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“But as someone who prefers tidiness and iPhone screen real estate, I think the iPad interface is a step in the right direction.”

I totally agree. Everyone has been hating on the sparse and lonely iPad homescreen, but I’m all for the simplicity.

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Plants vs. Zombies is a tower defense game. My personal favorite of our games at 5TH Cell, Lock’s Quest, loosely falls into this same category. Enemies approach your base, and you set up defenses to protect against them. In PvZ, enemies = zombies, base = your house, and defenses = plants.

PopCap is a well respected studio. They’re known for having a pretty dominant position in casual games. Admittedly, I haven’t been much of a gamer in recent years, but PvZ has really caught my attention. This game really makes the iPhone shine as a platform for games. It feels as though PvZ is much more at home on iPhone than it is on the PC.

Many traditional gamers and developers haven’t taken the iPhone OS very seriously as a gaming platform. If it can’t support game genres that we’ve grown to love on other platforms, then it doesn’t quite stand up. When a new system comes out, we tend to view it through the lens of the history of videogames. What would Halo be like on this? How about GTA, or Mass Effect? But when we try to imagine our favorites on the iPhone, they just look like hamstrung versions of their console counterparts.

And it’s true. The iPhone wouldn’t support such games as we know them. It doesn’t have the power, or the input mechanisms that they’ve been built around. But just because the platform isn’t the logical step forward from the systems of yesterday, we can’t write it off. Look at the Wii. That caught us all by surprise, and you can’t deny it’s success.

Plants vs. Zombies really shows off the potential for a great gaming experience on the iPhone OS. When I try to think outside of the box of previous generations of games to what kind of experiences could exist on the iPhone, it’s very exciting to me. Now if only Blizzard would port StarCraft II.

The working name was just “Status” for a while. It actually didn’t have a name. We were trying to name it, and mobile was a big aspect of the product early on ... We liked the SMS aspect, and how you could update from anywhere and receive from anywhere.
We wanted to capture that in the name — we wanted to capture that feeling: the physical sensation that you’re buzzing your friend’s pocket. It’s like buzzing all over the world. So we did a bunch of name-storming, and we came up with the word “twitch,” because the phone kind of vibrates when it moves. But “twitch” is not a good product name because it doesn’t bring up the right imagery. So we looked in the dictionary for words around it, and we came across the word “twitter,” and it was just perfect. The definition was “a short burst of inconsequential information,” and “chirps from birds.” And that’s exactly what the product was.

Coincidence? I doubt it. It looks to me as though Google lifted the name for Buzz, it’s new status update engine, from Twitter’s discarded table scraps. You lose 3400 points for lack of originality Google.

These blogs merely mention a handful of applications of the iPad to churches specifically, and the potential there is revolutionary. But if you extrapolate this kind of thinking to education, business, medicine, government, industry, etc., the possibilities are nothing short of mind-blowing. This an area where I really see such promise with the iPad, not necessarily in all the every man uses of the device: your email, your music, your books, and so on, but in the sum of all the niches that the iPad could fill in a beautiful and simple way.

The iPad compares favorably for pixel density with the entire Mac lineup. The iPhone is definitely ahead of the pack, and it shows in the smoothness of rendered text.

There is an important note for developers to remember, especially before you have your hands on the device. Any given graphic on the iPhone will already appear with more than 1.5 times the physical area in 2 dimensions when it’s displayed on the iPad. So they will already be easier to touch, for what it’s worth.

The iPad is something different. The iPad is small and cheap but not weak. It’s focused. And yet it fills a hundred niches a crappy plastic laptop never could. One of the complaints in Wilcox’s piece is how do you print from iWork? Who needs to print? Good lord, if Apple could kill printing they’d be doing us the single biggest favor in the history of all mankind. But here you have a device that a salesman and a customer, a doctor and a patient, a lawyer and a client, an Indian chief and a Pilgrim can sit down at together. They can pass it back and forth. This device is intimate; it brings people together. And if someone needs a copy, you e-mail it to them. Printing? 1997 called and it wants its ink cartridges back.

