First of all, best of luck to Josh in his new role at Palm. I have always had a great deal of respect for Palm and their products - despite all the ups and downs the company has withstood. Palm (and every software company) needs great UI engineers and designers. My "best wish" is that you make a real difference to Palm and continue to find fulfillment in your career.
As for the iPad discussion, I am glad to see that Josh and many other 'luminaries' in the developer community "gets it." Apple (bless you Jeff Raskin, peering over all our shoulders) has finally taken a major step towards the information appliance, and I for one am glad to see that day arrive. The iPad, and whatever clones delivered by Google, MS, et al are not general computing devices (GCDs). They are not for engineers, they are not for code development, they are not designed for general purpose add-ons, they are not particularly configurable. They represent the plain old toaster or a 60/70's style phone or... - you just use it to perform certain functions and that's it. It surfs the Web, it runs applications you find useful, it entertains you. Those of us from the tech world can still hook it up to our GCDs and do some of the same old things. But the target audience is for folks who don't want, need, and possibly even abhor the idea of using a computer. *Almost* every complaint I have heard about the iPad is related to the fact that it is not a GCD. Get over it folks, our lap/desktops are moving into the background much they were when I started in this industry: specialized tools for engineers, not something any sane person would ever use or touch. And it has been too long in coming. I grimace every time I see a non-engineer struggling with Windows or Mac or whatever. It is the engineering community's mentality has had much to do with the frustration most of the world experiences in using microprocessor-based devices. Specifically, in thinking that they should all look and act like the model established by mainframes 50 years ago. The rest of the complaints are about "vendor lock-in." Granted, the various stores that the hardware manufacturers are building do not allow for transferring music/books/videos, et al to devices from other vendors. On the other hand, we are in the early stages of this new market, and the ease-of-use offered by such integrated stores are not currently of much concern to the people buying these devices. As for those concerned with some of the more technical aspects of these limited devices, it is much akin to saying someone who owns a toaster with a dial is "locked-out" of buying a toaster with a slider control. I don't know if the iPad or any of the clones to follow will be successful products, but eventually 90% of the world will be using devices much like it. And we will have the luxury of using something like the current general computing devices: highly configurable and maddeningly complex 'computers' to build the software/hardware for that other 90%. Again, best wishes to Josh at Palm, and to everyone who shares a passion for using these marvelous chips to build things that hide complexity and improve lives. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "The Java Posse" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected]. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/javaposse?hl=en.
