's had less than 1/1000th the memory of many current smartphones; monochrome low res displays, and resistive touch) Arguably, even in '99, the idea itself was old - those of us working on stuff like that then, were looking back at Star Trek and other SF, and it was just the feeling that it was an idea whose time had finally come. Apple's genius with the iPhone and iPad, was realising its time had not come, and waiting and refining their design until the basic underlying hardware "caught up" and they could provide a product suitable for "normal users". Everyone else got to make the expensive mistakes; most of the companies involved are no longer around, or pulled out of that market before Apple made its entry. Sometimes ideas are just not right yet, and spending time trying to force the issue is likely to fail because the end result will be massively compromised. But sometimes the ideas are just not right yet also because the public has not "caught up". It's not just that software developers must figure this out, but end users must have caught up enough that the new ideas fit into their world view.
- eurleif 13y ago
  >Apple's genius with the iPhone and iPad, was realising its time had not come, and waiting and refining their design until the basic underlying hardware "caught up" and they could provide a product suitable for "normal users". Everyone else got to make the expensive mistakes; most of the companies involved are no longer around, or pulled out of that market before Apple made its entry. Aren't you forgetting that Apple made the Newton?
stephencanon 13y ago
GarageBand and various other music apps have made quite impressive use of the improvements you reference, to name just one category.

fidotron 13y ago

This is the underappreciated part. I'm not sure computing is going to have a major revolution, unless we see a massive AI breakthrough. The reason is that the amount of computing power available for a few watts and tens of dollars today now vastly exceeds any idea of what to do with it. With all the data in the cloud stuff the limitations are storage related (i.e. just the time to read data off disk), and the use of the CPUs is really fairly low compared to how long they sit around waiting. Post iPhone is the best example, because all that's really happened is a (much needed) improvement in the underlying networks and a shake up of the business side of the ecosystem, but very little of this stuff that is actually used wasn't available before. There was a gold rush, but I think history is going to judge that era quite harshly in terms of lack of real progress.

deleted 13y ago

[deleted]

neel8986 13y ago
Uber surely is a great app. But if we think in terms of harnessing computing power i really don't think it falls into the same category as early GUI or OOPs. They definitely have to work real hard for managing the non computing side. But if you concentrate just on the computing side it is just a scalable web service allowing user to book cabs. And it was nothing that couldn't have been conceived in 2007. Far more complex air line booking system existed before that Only real example that comes to my mind is PA kind of applications of the type of Google Now/Siri. But still they don't work to the level we desire them to

vidarh 13y ago

Consider that in 2007, the iPhone was already effectively the result of years of waiting. In '99/2000, there was already touch screen PDAs with apps and various limited networking functionality, and phone functionality at least as early as 2002 (possibly earlier, I don't remember), and a few tablets had started making their appearance (both laptops + touch, as well as "proper" tablets). But they were all massively hamstrung by hardware (the first generation Palm's had less than 1/1000th the memory of many current smartphones; monochrome low res displays, and resistive touch) Arguably, even in '99, the idea itself was old - those of us working on stuff like that then, were looking back at Star Trek and other SF, and it was just the feeling that it was an idea whose time had finally come. Apple's genius with the iPhone and iPad, was realising its time had not come, and waiting and refining their design until the basic underlying hardware "caught up" and they could provide a product suitable for "normal users". Everyone else got to make the expensive mistakes; most of the companies involved are no longer around, or pulled out of that market before Apple made its entry. Sometimes ideas are just not right yet, and spending time trying to force the issue is likely to fail because the end result will be massively compromised. But sometimes the ideas are just not right yet also because the public has not "caught up". It's not just that software developers must figure this out, but end users must have caught up enough that the new ideas fit into their world view.

eurleif 13y ago
>Apple's genius with the iPhone and iPad, was realising its time had not come, and waiting and refining their design until the basic underlying hardware "caught up" and they could provide a product suitable for "normal users". Everyone else got to make the expensive mistakes; most of the companies involved are no longer around, or pulled out of that market before Apple made its entry. Aren't you forgetting that Apple made the Newton?

stephencanon 13y ago

GarageBand and various other music apps have made quite impressive use of the improvements you reference, to name just one category.