It’s funny, it seems that the issues that we all (myself included) keep bringing up about the iPad eventually fade into the idea that maybe we ought to be shaking off how we used to do things. We’ve spent decades building all these assumptions about computing that we forget to step back and look at the problems they’re solving. This happens to me in programming. I get so focused on my current issue, that I forget to widen my view and see the beautiful solution that’s way further up the pipeline.

Maybe I don’t need to print. I have a printer at home, but really all I use it for is printing pictures size 8"x10” or smaller. I could actually send those to Costco, and have them done cheaper (ink and paper are expensive) at significantly higher quality. Where can I take a paper “hard” copy that I can’t take my iPad? Maybe we have been cutting down too many trees. I don’t know. These are just a few of many new ideas to think about. And to me that’s one of the intriguing things about the iPad. It shatters preconception; it holds no de facto rule about computing as sacred. I think it’s high time we rethought some of these things.

This isn’t to say that those who don’t get it are all wrong, or even way off base. But their vision of what the iPad will change is incomplete, and in many cases inconsistent with what has happened historically.

When the first Mac came out, it didn’t obviate the usage of more traditional command line computers. At the time these text based computers were the sole domain of the geek elect. In fact, if you still know one of these people, chances are that to this day they still spend a good part of their computing life at the command prompt. No, the first Mac didn’t preclude these earlier devices. What it did do was introduce computing to a larger circle. People who realized the practical benefit of computers, and were less intimidated by this new desktop/keyboard/mouse interface. The accessibility drew them in.

This is the space we’ve been living in for the last 25 years. The fundamentals of computing haven’t changed. Computer usage has still grown despite the lack of a major user interface revolution, but there are other reasons for that. Namely, the uptake of the Internet vastly increased the “practical benefit” that people saw in computers. And as computers achieved relative ubiquity, people had a growing support system for computing in their friends and family. In fact, you’re probably one of these people yourself. Your expertise has probably at some point enabled someone to use a computer where otherwise they would have been lost.

Now here we are. On the cusp of a new generation of machines. Will the desktop go away? Have command prompts? No, and yes. As the scale tipped toward GUI operating systems, the command line has faded more and more. They’re still around, but terminals and prompts have been relegated to fewer tasks to which they are best suited.

And this is what I see happening again. These new touch computers will slowly absorb the usefulness of the older traditional desktop. As technology improves, as the platforms mature, as competition begins to drive advancement, we’ll see the successors of the iPad become the more relevant computers. I’m not throwing out my MacBook just yet, but I sure left DOS behind quite a long time ago. I’m looking forward to the day when I edit photos, author a website, and yes, even write my first program on a tablet. Bring it on.

The iPad isn’t a third device, but a third revolution

This is a huge step backward in the history of computing. If the first personal computers required permission from the manufacturer for each new program or new feature, the history of computing would be as dismally totalitarian as the milieu in Apple’s famous Super Bowl ad.

Many people were crossing their fingers that the iPad would have an open environment for distributing apps. Something like Macintosh and Windows PCs have had since their inception. Aside from the obvious benefits to Apple in having an app store that supports their hardware platform with a cut of software sales, the App Store is a great benefit to both consumers and developers.

consumers

People don’t buy software. Now that’s a gross generalization. Obviously, some people buy software. But really, only under very specific circumstances. Maybe you need to buy Word so you can edit your work documents at home. Maybe you, like me, suffer from an addictive hobby like photography and need Photoshop or some reasonable facsimile. But your average Bob, Joe, and Sally… they don’t buy software. In this article (profanity, be warned), Guy English of Tapulous states:

“Software” is dead, don’t bother putting that word on a sell sheet. Have you written “a program” recently? That’s nice, find a place in line behind all the other nerds but try not to step on the Coke-bottle glasses they tend to drop. “Oh … you’ve developed an application … is it something my doctor would know about”? People, lots and lots of people, people who have no idea what software even is, will download Apps like they’re snacking on potatoe chips.

Why is this the case? Well, there are a number of reasons. I can think of a few.

