Nokie HumanForm

[Peter Korsten]

Op 13-7-2012 22:01, Joost Schuttelaar schreef:

> I think this :)
>
> http://daringfireball.net/2011/11/companies_that_publish_concept_videos

Hmm. Watched the Apple 1987 video ('Knowledge Navigator') and 
Microsoft's ('Future Visions').

What the author of this blog entry fails to realise is that the Apple 
video is completely pie-in-the-sky. It's not possible now,  it certainly 
wasn't possible 25 years ago, and it may be another 25 years before the 
marriage of psychology and computing has progressed to such a state that 
you can have intelligent conversations with your computer.

In contrast, the Microsoft video is pretty much possible today, but not 
at marketable prices. The business card is perhaps the most far-fetched, 
but all the other stuff is nothing that isn't already being done in 
laboratories, or shown at TED presentations. Or with a Kinect, for that 
matter.

To me, the Microsoft video is much more about presenting their vision 
for the future of user interfaces (primary colours, rectangles, 
gestures) and pervasive networking, than the means how they see this 
unfold (basically, everything becoming a glass user interface).

A couple of months ago, I watched a video that took the glass concept 
even further, where every glass surface became either a user interface, 
or at the very least, a replacement curtain or screen. We're not there 
yet, but it's entirely possible in the foreseeable future.

However, the ironic part is because of Apple, innovation is currently 
stifled. Try a new idea, and you can bet that Apple has patented it. To 
unlock my phone, I have to press a button and swipe the screen. Guess 
what: Apple sued them over that. Why? What's so special about swiping a 
screen? Should the competition artificially cripple itself because Apple 
has patented so many ideas?

Their business model has never been so much about innovation as it has 
been about delivering an integrated product and focus on the user, but 
now there's a definite shift towards a litigation-based business model. 
And because of their sales, that are more about image and touch-point 
marketing than their products supposedly being so brilliant, they have 
the legal muscle to protect their market share, and stifle innovation, 
world-wide.

Apple really is the new Microsoft. Microsoft's problem is that they are 
(finally!) delivering quite good products, and no longer the industry's 
bully, which leaves them desperately looking for a new identity. They're 
still unrivalled in the office space, and I don't see this changing any 
time soon, but when it comes to the shift towards mobile computing, 
they've been trying -and failing- for the last decade.

And yet, they come up with brilliant stuff. Take, for example, the 
Kinect. They didn't invent the device itself, but what they did was turn 
it into a product, by giving it the software it needed. Like Apple did 
in the early eighties, really.

Anyway... I'm going to have a bit of a thought about how I can come up 
with a killer app for my phone, and not infringe on one of Apple's 
patents. :)

- Peter