We’re the Stupid Ones: Facebook, Google, and Our Failure as Developers

This coincides with what my initial thoughts were when I saw the iPad keynote.

These people have better things to do with their days than tweaking out the spacing in their browser toolbars. A computer for them is a utility. One that is increasingly complex, and one that is used because it’s the only option for accomplishing certain things – not because it’s a good option.

It’s kind of like the Photoshop Problem: when people want to crop a picture, we give them Photoshop. Photoshop is a behemoth application with nearly every image editing and touchup function imaginable, and it is terribly complex. Now Photoshop is an impressive tool, but only a very tiny percentage people need the power it offers. The vast majority just want to crop their ex-husband from the photo and let their friends look at it. But even iPhoto, the poster child for Apps So Easy Your Grandparents Can Use Them, continues to pile on features and complexity.

When folks need an elevator, we should give them an elevator, not an airplane. We’ve been giving them airplanes for 30 years, and then laughing at them for being too stupid to fly them right.

I think we’re the stupid ones.

[From funkatron.com : We’re the Stupid Ones: Facebook, Google, and Our Failure as Developers ]

微软亚洲研究院 电脑对联

要过年了，每年看到的对联都一样也蛮无聊的。微软亚洲研究院出了一支程式，可以用电脑帮你对对联。

[From 微软亚洲研究院 电脑对联 ]

以前有个「上海自来水来自海上」，没想到这个引擎对出了不少有趣的下联：

中国出人才人出国中

前门出租车租出门前

中山长生树生长山中

黄山落叶松叶落山黄

南岭临飞石飞临岭南

前门停车场车停门前

中山停云堂云停山中

山东落叶松叶落东山

中国长生果生长国中

西湖映月潭月映湖西

西湖灵隐寺隐灵湖西

山西飞机场机飞西山

下关交通道通交关下

黄山落叶树叶落山黄

山西过路人路过西山

北京跑马场马跑京北

Mule Design Studio's Blog: The Failure of Empathy

This is really scary upon first read.

I went back for a second helping of Avatar this Sunday. There’s a scene early on in the movie where one of the scientists walks across the lab carrying the “mobile computer slab of the future.” We’ve seen one of these in almost every sci-fi movie of the last 50 years. It comes free with a jetpack, I suppose. Except this time, one month later, my 12 year old son turns to me and whispers “Look Dad, it’s an iPad.”

[From Mule Design Studio's Blog: The Failure of Empathy]

The diagram in the passage really said it all. More computer users will appreciate what is becoming of the future of computing. Yes, you should just *IGNORE* the geeks, because after all, logic and reasoning are acquired skills, they don't belong to human nature and will remain a minority in population.

From the Archives: A Revealing Interview With Steve Jobs : Rolling Stone

That's from Steve Jobs in 1994, and look what he has done today. The hardware is a bonus, the key is really the software.

The problem is, in hardware you can't build a computer that's twice as good as anyone else's anymore. Too many people know how to do it. You're lucky if you can do one that's one and a third times better or one and a half times better. And then it's only six months before everybody else catches up. But you can do it in software. As a matter of fact, I think that the leap that we've made is at least five years ahead of anybody.

[From From the Archives: A Revealing Interview With Steve Jobs : Rolling Stone]

But in the end, OO hasn't taken over the world yet (ok, it is a tad easier to write with NS* than CF*, but that's not what he had described back then).