• Safety- Your Mom and Dad, your cousin who is a contractor, your friend’s son on the varsity football team, all have heard horror stories about viruses, spyware, and identity theft. In fact, they very well have experienced these horror stories, and lived to tell about them. The App Store is a very comforting environment. There is no fear. The ‘app’ you’re downloading has been well looked over. It’s not going to steal your bank information, it won’t delete all your files (it can’t), and it’s not going to flood your computer with popups and background processes that slow it down. I’ve been using computers since I was old enough to sit at a desk chair, and I know very well how to avoid these problems. But even to me, the thought of buying something from the App Store is comforting.
• Simplicity- When the iPhone first came out, the ease of the interface surprised us all. You must admit, it was a giant leap in human-computer interaction. Pointing and touching things connects with an innate part of what it is to be a human. This has led to software that is within the grasp of anyone. No complicated commands, no keyboard shortcuts for power users. It’s a level playing field, accessible to everybody. Don’t believe me? Watch this video of a one-year-old using an iPhone:

• Installation- Finding and installing software on PCs is a nightmare. There are so many distribution methods, like installing from a disk you bought in a store, downloading an installer file, or a .zip with an executable in it. Or even digital distribution like the Steam online game store. This is all very confusing to people. Maybe not you, you’re reading a blog. You might not be intimidated by finding and installing software, but regular people are. Let’s not even bring up open source software. I know it’s gotten better in the last few years, but it is still not for your average person to discover, acquire, and install software on a regular basis.

Average consumers do not see the App Store as limiting. It’s actually freeing! They feel free to explore, experiment, and buy things, totally uninhibited by their non-computer-savviness.

developers

Say you have an idea for your next great Windows application. How are you going to advertise it, distribute it, charge people for it? Post it on your website, and link everyone on twitter? PayPal? Donation based? Shareware? Try to find a publisher that doesn’t think your idea is stupid, and fail to cut a good deal because you aren’t a business person?

Now let’s see how this looks on the App Store. I have a great idea. I can make this really great app. It will have a touch interface that everyone can pick up quickly. Once published it will instantly be available to millions of people. It will likely show up in the “New” apps section, on the front page of the App Store in front of a million eyes. The only publishing fee is a flat 30 percent of sales, which is very likely less than a developer is able to negotiate from a traditional publisher. As covered above, there is very little in the way of consumers buying and downloading my app. It’s a scenario they’re very used to.

How is this not a good idea? Unless, perhaps… are you one of those software pirates? Rest assured. The iPad will be hacked. It will support multi-tasking, you will be able to illegally download all the programs you want. Someone will release a browser with flash. And you can quit crying. In fact, now you won’t even need to pay for a phone tied to a long-term contract!

conclusion

Everyone I hear complaining about the iPad is really just someone who is so deeply invested in their current computing platform, they can’t bear the thought of letting go of the things they hold dear. I appreciate the sentiment, but really, we need to move forward.

Now I’m not hoping that Apple becomes a monolithic company. I don’t want using my computer to feel like participating in socialism. But you know that won’t happen. Other people will step up and take a piece of the pie. There are Android based tablets that will be out even before the iPad. Maybe Google Chrome will shift focus a little to take this new kind of computing into account. Maybe the Microsoft surface technology will be worked into a new handheld device.

In any case, computing is changing. In my opinion, for the better. I’m on board.

post script

Let’s not forget that there is a free and open way to release apps on both the iPad and iPhone. They’re called web apps. Ask Google about them. They just released a Google Voice web app to circumvent their native app’s rejection from the App Store. Further, look at Chrome OS. Google is building an entire operating system around web apps. Clearly one of the most influential tech companies in the world thinks they’re going to become a big part of how we use computers.

The iPad is not a big iPhone. Truth be told, the iPhone is actually a tiny iPad, with a cellular phone tacked on. That might be hard to come to terms with being that the iPhone was released first, but there have been many reports that development of a tablet computer has been going on at Apple for the better part of the last decade. So, even though it’s fun to say, stop calling it a big iPhone.

