Positive feedback makes us feel better. Negative feedback makes us become better.
—Johan Emil Johansson (via recenseo)
This blog has moved
GeekPanic has moved. It’s now to be found along with some non-tech observations and myriad links to interesting stuff to read over at PercolateThis.com. Basically, what I read, write and think is posted there on a daily basis. If you, like me, are interested in how technology affects humans and where technology is going, you’ll like it. And otherwise you’ll probably like it anyway.
New name, new design, new purpose. Feel free to come along for the ride.
Android Gaming's Reality Distortion Field
That awkward moment when gamers realize they’ve chosen the wrong platform.
"We're not ediots"
When Android-gamers realize they chose the wrong platform for gaming.
Google Confirms Kevin Rose and Some of Milk Team Will Join
This was initially surprising - Kevin seems a bit too independent to be a small part of a big company - but now it’s official. I’m a big fan of Kevin’s work, but I can’t fend of the idea that Oink was killed unnecessarily. Although the wording is a bit ambiguous upon a closer reading, the press release from Milk regarding the sunsetting of Oink certainly seemed to imply that Milk was going a different route.
Personally, I really liked Oink, and my impression was that the service had pretty fast user adoption. Obviously, I have no right to make any demands (the service was free after all) or claim anything in exchange for the data I contributed, but it still feels unfortunate.
If Oink had died in favor of new Milk-projects, which seemed to be the case at first, this wouldn’t have such a tough reception. Now, true or not, it just seems like Google walked into Milk HQ, put a bag of money on the table and shut Oink down.
Obviously, someone was trying to be nice. But it ceases to be nice when the offer (and the quality of the email containing the offer) makes you wonder if there was an adult in the room when this brilliant idea was hatched.
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Even when you’re trying to provide the best possible service to your customers, problems are inevitable. Interesting, amusing and slightly bizarre story.
Canvasification
When Apple announced the third-generation iPad, it didn’t take long until the usual suspects unleashed their expected disappointment. The same can be said about Windows 8, which has received mixed reviews from critics and pundits so far. Most of the time, the critique is focused on speeds and feeds rather than philosophical choices. It’s about splitting hairs and it’s about details. There’s certainly merit to much of the critique in both cases, but I want to make the case that by focusing on the trees, we’re missing the forest.
If we take a step back and try to get a look at the bigger picture, perhaps the individual pieces - the details - will make more sense. At the end of the day, technology has changed and evolved at blazing speed for decades. But it hasn’t really changed and evolved most people’s everyday lives until fairly recently. It’s a shift in paradigms that’s happening right before our eyes, yet most of the time we don’t discuss it’s ramifications because we’re obsessed with pixels or megabytes.
Old paradigm: the little hub that could
Under the old paradigm, the PC was the ubiquitous hub that all other devices served under. The name “iPod” is believed to originate from the same concept, at least in part - pods connects to hubs, after all, and other devices “dock”. Every device was an individual entity but only the PC was sovereign. It was the king and queen and everything above and beyond.
A couple of years ago, most of us would have felt cramped if we had less than, say, 250 GB of storage space. We stored, and then stored some more, like the hunter/gatherers of times past - movies, music, photos et cetera. Accordingly, the expected standard size of hard drives grew and grew, and almost any cheap, entry-level PC has an absurd amount of storage space today.
If we wanted music on the go, we’d sync with our iPods or MP3-players. If we wanted movies, we’d bring our laptops, and likewise if we needed to manage documents. Then the iPhone happened. It adhered to the old paradigm from the start; functioning as a combination of devices, but still essentially a “pod”, designed to be a slave to the PC. Did it really change everything, then? I would argue that the answer is “no” - it didn’t change everything, in past tense, because everything’s still changing. It did, however, start the revolution.
New paradigm: less really is more
Minimalism is a trademark Apple-trait, and one shared by many creative professionals. Most people care very little about adopting minimalism as a personal philosophy, but as is made evident by Apples mainstream success, they do care about the results that come from it. The benefits are myriad and fairly obvious. It shouldn’t come as a surprise, then, that the new paradigm is based on a form of minimalism; conceptually similar although fundamentally different.
The personal cloud is a powerful concept, but a chain is only as strong as its weakest link. Many companies tried to personalize the cloud too early, and failed to reach mainstream adoption. Google and Dropbox are prominent success stories, but the rapid and seamless adoption of iCloud is quite frankly overshadowing both. The power of the cloud isn’t measured in megabytes but in approachability; simplicity - we’ve had remote storage for a decade and nobody (except geeks) could care less. When the cloud becomes commonplace and the new normal - that’s when the real change happens.
With faster, more reliable Internet connections and better coverage, we’re more mobile than ever. Most people can suffice with reasonably fast 3G, and LTE is just around the corner, making the cloud more accessible than ever. We can’t stream everything yet, but we’re approaching that reality, and we’re closing in fast. Whereas people have 250-500 GB disk drives on their PC, they don’t need more than 16 GB on their mobile devices. Granted, some may desire more space, but most doesn’t need it, per se.
Streaming and pushing replaces storing and syncing. The devices are becoming access points, or if you prefer, windows into the cloud. You use a native app like Notes on your device to manage your notes, certainly, but the information is in the cloud, from the first tap to the last.
Conclusion: everything is a canvas
A better way to think of the device is as a canvas, and the more hardware you can strip away, the better. That which is not necessary is by definition unnecessary, and removing dependency on hardware - removing hubs and silos - is simply removing clutter. That would explain why most devices are getting smaller, thinner and lighter. Removing excess bulk is akin to putting a slimmer, smaller frame around a fine painting. The frame may add some value in and of itself, but most would consider it subsidiary to the painting it’s veiling; e.g. the canvas.
With the “canvasification” of consumer technology, people are enabled to consume everywhere and produce anywhere. And for the first time ever, productivity is as immersive as playing games, thanks in large part to amazing displays coupled with great apps. Faced with a blank canvas, rather than a “desktop” with “windows” and other abstractions, we’re free to create without distractions. And even if one were to sit on a bus, an hour away from the workplace, whatever’s produced en route will be ready and waiting upon arrival. On a different canvas.
The potential ramifications of “canvasification” are profound, if one is willing to embrace it, which is a different story altogether. Anything and everything with a screen and a connection is a potential canvas, and where the underlying data lives is secondary. Indeed, we’ll still need data, but we won’t need to depend on silos, as storage is going the way of the spec: nobody should have to care about it. Whatever you want can be wherever you want and you can interact with it however you like.
Sure, we’re not there yet, but that’s my point - this change is happening, right now, and we need to remember that when we are trying to figure out what’s happening around us. We need to think about where the puck will be, rather than where it has been, to understand how technology is changing. What does this imply for the future of television? Or the future of the PC? Microsoft Windows and OS X? Gaming and consoles?
Steve Jobs famously said that “the truth is in the cloud” when iCloud was announced last year. Isn’t it funny - a ship that leaks from the top?
A Story About an iPad Browser That Never Was
Absolutely fascinating. The consistent bad luck is nothing but remarkable. It brings the adage “chance favors the prepared” to mind.