Sean Sperte recently posted a blog addressing the iPad in which he said:

What I’m getting at is that I don’t think the iPad is just another portable device that fills a gap. Even contrary to the way it was introduced, I don’t think the iPad fits the in-between-smartphone-and-PC moniker. I think it’s much more. I think it is the new PC — in its infancy.

Sean is absolutely right. The iPad is Apple’s way of telling us that the interface they brought us with the iPhone is really what they envision powering the next generation of computers. In the introduction video they posted yesterday, Jonathan Ive, Apple’s Senior Vice President of Design declared:

In many ways this defines our vision, our sense, of what’s next.

In a way, they see their touch operating system being to the current generation of computers what the keyboard, mouse, and window system were to the text based systems that preceded them.

And yet outcries abound. Wired just posted an article called Ten Things Missing From the iPad. They point out all the usual suspects that tech geeks aplenty have been complaining about since the iPad was unveiled: no flash, multitasking, keyboard, etc. The issue is that everyone expects these things to be in the iPad, because they’re in the computers we have now.

Well, the iPad isn’t the computer you have now. Frankly many of us have forgotten how many issues there are with our computers. We have been so anesthetized to the problems of todays personal computers because of their ubiquity, that we haven’t cared enough to look for a successor.

Back in the day, I remember when multitasking didn’t exist yet. Your computer ran one thing at a time. We presume that because multitasking was such an innovation to computing, then unquestionably it’s better. It almost becomes an unspoken pillar of computer interface design. Well guess what. My iPhone doesn’t have multitasking. Sure, it’s not as feature rich as my computer, but using my iPhone is a hands-down better experience than using my laptop (and that’s a tall order considering I have a Mac). What my iPhone does, it does quickly, beautifully, and in an utterly uncomplicated manner.

Apple wants that same great experience for more general purpose computing. The things they left out that all us techies keep complaining about have been left out purposefully. Some have been left out for aesthetics, some for user experience, and some unquestionably to reach their ambitious price goal. In any case, the iPad aims to offer the best computing experience that you’ve ever had.

Another piece of evidence that proves this is how Apple feels about the iPad was their introduction of iWork. The simple fact that the iPad has a larger screen means that it can do real work, and Apple wanted to show that off. My incorrect prediction was that the iPad would ship with iLife: iPhoto, GarageBand, etc. And while I’m sure iLife applications are on the way, in hindsight, iWork helps Apple present their vision more clearly. They want people to rethink the way they make real applications. What would Photoshop look like on the iPad (heaven forbid). What about Pro Tools audio suite? Final Cut Pro? How about some video games? Madden? Command and Conquer?

The magic in the iPad will be the software. Apple has set a precedent. By releasing iWork they’re saying: ‘Look, you really can make seriously great software on this thing. What can you guys come up with?’ My excitement for the iPad is not because I think it’s the end all for touch computing. The reality is that it’s just the beginning. Again, as Sean so aptly stated, “the new PC - in its infancy.”

But when Peter came to Antioch, I had to oppose him to his face, for what he did was very wrong. When he first arrived, he ate with the Gentile Christians, who were not circumcised. But afterward, when some friends of James came, Peter wouldn’t eat with the Gentiles anymore. He was afraid of criticism from these people who insisted on the necessity of circumcision. As a result, other Jewish Christians followed Peter’s hypocrisy, and even Barnabas was led astray by their hypocrisy. When I saw that they were not following the truth of the gospel message, I said to Peter in front of all the others, “Since you, a Jew by birth, have discarded the Jewish laws and are living like a Gentile, why are you now trying to make these Gentiles follow the Jewish traditions? [Galatians 2:11-14]

Really, Paul? Peter hadn’t fallen into sexual immorality. He hadn’t murdered anyone. He wasn’t blaspheming. He was just eating with different people. Is that so bad? Apparently it is. Peter was upholding the traditions of men, which as Jesus told the pharisees in Mark 7:13, make the word of God of no effect.

The legalistic mindset is not overt. It is wreathed in subtlety. It is perhaps the scariest tendency of our human nature. We must guard and protect the gospel, not only from false teachers, but even from our own unconscious influence.